WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 Welcome back to The Deep Dive, the only place 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:04.019 where we take a monumental stack of sources, 00:00:04.540 --> 00:00:06.860 distill the pure knowledge, and deliver the concentrated 00:00:06.860 --> 00:00:09.339 insight straight to you. That's the goal. Today, 00:00:09.500 --> 00:00:12.000 we are immersing ourselves in the dark, intricate, 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:16.539 and strangely comforting universe of a true cinematic 00:00:16.539 --> 00:00:20.000 visionary, a man who finds holiness, really, 00:00:20.219 --> 00:00:23.170 in the grotesque, Guillermo del Toro. Yeah, this 00:00:23.170 --> 00:00:25.250 is an essential deep dive, I think, for anyone 00:00:25.250 --> 00:00:27.429 looking for that shortcut to being genuinely 00:00:27.429 --> 00:00:31.129 well -informed about modern cinema. GDT, you 00:00:31.129 --> 00:00:33.689 know, born in Guadalajara, Mexico, back in 64. 00:00:34.369 --> 00:00:36.810 He's so much more than just a director. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:36.829 --> 00:00:39.030 He's an author, a prolific producer, an artist. 00:00:39.549 --> 00:00:42.229 His vision is just so cohesive. You see a frame, 00:00:42.329 --> 00:00:44.810 you often know it's him. You really do. So our 00:00:44.810 --> 00:00:47.329 mission today really is to synthesize the huge... 00:00:47.530 --> 00:00:50.210 breadth of his career. You've got these intensely 00:00:50.210 --> 00:00:53.310 personal Spanish language films like Pan's Labyrinth. 00:00:53.390 --> 00:00:55.409 Masterpieces. And then these massive English 00:00:55.409 --> 00:00:58.170 language franchises, you know, Pacific Rim. And 00:00:58.170 --> 00:01:00.710 the key is understanding that single unifying 00:01:00.710 --> 00:01:03.090 DNA strand, that thing that connects every single 00:01:03.090 --> 00:01:05.510 one of his creations. OK, let's jump right into 00:01:05.510 --> 00:01:07.629 his core aesthetic then, because like you said, 00:01:07.769 --> 00:01:10.290 it's the cornerstone. of his identity. He really 00:01:10.290 --> 00:01:13.590 is. His films, they're defined by this potent, 00:01:13.609 --> 00:01:16.890 unique blend. You've got gothic sensibility, 00:01:17.310 --> 00:01:19.950 classic horror tropes, European fairy tales. 00:01:20.069 --> 00:01:23.129 Right. But the real magic, I think, is his ability 00:01:23.129 --> 00:01:27.989 to infuse this visual, poetic, almost heartbreaking 00:01:27.989 --> 00:01:31.769 beauty into things most people would just find 00:01:31.769 --> 00:01:35.500 repulsive. Or terrifying. It's like visual alchemy, 00:01:35.640 --> 00:01:37.280 isn't it? Yeah, that's a good way to put it. 00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:39.379 And it's rooted in how he sees the creatures 00:01:39.379 --> 00:01:41.840 themselves. What stands out to me is that he 00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:44.500 doesn't see monsters as symbols of chaos or evil. 00:01:44.829 --> 00:01:46.409 You know, that's the standard Hollywood thing. 00:01:46.489 --> 00:01:48.629 Right, the default setting. He views them and 00:01:48.629 --> 00:01:51.629 he says this explicitly as symbols of great power. 00:01:52.069 --> 00:01:53.989 That's the key, I think, to understanding his 00:01:53.989 --> 00:01:56.870 whole dark fantasy thing. He empowers the outsider, 00:01:56.950 --> 00:01:59.430 the other. And that focus on empowerment on the 00:01:59.430 --> 00:02:02.129 outsider and just his commitment to this aesthetic 00:02:02.129 --> 00:02:04.969 gives us those signature visual hallmarks we 00:02:04.969 --> 00:02:06.730 see again and again. Exactly. We're talking about 00:02:06.730 --> 00:02:10.310 like insectile forms, biological shapes, the 00:02:10.310 --> 00:02:13.469 strong, often really complicated use of religious 00:02:13.469 --> 00:02:15.800 imagery. which comes straight from his upbringing. 00:02:15.800 --> 00:02:18.080 We'll definitely circle back to that. Underworld 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:21.379 motifs, and of course this steadfast devotion 00:02:21.379 --> 00:02:24.819 to celebrating imperfection. He loves the flawed. 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:27.539 And you see two technical choices that are just 00:02:27.539 --> 00:02:30.360 absolutely foundational, I think. First, his 00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:33.259 refusal to completely abandon practical special 00:02:33.259 --> 00:02:35.639 effects. He wants to feel the weight of the monster, 00:02:35.780 --> 00:02:38.159 you know? Yeah, tangible. And second, the light. 