Guillermo del Toro (b. 1964) is one of the most inventive filmmakers of his generation. Beginning with Cronos (1993) and continuing through The Devil’s Backbone (2001), Hellboy (2004), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Pacific Rim (2013), and Crimson Peak (2015), among many other film, television, and book projects, del Toro has reinvented the genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Working with a team of craftsmen, artists, and actors—and referencing a wide range of cinematic, pop-culture, and art-historical sources—del Toro re-creates the lucid dreams he experienced as a child in Guadalajara, Mexico. He now works internationally, with a cherished home base he calls “Bleak House” in the suburbs of Los Angeles.
Taking inspiration from del Toro’s extraordinary imagination, the exhibition revealed his creative process through his collection of paintings, drawings, maquettes, artifacts, and concept film art. Rather than a traditional chronology or filmography, the exhibition was organized thematically, beginning with visions of death and the afterlife; continuing through explorations of magic, occultism, horror, and monsters; and concluding with representations of innocence and redemption.
MOVIES, COMICS, POP CULTURE
Del Toro’s obsession with cinema extends from B movies and horror films to directors Alfred Hitchcock and Luis Buñuel. As a boy, he watched Universal monster movies on Mexican television and devoured fan magazines, teaching himself English in order to decipher the puns and slang in American periodicals such as Famous Monsters of Filmland. Inspired by the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, del Toro constructed an elaborate tableau of toy figurines and then commandeered his father’s Super 8 camera to film his own version. “When I projected that first Super 8 reel,” he recalls, “something happened that was absolutely life changing.”
During his teenage years, as the projectionist for his local cinema club, del Toro saw several movies each week and discussed them avidly with other cinephiles. Buñuel’s 1950 film Los Olvidados convinced him that cinema could be art, and his admiration of Hitchcock led him to write a book on the British director.
Del Toro’s appetite for film is matched by his enthusiasm for comic books and his admiration for a wide range of illustrators. He has directed several comic-book adaptations, including two films based on Mike Mignola’s series Hellboy (1993-ongoing). “I am influenced by literature as much as I am by comics, and by fine art as much as I am by so-called lowbrow. But I am not trapped by either extreme,” del Toro has said. “I transit between those parameters in absolute freedom, doing my own thing. I try to present myself as I am, without apologies and with absolute passion and sincerity.”
VICTORIANA
The Victorian period (1837-1901)- together with the earlier Romantic era and later Edwardian age- provides del Toro with copious visual and narrative inspiration. He is also attentive to modern interpretations of Victoriana, from Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, which opened in 1969, to steampunk, a science-fiction subgenre that invokes nineteenth-century aesthetics.
The name of Del Toro’s residence, Bleak House, was inspired by quintessential Victorian writer Charles Dickens. In his 1853 novel Bleak House, Dickens describes the central dwelling as “one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and down steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passages.” Dickens’s blend of realism and fantasy, fascination with the city, sense of humor, and predilection for taxonomy, multifarious character types, and intricate plot twists all resonate in del Toro’s films.
The Victorians embrace science, seeking to exert dominion over nature through meticulous categorizations. Del Toro’s extensive collection of insect paraphernalia-including specimens, images, and trinkets- reveals his fascination with such creatures, although the insects in his films end to exceed human control in spectacular ways. At times, del Toro’s characters also eschew reason, reflecting the VIctorian’s lingering preoccupation with irrationality and the sublime. This uneasy mindset, equal parts intellect and emotion, provides the essential structure for Crimson Peak, del Toro’s Gothic romance.
MAGIC, ALCHEMY, AND THE OCCULT
Del Toro has accumulated a vast library on the topics of magic, witchcraft, and the occult, beginning with a series he pored over as a child, Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encylopedia of the Supernatural, a twenty-four volume set published in 1970. In this literature, he sees evidence of humankind’s spiritual and intellectual arbitrations, as well as the stages involved in fulfilling those desires.
Del Toro’s films are full of puzzles, talismanic devices, secret keys, and quests for forbidden knowledge, Many of his characters are scientists, contemporary successors to the monks and alchemists who explored the boundaries between the holy and unholy. Del Toro cites the influence of H.P. Lovecraft, the idiosyncratic American writer whose work is considered foundational to the genres of horror and science fiction. Initially appearing in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales. Lovecraft’s vivid evocation of madness, transformation, and monstrosity have inspired and frustrated many filmmakers. For the last decade, Del Toro has been attempting to adapt Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (1936) for the screen. Concurrently, he surrounds himself with multiple portraits of Lovecraft at Bleak House.
FRANKENSTEIN AND HORROR
Del Toro has long been fascinated by Dr. Frankenstein and his mother. He was first introduced to the story as the child, via James Whale’s 1931 Expressionist inspired film. As a teenager, del Toro read Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), written when Shelley herself was in her late teens. The novel emphasizes the fragility and vulnerability of Frankenstein’s monster; as the creature explains to his creator in a climactic confrontation: “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.” The story became a touchstone for the young del Toro, who identified with the monster’s outsider status.
The potency of the horror genre, according to del Toro, lies in its capacity to generate “images that stay embedded in our minds so strongly.” The monster in Whale’s film is one such indelible image, attributable in large part to Jack Pierce, Universal’s chief makeup artist in the 1930s and 1940s. In designing the monster, Pierce conducted extensive research in anatomy and electrodynamics, while Karloff imbued the character with an essential humanity.
