Welcome back to The Deep Dive, the only place
where we take a monumental stack of sources,
distill the pure knowledge, and deliver the concentrated
insight straight to you. That's the goal. Today,
we are immersing ourselves in the dark, intricate,
and strangely comforting universe of a true cinematic
visionary, a man who finds holiness, really,
in the grotesque, Guillermo del Toro. Yeah, this
is an essential deep dive, I think, for anyone
looking for that shortcut to being genuinely
well -informed about modern cinema. GDT, you
know, born in Guadalajara, Mexico, back in 64.
He's so much more than just a director. Oh, absolutely.
He's an author, a prolific producer, an artist.
His vision is just so cohesive. You see a frame,
you often know it's him. You really do. So our
mission today really is to synthesize the huge...
breadth of his career. You've got these intensely
personal Spanish language films like Pan's Labyrinth.
Masterpieces. And then these massive English
language franchises, you know, Pacific Rim. And
the key is understanding that single unifying
DNA strand, that thing that connects every single
one of his creations. OK, let's jump right into
his core aesthetic then, because like you said,
it's the cornerstone. of his identity. He really
is. His films, they're defined by this potent,
unique blend. You've got gothic sensibility,
classic horror tropes, European fairy tales.
Right. But the real magic, I think, is his ability
to infuse this visual, poetic, almost heartbreaking
beauty into things most people would just find
repulsive. Or terrifying. It's like visual alchemy,
isn't it? Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
And it's rooted in how he sees the creatures
themselves. What stands out to me is that he
doesn't see monsters as symbols of chaos or evil.
You know, that's the standard Hollywood thing.
Right, the default setting. He views them and
he says this explicitly as symbols of great power.
That's the key, I think, to understanding his
whole dark fantasy thing. He empowers the outsider,
the other. And that focus on empowerment on the
outsider and just his commitment to this aesthetic
gives us those signature visual hallmarks we
see again and again. Exactly. We're talking about
like insectile forms, biological shapes, the
strong, often really complicated use of religious
imagery. which comes straight from his upbringing.
We'll definitely circle back to that. Underworld
motifs, and of course this steadfast devotion
to celebrating imperfection. He loves the flawed.
And you see two technical choices that are just
absolutely foundational, I think. First, his
refusal to completely abandon practical special
effects. He wants to feel the weight of the monster,
you know? Yeah, tangible. And second, the light.
That dominant, warm, almost pervasive amber lighting.
It washes over even the most horrifying scenes.
Why Amber though? What's the thinking there?
Well, it feels like memory, doesn't it? It kind
of invokes the look of maybe 19th century photography
or those classic universal horror films. It transforms
terror into something beautiful, maybe even melancholic,
nostalgic almost. It's like saying, this might
be dark, this might be scary, but it's also familiar,
almost romantic. Yeah, precisely. So what we're
doing for you, the listener today, is basically
tracing the single narrative he talks about,
that continuous film he says he's been making
his whole life. Right. From his childhood experiments
through some really profound personal trauma
and this sense of involuntary exile all the way
up to his recent Oscar wins. We want to understand
the source code, the essence of this unique creativity.
OK, let's jump back then. The genesis of this.
self -proclaimed monster lover, Guillermo del
Toro, raised in a very strict Catholic household,
a detail we absolutely need to unpack later,
and he studied at the University of Guadalajara's
Film Study Center. But the real sort of hands
-on learning, it started way before university,
almost a decade earlier. He's pretty young, wasn't
he? Yeah, a child prodigy of sorts, you could
say, with filmmaking. Around age eight, he's
already messing around with his dad's Super 8
camera. Wow. And the sources mention he frequently
used his Planet of the Apes toys in these early
shorts. I mean, that tells you something right
there. His fascination with creatures as societal
outsiders started super early. OK, and this brings
us to the infamous short film, the one that kind
of tells you... everything about the twisted,
playful logic of his mind. Oh, yeah. The serial
killer potato. The serial killer potato, yes.
The source material describes this in glorious,
disturbing detail. It was literally a potato
that somehow gained sentience. As potatoes do.
