Del Toro
Guillermo Del Toro is probably best known for his films as a director, but he is also a novelist, an artist, producer, screenwriter, and a designer, who has been implementing his aesthetically beautiful and macabre style into many different projects, and is one of the best known Latino directors.
Born in 1964 in Guadalajara, in Mexico, Del Toro started working in film when he was only a child, and studied make up and visual effects with Dick Smith, a passion which would stay with Del Toro till today.
Del Toro would spend hours drawing, doodling and designing, with a passion for fantasy, horror and the macabre, something which came through prominently in his films. Speaking to Leonard Lopate on WNYC a New York Radio station he has said "I have a sort of a fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things.", and that he always been; "in love with monsters. My fascination with them is almost anthropological... I study them, I dissect them in many of my movies: I want to know how they work, what the inside of them looks like, [and] what their sociology is.”
This love of fantasy and horror was shown in full force in his first picture, Cronos, which he wrote and directed. It would bear many of the hallmarks that Del Toro would put in most of his films, like the clockworks, the creatures, the mythological and the morbid and also the appearance of Ron Perlman who he has frequently collaborated with.
Del Toro went on to make an array of different films; he worked within Hollywood for a period and directed the successful Blade II, and the Hellboy franchise. His popularity has meant he has been first choice for a number of high profile films, like the Harry Potter films, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, Blade Trinity, Resident Evil, all of which he turned down to make, what some would call his masterpiece, Pans Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno).
Pans Labyrinth was released in 2006 and garnered massive critical and commercial acclaim, with outstanding reviews, and impressive box office for a foreign film. It combined elements of fantasy, horror, and a war film into a fable about a young girl’s quest during the Spanish civil war.
The movie was at the top of many critics list of best of 2006 and the picture went on to win 3 Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Make Up. Pans Labyrinth cemented Del Toro’s status as a director with a defined vision, and was highly sought after.
In the years after Pans Labyrinth, Del Toro directed a few films, and produced many more, he helped shepherd a number of directors and movies to the big screen, including The Orphanage and most recently Julia’s Eyes.
He has acted produced on a number of big films, like Kung Fu Panda 2 and Splice. He was also booked to direct the Hobbit movie after having co-wrote the screenplays with Peter Jackson, but this was dropped due to the ongoing financial troubles at MGM.
Del Toro, a man famous for his ideas has his fingers in many pies at the moment, with a number of films he has produced waiting to be released, and he is acting as a lead designer for a new video game by THQ and has a number of high profile pictures in various states of development. His plans for an adaptation for H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, a novella once called ‘unfilmable’, something the studios agreed with, shooting down the Del Toro, even after support from James Cameron.
Del Toro’s next stint as director is reportedly going to be Pacific Rim, a story which combines Godzilla like monsters, giant robots controlled psychically by two people, and multiple universes, an interesting combination, and an exciting one considering Guillermo’s track record.
By Joseph Weeks
Tagged in Guillermo Del Toro