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:42.219 That dominant, warm, almost pervasive amber lighting. 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:45.539 It washes over even the most horrifying scenes. 00:02:45.659 --> 00:02:47.300 Why Amber though? What's the thinking there? 00:02:47.500 --> 00:02:49.479 Well, it feels like memory, doesn't it? It kind 00:02:49.479 --> 00:02:52.280 of invokes the look of maybe 19th century photography 00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:55.360 or those classic universal horror films. It transforms 00:02:55.360 --> 00:02:58.300 terror into something beautiful, maybe even melancholic, 00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:00.900 nostalgic almost. It's like saying, this might 00:03:00.900 --> 00:03:03.580 be dark, this might be scary, but it's also familiar, 00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:07.810 almost romantic. Yeah, precisely. So what we're 00:03:07.810 --> 00:03:11.050 doing for you, the listener today, is basically 00:03:11.050 --> 00:03:13.550 tracing the single narrative he talks about, 00:03:13.849 --> 00:03:15.770 that continuous film he says he's been making 00:03:15.770 --> 00:03:18.550 his whole life. Right. From his childhood experiments 00:03:18.550 --> 00:03:20.629 through some really profound personal trauma 00:03:20.629 --> 00:03:23.530 and this sense of involuntary exile all the way 00:03:23.530 --> 00:03:26.569 up to his recent Oscar wins. We want to understand 00:03:26.569 --> 00:03:30.449 the source code, the essence of this unique creativity. 00:03:30.590 --> 00:03:33.449 OK, let's jump back then. The genesis of this. 00:03:33.560 --> 00:03:36.919 self -proclaimed monster lover, Guillermo del 00:03:36.919 --> 00:03:40.120 Toro, raised in a very strict Catholic household, 00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:42.599 a detail we absolutely need to unpack later, 00:03:43.039 --> 00:03:45.020 and he studied at the University of Guadalajara's 00:03:45.020 --> 00:03:47.919 Film Study Center. But the real sort of hands 00:03:47.919 --> 00:03:50.159 -on learning, it started way before university, 00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:52.099 almost a decade earlier. He's pretty young, wasn't 00:03:52.099 --> 00:03:54.419 he? Yeah, a child prodigy of sorts, you could 00:03:54.419 --> 00:03:57.060 say, with filmmaking. Around age eight, he's 00:03:57.060 --> 00:03:58.840 already messing around with his dad's Super 8 00:03:58.840 --> 00:04:01.659 camera. Wow. And the sources mention he frequently 00:04:01.659 --> 00:04:03.699 used his Planet of the Apes toys in these early 00:04:03.699 --> 00:04:05.159 shorts. I mean, that tells you something right 00:04:05.159 --> 00:04:08.340 there. His fascination with creatures as societal 00:04:08.340 --> 00:04:11.719 outsiders started super early. OK, and this brings 00:04:11.719 --> 00:04:14.580 us to the infamous short film, the one that kind 00:04:14.580 --> 00:04:17.660 of tells you... everything about the twisted, 00:04:17.660 --> 00:04:20.439 playful logic of his mind. Oh, yeah. The serial 00:04:20.439 --> 00:04:22.560 killer potato. The serial killer potato, yes. 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:26.500 The source material describes this in glorious, 00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:29.120 disturbing detail. It was literally a potato 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:32.000 that somehow gained sentience. As potatoes do. 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:34.639 As potatoes do. And it had ambitions of world 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:38.100 domination. So this homicidal tuber proceeds 00:04:38.100 --> 00:04:41.019 to murder GDT's own mother and brothers in the 00:04:41.019 --> 00:04:43.949 film, of course, only to be like... anti -climactically 00:04:43.949 --> 00:04:46.310 crushed by a car after leaving the house. Okay, 00:04:46.529 --> 00:04:48.810 but what does that anecdote actually tell us? 00:04:49.149 --> 00:04:51.509 It's absurd, obviously. Totally absurd. But it 00:04:51.509 --> 00:04:53.389 contains all those ingredients of his later work, 00:04:53.490 --> 00:04:55.569 doesn't it? The blurring of the domestic with 