As potatoes do. And it had ambitions of world
domination. So this homicidal tuber proceeds
to murder GDT's own mother and brothers in the
film, of course, only to be like... anti -climactically
crushed by a car after leaving the house. Okay,
but what does that anecdote actually tell us?
It's absurd, obviously. Totally absurd. But it
contains all those ingredients of his later work,
doesn't it? The blurring of the domestic with
the horrific, the sort of casual acceptance of
the grotesque. Yeah. And that collision of the
mundane, a potato, a car with like existential
horror. world domination, matricide. It immediately
sets up this framework where the world isn't
logical, it's fundamentally anarchic. And even
while he was still finding his feet, he directed
five episodes of this cult Mexican series, La
Jora Mercado. Right, I remember that. And he
was working alongside contemporaries who were
also just starting out, filmmakers like Alfonso
Cuaron. Those connections, they become super
important later on. Now something that often
gets forgotten is that his first intended feature
film, It wasn't live -action at all, was it?
No, not at all. He initially poured, like, three
intensive years of his life into this massive
stop -motion sci -fi project. It was called Omnivore.
Omnivore. Yeah, it was a huge, really ambitious
undertaking. a lizard man, a world dominated
by endless consumption. He was meticulous apparently,
built these intricate sets, crafted around a
hundred different puppets by hand. A hundred
puppets. Wow. But this is where that theme of
creative loss, that trauma strikes for the first
time in his career. And it was truly devastating,
wasn't it? What actually happened to Omnivore?
It's just heartbreaking. Vandals burglarized
the studio one night and essentially just destroyed
everything. All the sets, all those meticulously
crafted puppets. God, years of work. Three years
of physical, tangible labor just vanished. And
this loss, it was so catastrophic that it immediately
prompted him to switch gears. He moved to the
cheaper, maybe less physically vulnerable medium
of live action. And that led directly to Kronos.
That led directly to his feature debut, Kronos,
in 1993. That pivot was born entirely out of
this terrible catastrophe, a real demonstration
of how fragile creative effort can be. But the
importance of craft, the physical making of things,
wasn't just theoretical for him, was it? Before
directing features, he was deep in the muck of
monster making. Oh, completely. He spent a decade,
10 years, working as a special effects makeup
designer, and he studied with the absolute legend,
Dick Smith. Dick Smith. The exorcist, Amadeus.
The master. So that decade is absolutely crucial.
Now, Tora wasn't just some guy with ideas. He
was a craftsman. He knew how to build the muscle,
the tissue, the scales of a creature. He even
founded his own effects company back then, Necropia.
Necropia, right. And this hands -on expertise,
it fundamentally instilled in him that philosophy
that the monster must be a tangible, tactile
reality. It's an element that feeds directly
into his later aversion to purely digital effects.
Definitely his views on AI. And even as he was
mastering the technical side, he was already
building institutions. He helped co -found the
Guadalajara International Film Festival. Right.
And that production company, Tequila Gang. It's
an interesting early duality, isn't it? The guy
who rails against institutional structure is
also a natural builder of cultural institutions.
That's a great observation. Yeah, the rebel and
the architect all in one. So after the breakthrough
success of Kronos, Del Toro makes the leap. He
heads to Hollywood, the place where so many international
directors either find huge success or kind of
lose their soul. Yeah, it's a gamble. And his
first big English language film was Mimic back
in 1997. And that experience was decidedly, well,
let's just say it towards the losing your soul
end of the spectrum. It was a really difficult,
painful entry into the American studio system.
Mimic was a big deal for Miramax films, which
people forget was under the Disney umbrella at
the time. Yeah, owned by Disney. And the clash
was immediate. and intense. Del Toro felt this
fundamental disconnect with how Miramax, particularly
the studio heads like Harvey Weinstein, treated
the whole artistic process. He wasn't getting
the freedom he needed. Not at all. He felt he
wasn't afforded the freedom or the respect he
felt was necessary. It led to him being deeply,
profoundly unhappy with the production treatment.
He felt, probably correctly, that he was losing
his vision for the film. And this tension, it
wasn't just behind closed doors. Sources note
it spilled over very publicly, dramatically even.