Del Toro finds in Frankenstein an analogy to his own directorial approach. Like the monster, his films are amalgams of used, discarded, and diverse source materials, given new life and purpose. “I really think I was born to exist in the [horror] genre,” he has said. “I adore it. I embrace it. I enshrine it. I don’t look down upon it or frown upon it in a way that a lot of directors do. For me, it’s not a stepping stone; it’s a cathedral.”
CHILDHOOD AND INNOCENCE
Many of Del Toro’s films center on children, whether they are protagonists, witnesses, or victims. These children often perceive alternate realities and give expression to unfiltered emotions in ways that adults cannot. Unsentimental, del Toro does not insulate his young characters from fear, abandonment, harm, or even death. As he points out “in fairy tales ogres and wolves ate children, and I think that it goes to the roots of storytelling to have children as vulnerable.” Del Toro is well-versed in the literature of folklore and fable, and his films occasionally reference classic nineteenth and early twentieth century illustrated editions. Ofelia, the heroine of Pan’s Labrynth (2006) is dressed to resemble Alice in Wonderland as depicted by illustrator Arthur Rackham, and she similarly traverses from reality into a fantasy realm. Del Toro perceives a “perverse undercurrent” in Rackham’s drawings: “His vision was plagued by knotty, twisted things that had a perverse will to live,” he observes. The filmmaker has also collected works by later illustrators and animators, such as Edward Gorey and Kay Nielsen, attracted by their ability to meld darkness with joy. At some level, all of del Toro’s films revisit his childhood, which was marred by repressive Catholicism and bullying classmates but redeemed by books, movies, and horror comics. He began drawing at a young age and to this day keeps a notebook nearby to record ideas, phrases, lists, and images. Resources for his films, these journals are also essential to his evolution as an artist.
DEATH AND THE AFTERLIFE
Growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the 1960s and 1970s, del Toro had a number of disturbing confrontations with death, seeing corpses in the street, in a morgue, and in catacombs beneath a church. His strict Catholic grandmother instilled in him the notion of original sin and even submitted him to exorcism in a futile attempt to eradicate his love of monsters and fantasy. Now an outspoken critic of institutional Catholicism, del Toro declares, “The fantastic is the only tool we have nowadays to explain spiritually to a generation that refuses to believe in dogma or religion.” In the fantasy realms he conjures, del Toro can tell stories that offer different perspectives on death and the afterlife. His films demonstrate that the pursuit of immortality, promised in Catholic doctrine as the reward for following the church’s teachings, can alternatively be seen as a misguided, arrogant desire, destined to bring about the downfall of those caught up in it. Del Toro’s narratives often include characters acting entirely out of self-interest alongside others who are willing to make sacrifices. Hellboy (2004) closes with the lines: “What makes a man? It’s the choices he makes.” And in the 2008 sequel, an impassive angel of death tells Hellboy he can either die or live and bring the apocalypse. An utterly original human-bird-reptile hybrid with eyes in its wings, the angel is a less a conventional grim reaper than an embodiment of conscience, prompting Hellboy to self-awareness. Often in del Toro’s films, flawed or damaged characters find purpose in community, they take responsibility for their own survival and that of the individuals and environments around them. If del Toro’s true subject is loss (of innocence, authority or ego), he finds hope and redemption in art and storytelling.
FREAKS AND MONSTERS
Del Toro is fascinated with monsters of all types. “It’s either tragedy or superiority that makes a good monster,” he notes. The tragic beings are, for him, beautiful and heroic in their vulnerability and individuality; they also mirror the hypocrisies of society. According to del Toro, the standards of perfection advocated by commercial culture are corrosive., demonizing the flaws that exist in us all. While identifying with the tragic type of monster, del Toro is also adept at creating truly terrifying ones. He begins by thinking of a monster as a character, not simply an assemblage of parts. It must be visually convincing from all angles, both in motion and at rest. In his notebooks, del Toro consistently records ideas for distinguishing physical features that may come to fruition only years later. He finds inspiration for his monsters in natural history, literature, myth, and art, as well as in his own dreams, nightmares, and fears. In addition to drawing initial concepts, del Toro is loosely involved in fabrication and has often expressed his preference for practical effects as opposed to computer-generated imagery. Many of del Toro’s creatures exhibit insect-like qualities and behaviors. Insect anatomies are optimally, even elegantly, designed for survival, but they rigger revulsion in many people. Enlarged and activated in del Toro’s narratives, these creatures become monsters whose destructive force is a byproduct of their lack of free will.
DEL TORO’S RAIN ROOM
Del Toro wanted the place in Bleak House where he works most frequently to feel like a world apart. Drawing on his early experience as a special-effects designer, he created a permanent thunderstorm in sunny Southern California: his “rain room” features rear-projected lightning effects, a false window spattered with silicone raindrops, and a nonstop thunder soundtrack. “As a kid,” the filmmaker recalls, “I dreamed of having a house with secret passages and a room where it rained twenty-four hours a day. The point of being over forty is to fulfill the desires you’ve been harboring since you were seven. “In addition to emulating del Toro’s workspace, this area of the exhibition highlights his intellectual kinship with authors and artists such as Edgar Allan Poe and Julio Ruelas.
Space and architecture are crucial components in del Toro’s cinematic storytelling. He often establishes meaningful contrasts between realms, from underground tunnels, tree roots, vats, and ocean depths to attics, rooftops, and outer space. Bleak House reflects this attention to atmosphere: del Toro hangs every painting, places every item of furniture and prop, and reviews all colors and patterns. Like his films, the house is a study in precision, as evidenced by recurring clockwork mechanisms and labyrinth motifs.
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