00:04:55.569 --> 00:04:58.189 the horrific, the sort of casual acceptance of 00:04:58.189 --> 00:05:00.490 the grotesque. Yeah. And that collision of the 00:05:00.490 --> 00:05:04.410 mundane, a potato, a car with like existential 00:05:04.410 --> 00:05:07.519 horror. world domination, matricide. It immediately 00:05:07.519 --> 00:05:09.500 sets up this framework where the world isn't 00:05:09.500 --> 00:05:12.240 logical, it's fundamentally anarchic. And even 00:05:12.240 --> 00:05:14.639 while he was still finding his feet, he directed 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:17.980 five episodes of this cult Mexican series, La 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:20.240 Jora Mercado. Right, I remember that. And he 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:22.259 was working alongside contemporaries who were 00:05:22.259 --> 00:05:24.379 also just starting out, filmmakers like Alfonso 00:05:24.379 --> 00:05:26.939 Cuaron. Those connections, they become super 00:05:26.939 --> 00:05:29.040 important later on. Now something that often 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:32.500 gets forgotten is that his first intended feature 00:05:32.500 --> 00:05:35.430 film, It wasn't live -action at all, was it? 00:05:35.649 --> 00:05:39.149 No, not at all. He initially poured, like, three 00:05:39.149 --> 00:05:42.149 intensive years of his life into this massive 00:05:42.149 --> 00:05:45.490 stop -motion sci -fi project. It was called Omnivore. 00:05:45.730 --> 00:05:48.569 Omnivore. Yeah, it was a huge, really ambitious 00:05:48.569 --> 00:05:51.910 undertaking. a lizard man, a world dominated 00:05:51.910 --> 00:05:54.910 by endless consumption. He was meticulous apparently, 00:05:55.389 --> 00:05:57.790 built these intricate sets, crafted around a 00:05:57.790 --> 00:05:59.850 hundred different puppets by hand. A hundred 00:05:59.850 --> 00:06:02.870 puppets. Wow. But this is where that theme of 00:06:02.870 --> 00:06:05.269 creative loss, that trauma strikes for the first 00:06:05.269 --> 00:06:07.310 time in his career. And it was truly devastating, 00:06:07.389 --> 00:06:08.889 wasn't it? What actually happened to Omnivore? 00:06:08.889 --> 00:06:10.829 It's just heartbreaking. Vandals burglarized 00:06:10.829 --> 00:06:13.730 the studio one night and essentially just destroyed 00:06:13.730 --> 00:06:16.350 everything. All the sets, all those meticulously 00:06:16.350 --> 00:06:20.120 crafted puppets. God, years of work. Three years 00:06:20.120 --> 00:06:23.339 of physical, tangible labor just vanished. And 00:06:23.339 --> 00:06:26.540 this loss, it was so catastrophic that it immediately 00:06:26.540 --> 00:06:29.079 prompted him to switch gears. He moved to the 00:06:29.079 --> 00:06:32.519 cheaper, maybe less physically vulnerable medium 00:06:32.519 --> 00:06:34.720 of live action. And that led directly to Kronos. 00:06:34.879 --> 00:06:37.079 That led directly to his feature debut, Kronos, 00:06:37.079 --> 00:06:40.660 in 1993. That pivot was born entirely out of 00:06:40.660 --> 00:06:43.360 this terrible catastrophe, a real demonstration 00:06:43.360 --> 00:06:46.519 of how fragile creative effort can be. But the 00:06:46.519 --> 00:06:49.600 importance of craft, the physical making of things, 00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:52.639 wasn't just theoretical for him, was it? Before 00:06:52.639 --> 00:06:54.920 directing features, he was deep in the muck of 00:06:54.920 --> 00:06:57.720 monster making. Oh, completely. He spent a decade, 00:06:57.839 --> 00:06:59.899 10 years, working as a special effects makeup 00:06:59.899 --> 00:07:02.839 designer, and he studied with the absolute legend, 00:07:03.459 --> 00:07:05.649 Dick Smith. Dick Smith. The exorcist, Amadeus. 00:07:05.709 --> 00:07:08.230 The master. So that decade is absolutely crucial. 00:07:08.389 --> 00:07:10.009 Now, Tora wasn't just some guy with ideas. He 00:07:10.009 --> 00:07:12.250 was a craftsman. He knew how to build the muscle, 00:07:12.329 --> 00:07:14.490 the tissue, the scales of a creature. He even 00:07:14.490 --> 00:07:16.569 founded his own effects company back then, Necropia. 00:07:16.709 --> 00:07:19.810 Necropia, right. And this hands -on expertise, 00:07:20.029 --> 00:07:23.029 it fundamentally instilled in him that philosophy 00:07:23.029 --> 00:07:26.589 that the monster must be a tangible, tactile 00:07:26.589 --> 00:07:29.290 reality. It's an element that feeds directly 00:07:29.290 --> 00:07:33.230 into his later aversion to purely digital effects. 