Oh yeah. The fallout from the mimic experience
led to his friend, fellow director James Cameron.
James Cameron. Almost getting into an actual
physical fight with Harvey Weinstein at the 70th
Academy Awards. Wow. At the Oscars. At the Oscars.
That's not just a disagreement, you know. That's
a public, nearly violent confrontation over the
principle of creative control. It's a perfect
illustration of the stakes then. Absolutely.
Del Toro learned very quickly that if he wanted
to keep his artistic voice, he needed to fight
relentlessly for final cut. It's a principle
he has guarded fiercely ever since. But that
same year, 1997, something far, far worse happened.
Something that just... irrevocably altered the
trajectory of his life and his career. It turned
him from an international fair maker into, well,
an involuntary exile. Yeah, that's the absolutely
crucial, deeply traumatic event, the kidnapping
of his father, Federico del Toro Torres, back
in Guadalajara. You really can't overstate the
impact of this on his subsequent life, his art,
everything. The weight of that experience is
just... Immense. His father was held for 72 agonizing
days. 72 days. Unimaginable. And the family eventually
had to pay the original ransom amount twice.
It totaled a million dollars to secure his release.
Imagine that constant state of terror, the financial
devastation, and just the absolute lack of control.
Helplessness. And the sources highlight this
extraordinary role played by James Cameron again
during the crisis. It's incredible. Cameron,
despite their recent professional sort of run
in with Miramax. Right. Over mimic. Immediately
offered to help pay the ransom. Del Toro accepted.
It's just this profound act of friendship that
really highlights the strong bonds artists can
form, especially when they're facing industry
hostility or personal disaster. And that experience
was the final straw, basically. It was the breaking
point. It prompted Del Toro, his parents, his
siblings, the whole family to move abroad for
safety. And that led directly to his profound
sense of involuntary exile from Mexico. And when
you look at his films. the recurring motifs of
vulnerable children navigating these worlds ruled
by corrupt, often faceless authoritarian forces.
You can't help but trace it back. It's impossible
not to connect it to this moment when his own
family was victimized by essentially criminal
institutional failure. It makes sense then why
he relies so heavily on his trusted inner circle,
particularly the other two pillars of modern
Mexican cinema. Ah, the three amigos of Mexican
cinema, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and
Alejandro G. Iñárritu. It's more than just friendship
isn't it? They're like a professional and emotional
life raft for each other. They seem incredibly
close. They maintain this incredibly strong,
deep bond. They influence each other's decisions,
give notes on scripts, cuts. They even co -founded
that production company Cha Cha Cha Films. Right.
Cha Cha Cha. Specifically to support each other's
more independent visions, you know, against the
demands of the studio system. It's a mutual support
network. And the collaboration is tangible. It's
real. We know, for instance, Quorum produced
Pan's Labyrinth. And Inyartu actively helped
with the editing of Pan's Labyrinth, too. It
just shows how they use their collective power,
their trust, to make sure that the individual
voice, the very thing Del Toro fought for and
nearly lost on Mimic, remains intact. Okay, let's
turn now to the heart of his artistic philosophy.
That idea that gives our listener the real key,
I think, into his motivation. Del Toro famously
insists he's only ever made one movie. Yeah,
he actually said, I will have done one movie
and it's all the movies I want, which is a pretty
radical concept, right? Because he explicitly
rejects that critical distinction people often
make between his big English language stuff.
Like Hellboy or Pacific Rim. Exactly. And his
smaller, you know, critically adored Spanish
language masterpieces, he insists they are equally
personal, all part of the same story. But how
can that really be true? I mean, how can a film
about a giant red demon fighting Nazi remnants
be thematically the same as a bleak historical
fable set during the Spanish Civil War? We need
to draw those lines for the listener. OK, let's
look at the core dramatic conflict in each. Take
Pan's Labyrinth. The protagonist is Ophelia,
right, an outsider. She's navigating the brutal
institutional evil of Captain Vidal. The ultimate
fascist. Absolutely. And she finds her solace,
her agency, in this magical but also deeply flawed,
imperfect underworld. OK. Now look at Hellboy.
Hellboy is the ultimate outsider. A giant red
demon fighting the institutional evil of the
Nazis. And he's aided by other imperfect, monstrous
creatures like Aide Sapien and Liz Sherman. Right.
The BPRD team. The pattern is identical. The
heroes are flawed. They're monstrous. They're
marginalized. And the villains, they're always
the ones demanding order, purity, conformity.
Think about the amphibian man in the shape of
water, too. Another outsider. targeted by the
oppressive military -industrial complex personified
by Colonel Strickland. So it doesn't matter if
the stakes are global Kaiju battles or a little
girl's fantasy escape. The core theme is the
same. the flawed individual versus the suffocating
institution. Exactly. And to get a deeper handle
on this, we really have to focus on those Spanish
Civil War films. The Devil's Backbone from 2001
and Pan's Labyrinth from 2006. The companion
pieces. They're absolutely a pair. Both set against
the backdrop of that conflict, which led to the
oppressive authoritarian rule of Francisco Franco
in Spain. Pan's Labyrinth in particular just...
transcended genre, transcended national boundaries.
It became this global phenomenon. Huge critical
success, Oscars. Six Oscar nominations, three
wins, plus the Golden Globe for foreign language
film, massive. And the celebration of these films,
it lets us dive deeper into his view of the horror
genre itself, which he sees as inherently political.
Yeah, this is crucial. He creates this kind of
moral framework for storytelling, distinguishing
between two types of fairy tales. Okay, what
are they? Well, this distinction really illuminates
his whole - anti -establishment ethos. He defines
the first type of fairy tale, the one he calls
reprehensible, as pro -institution. Pro -establishment.
These are the stories that preach obedience.
You know, don't wander into the woods, stay pure,
obey authority, that kind of thing. And the alternative.
the kind he actually champions. He champions
the second type, the completely anarchic and
anti -establishment fairy tale. These are the
stories that encourage questioning, wandering,
rebellion against the established order. They
tell you that you must go into the woods to find
your true self, even if it's dangerous, especially
if it's dangerous. And this connects right back
to his personal politics, doesn't it? He's pretty
open about it. Oh, completely. Del Toro describes
himself, without any hesitation, as a little
too liberal, and he openly expresses his hatred
of structure, of institutionalized things, whether
that's social hierarchies, religious dogma, economic
constraints. He hates imposed order. So that
hatred of structure, that's the real common thread
linking all his villains. That's it. They are
unified not by their specific brand of evil,
but by their shared attribute of authoritarianism.
The industrialist in Kronos, obsessed with profit
and eternal life. The Nazis and Hellboy demanding
racial purity. The francsosts in Pan's Labyrinth
demanding absolute political and military obedience.
Even the fascists in his Pinocchio demanding
nationalist fervor. Exactly. His horror is always
aimed upwards at the top of the pyramid at the
power structure. And he uses the creature, the
monster, as a kind of mirror to show us the beautiful,
flawed humanity that the structure is trying
to crush. And this thematic consistency, regardless
of the genre, regardless of the budget. It ultimately
culminated in the absolute height of his mainstream
acclaim, didn't it? With the Shape of Water in
2017. That film was just a monumental moment.
It won him the Golden Lion at the Venice Film
Festival. First Mexican director ever to win
that. And then of course it went on to basically
sweep the Academy Awards. Best picture, best
director. Four wins out of 13 nominations. It
was definitive proof. that his deeply personal
kind of anarchic vision of love and monsters
could win over the biggest mainstream audience
imaginable. Okay, let's transition to a subject
that's so deeply ingrained in his visual language,
his symbolism. yet it's something he personally
rejects. His religious views and how they feed
into his creation of monsters. It's the ultimate
GDT contradiction, isn't it? He was raised in
this strict Catholic household, completely immersed
in the iconography, the dogma, but he is now,
as he puts it, mercifully lapsed. Right. He loves
that Bunuel quote. I'm an atheist, thank God.
It sums it up perfectly. The influence is absolutely
undeniable. You can see it everywhere, but the
personal belief, gone. And the path to atheism
for him, it wasn't just some intellectual exercise,
was it? It was a deeply visceral, almost practical
reaction to the harsh realities of the world.
Yeah, profoundly jarring. He says he became a
raging atheist after this incredibly haunting
real world experience. When he was volunteering
at a Mexican hospital, he apparently saw a pile
of discarded human fetuses. Oh, wow. And he just
found it absolutely impossible to reconcile the
idea of an all loving, all seeing God with that
level of suffering, that tangible. horrifying
reality of human loss and decay. Yet despite
that intellectual and emotional rejection, Catholicism
is constantly present in his work. The visuals,
the symbols, why does he keep drawing so heavily
on it? The altars, the relics, the confessionals.
Because I think he needed to reclaim the aesthetic
power of that belief system. His critique is
aimed squarely at the institution, not necessarily
the spiritual impulse itself. He's repeatedly
stated how the Catholic Church's complicity with
Franco's Spain just horrified him. He's even
apparently included actual quotes used by priests
in concentration camps in some of his scripts,
highlighting that terrible collaboration between
religious and political oppression. So he essentially
secularized his faith. He took the power, the
feeling, the wonder, and transferred it into
his art. Precisely. He believes that art and
storytelling now serve those primal spiritual
functions in his own life. And this brings us
right to the absolute core nugget of his entire
worldview, the famous insight that really defines
every single protagonist he's ever created. That
line, monsters are the patron saints of imperfection.
That phrase is practically a theological manifesto
for him. He explains that he found it utterly
impossible to reconcile the Catholic dogma of
needing to exist in a perfect state of grace
with his own much darker, messier view of humanity
and of himself. So the monster offers another
path. An alternative path to salvation, exactly.
The monster, the deformed, the creature. They
demonstrate that being flawed, being other, isn't
a punishment. It's actually a powerful, even
noble state of existence. It provides, in his
work, words, a deep cleansing allowing for imperfection.
That's really profound. It means the monster
isn't the thing to be beaten, it's the actual
object of redemption. Exactly, and you see this
Catholic symbolism consciously co -opted even
in his most acclaimed film, The Shape of Water.
He's noted that the film deliberately deploys
a very Catholic notion where A humble force,
the force of humility embodied by Elisa, the
mute cleaner, is the only one capable of recognizing
the godlike nature of the creature. And she's
granted grace because of it. And subsequently
granted grace, yes. And the amphibian man himself
residing in water, it's an echo of the fish,
right? A hugely powerful early Christian symbol.
So he takes the visual language of his upbringing,
maybe even his trauma. and repurposes it to speak
against the very systems that might have caused
that trauma. Perfectly put, and this duality,
this complexity, it even extends to how he views
his own mortality. How so? Well, he maintains
his atheism quite firmly. I don't think there
is life beyond death, I don't, but he holds onto
this kind of spiritual hope for the very final
moment. Oh. He believes that in the very last
minute of our lives, we achieve this absolute
clarity, a sudden complete realization of who
we truly are and what we've done, and that ultimate
unavoidable moment of human truth, he says, will
either grant you profound peace or the most tremendous
overwhelming fear. Wow. And that quest for finding
peace in our flawed selves, that informs every
imperfect soul he puts on screen. OK, let's shift
gears a bit now to his more recent accomplishments.
We need to look at his late career successes,
particularly this pivot toward animation, which
now seems like it's going to dominate his future
work. Yeah, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, which
came out in 2022. It was a massive triumph, obviously,
but it was a real passion project, something
that had been languishing in development hell
for over a decade. And his version completely
transformed the classic tale, didn't it? Setting
it during the rise of Mussolini. Exactly. Setting
it in fascist Italy during the rise of Benito
Mussolini. And again, that choice of setting
is absolutely not arbitrary. It ties directly
back to his core thematic hatred of authoritarianism.
Making the wooden boy a symbol of resisting state
control. Resisting state indoctrination, yeah.
And the success was undeniable. It nailed the
best animated feature award at the Oscars that
year. Huge win for stop motion. Huge. And that
triumph seems to have set the stage for what
he views as a kind of thematic and aesthetic
closure. His next big project, the one everyone's
waiting for, is the live -action Frankenstein
film for Netflix. Probably 2025. Frankenstein.
That feels like the ultimate GDT project. It
really does. And he stated that this film closes
the cycle. A specific aesthetic, a rhythm, a
type of empathy that he feels he's been pursuing
relentlessly since Kronos, way back in 93. After
Frankenstein, he says, he feels he needs to do
something very different. And that something
very different involves a pretty fundamental
shift in his career focus, right? He's planning
to step away from live action. Largely, yeah.
He recently announced plans to leave live action
filmmaking after maybe one or two more projects
and focus almost exclusively on animation moving
forward. What's driving at? Is it just frustration
with the studio system? Well, the motivation
seems complex. Part of it definitely sounds like
frustration with the industrial machine. He openly
admitted that five of his live action projects
got turned down by studios in just two months
recently. Five projects. Wow. Yeah. But, you
know, I might challenge the idea that it's purely
rejection driving him. Del Toro is so fundamentally
a craftsman. Maybe animation, particularly the
incredibly painstaking work of stop motion, is
the only medium left where he feels he retains
that full hands on meticulous craft that he craves.
That commitment to the physical, the real, clearly
bleeds into his very strong, highly skeptical
views on artificial intelligence and filmmaking.
He talked about this very recently, September
2024. Oh, he's incredibly protective of the art
form against automation. His critique of AI output
is just scathing. He dismisses it as basically
semi -compelling screensavers. Yeah. He argues
that AI fundamentally lacks the necessary ingredients
of true human art. The risk, the failure, the
visible, tangible human effort that's required
to create something that can genuinely make a
viewer cry because they lost a son, a mother,
that human connection. And he sees it as a threat
because of the philosophy behind the people pushing
it. Absolutely. He views AI as being primarily
in the hands of people who see it as a solution,
a way to cut costs, streamline production, replace
human ingenuity, and crucially, human craft.
Which is completely counter to his entire ethos.
It's anathema to guy who spent 10 years learning
practical makeup from Dick Smith. For del Toro,
art is defined by the struggle, the effort, the
imperfection. If that struggle is eliminated
by some mechanized solution, then the result,
for him, ceases to be meaningful art. So the
move towards animation, this medium of almost
excruciating frame -by -frame effort. It feels
like the ultimate artistic rejection of algorithmic
ease. It's doubling down on craft. Okay, beyond
the screen, Guillermo del Toro is just, well,
a fascinating figure. An incredibly expansive,
almost maniacal He is the ultimate cinephile,
isn't he? And an accumulator of knowledge. He's
confessed to watching, on average, three films
a day. Three a day? How does he have time? I
have no idea. But his devotion to cinema goes
way back, back to his student days when the very
first book he ever published was a biography
of Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock. Interesting first
choice. What does that tell us? Well, Hitchcock
is a master craftsman, right? A storyteller obsessed
with guilt, institutional failure, the psychological
weight of the unseen, themes that clearly run
parallel to Del Toro's own obsessions. Makes
sense. And if you look at his favorite film lists,
it's not just horror. It's this brilliant mix
of the psychologically complex, and the formerly
perfect. His 2022 site and sound poll list included
Fellini's surreal Eight and Half, Kubrick's incredibly
precise Barry Lyndon, and yeah, genre classics
like Bride of Frankenstein, but also modern crime
sagas like Goodfellas and No Country for Old
Men. eclectic, but refined taste. And naturally,
he has his own personal pantheon of favorite
monsters. Oh, absolutely. Starting with his proclaimed
unhealthy Frankenstein fetish. Mary Shelley's
novel is arguably the single most important text
in his life. It informs his entire philosophy
of the misunderstood creature. The ultimate outsider.
Exactly. His other beloved outsiders include
the sleek biological terror of the xenomorph
from Alien. the noble Gilman from Creature from
the Black Lagoon, the sheer scale and power of
Godzilla, and the transformative body horror
terror of John Carpenter's The Thing. They're
all figures of transformation, alienation, and
otherness. And his personal environment, his
houses, they reflect this obsessive nature, right?
He organizes his world around his collections.
He is a true dedicated collector. He owns not
just one, but two separate houses dedicated exclusively
to storing his massive accumulation of books,
poster art, action figures, props, artifacts.
He collectively calls it his bleak house. Bleak
house after Dickens. After Dickens, yeah. It's
like this immersive living museum of all his
influences and obsessions. These collections
are highly specialized, aren't they? They reveal
these deep thematic interests. We know about
his dedicated space called the Dickens Room.
That room apparently houses every single work
by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and literally
hundreds of volumes dedicated just to Victorian
London. This immersion in the 19th century is
critical. Why Victorian London specifically?
Well, think about it. That period is the root
of the Industrial Revolution, institutionalized
poverty, the rise of forensic science, all themes
he constantly explores. And crucially, his interest
in this era includes being a self -proclaimed
Jack the Ripper aficionado. This fascination
with an unseen killer who targeted the marginalized
and exposed the utter failure of institutional
control, the police, the government, it aligns
perfectly with his lifelong hatred of institutionalized
horror and power structures. So his collecting
isn't just like fanboy culture, it's almost an
academic pursuit that directly feeds his creative
engine. Absolutely. And while he's clearly drawn
to classic literature and cinema, he also champions
modern storytelling mediums. He's a really passionate
advocate for video games. Really? Yeah. He calls
them the comic books of our time and notes, quite
rightly, that they're a medium that gains no
respect among the intelligentsia. He often points
to games celebrated for their artistry and emotional
depth, citing things like ICO and Shadow of the
Colossus as genuine masterpieces. That's great
to hear. championing games like that. It is.
And finally, there's this great detail that just
speaks volumes about his character and his connection
to Mexico despite his exile. How's that? Back
in 2019, the Mexican government suspended funding
for the student teams who were meant to attend
the International Mathematical Olympiad. Oh,
no. So del Toro just stepped in. Without hesitation,
he personally used his own money to pay for the
flights for the entire Mexican team, ensuring
they could attend and compete. Wow, that's incredible.
It was this remarkable act of philanthropy and
just real support for the next generation of
Mexican talent. It proves that while he might
be geographically exiled, his civic commitment,
his connection remains incredibly strong. Wow.
OK, so this has been an essential deep dive,
I think, into a creator who is just defined by
these productive contradictions. He's a strict
atheist who uses the symbolic way to Catholicism
to argue against abuses of power. He's an international
filmmaker who despises corporate structure. And
he's a devotee of the physical, the sometimes
grotesque, who views monsters as the ultimate
figures of hope and grace. Yeah, his whole career
feels like the physical manifestation of this
single, deeply personal philosophy. A philosophy
forged in the fires of creative loss, like with
omnivore, industry conflict like Mimic, and devastating
personal trauma. That 72 -day kidnapping that
led to his involuntary exile. And he applied
that same philosophy equally to Oscar -bait historical
fantasies and ma - monster versus robot blockbusters.
He reached the absolute heights of mainstream
acclaim with the shape of water. And proved the
artistic legitimacy again of frame by frame animation
with Pinocchio. And his commitment now is shifting
definitively it seems toward the craft and risk
of handmade creation explicitly rejecting the
easy mechanized solution of AI. He's digging
his heels in for the human element. So we leave
you the listener with this final provocative
thought to mull over. Since Guillermo del Toro
has explicitly stated that his upcoming Frankenstein
film closes the cycle on the specific aesthetic
and rhythm he's pursued since Kronos, what comes
next? If his monsters are universally the patron
saints of imperfection, and he is now choosing
to limit himself primarily to the excruciating,
meticulous labor required of stop -motion animation,
what new, maybe very different forms of beautiful,
flawed humanity will emerge from this workshop.
What kind of refined, perhaps even more empathetic
monster will he need to create when the medium
itself demands that absolute, pure, risk -laden
frame -by -frame craft? What does the monster
look like after the cycle closes? Something to
think about. Thank you for joining us on this
deep dive. We'll see you next time.