00:07:33.800 --> 00:07:36.839 Definitely his views on AI. And even as he was 00:07:36.839 --> 00:07:39.000 mastering the technical side, he was already 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:41.600 building institutions. He helped co -found the 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:44.040 Guadalajara International Film Festival. Right. 00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:47.060 And that production company, Tequila Gang. It's 00:07:47.060 --> 00:07:49.420 an interesting early duality, isn't it? The guy 00:07:49.420 --> 00:07:52.060 who rails against institutional structure is 00:07:52.060 --> 00:07:54.560 also a natural builder of cultural institutions. 00:07:54.759 --> 00:07:57.060 That's a great observation. Yeah, the rebel and 00:07:57.060 --> 00:07:59.579 the architect all in one. So after the breakthrough 00:07:59.579 --> 00:08:02.339 success of Kronos, Del Toro makes the leap. He 00:08:02.339 --> 00:08:05.199 heads to Hollywood, the place where so many international 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:07.500 directors either find huge success or kind of 00:08:07.500 --> 00:08:09.660 lose their soul. Yeah, it's a gamble. And his 00:08:09.660 --> 00:08:12.040 first big English language film was Mimic back 00:08:12.040 --> 00:08:15.519 in 1997. And that experience was decidedly, well, 00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:18.149 let's just say it towards the losing your soul 00:08:18.149 --> 00:08:20.509 end of the spectrum. It was a really difficult, 00:08:20.829 --> 00:08:23.250 painful entry into the American studio system. 00:08:23.689 --> 00:08:26.310 Mimic was a big deal for Miramax films, which 00:08:26.310 --> 00:08:28.470 people forget was under the Disney umbrella at 00:08:28.470 --> 00:08:31.250 the time. Yeah, owned by Disney. And the clash 00:08:31.250 --> 00:08:35.539 was immediate. and intense. Del Toro felt this 00:08:35.539 --> 00:08:38.519 fundamental disconnect with how Miramax, particularly 00:08:38.519 --> 00:08:41.139 the studio heads like Harvey Weinstein, treated 00:08:41.139 --> 00:08:43.240 the whole artistic process. He wasn't getting 00:08:43.240 --> 00:08:45.659 the freedom he needed. Not at all. He felt he 00:08:45.659 --> 00:08:47.720 wasn't afforded the freedom or the respect he 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:50.460 felt was necessary. It led to him being deeply, 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:52.899 profoundly unhappy with the production treatment. 00:08:53.519 --> 00:08:56.259 He felt, probably correctly, that he was losing 00:08:56.259 --> 00:08:58.860 his vision for the film. And this tension, it 00:08:58.860 --> 00:09:01.600 wasn't just behind closed doors. Sources note 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:04.399 it spilled over very publicly, dramatically even. 00:09:04.539 --> 00:09:07.139 Oh yeah. The fallout from the mimic experience 00:09:07.139 --> 00:09:09.960 led to his friend, fellow director James Cameron. 00:09:10.039 --> 00:09:12.340 James Cameron. Almost getting into an actual 00:09:12.340 --> 00:09:14.860 physical fight with Harvey Weinstein at the 70th 00:09:14.860 --> 00:09:18.120 Academy Awards. Wow. At the Oscars. At the Oscars. 00:09:18.220 --> 00:09:20.159 That's not just a disagreement, you know. That's 00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:23.059 a public, nearly violent confrontation over the 00:09:23.059 --> 00:09:25.059 principle of creative control. It's a perfect 00:09:25.059 --> 00:09:27.080 illustration of the stakes then. Absolutely. 00:09:27.639 --> 00:09:29.700 Del Toro learned very quickly that if he wanted 00:09:29.700 --> 00:09:32.080 to keep his artistic voice, he needed to fight 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:34.700 relentlessly for final cut. It's a principle 00:09:34.700 --> 00:09:36.700 he has guarded fiercely ever since. But that 00:09:36.700 --> 00:09:41.539 same year, 1997, something far, far worse happened. 00:09:42.019 --> 00:09:44.919 Something that just... irrevocably altered the 00:09:44.919 --> 00:09:47.379 trajectory of his life and his career. It turned 00:09:47.379 --> 00:09:50.960 him from an international fair maker into, well, 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:54.120 an involuntary exile. Yeah, that's the absolutely 00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:56.820 crucial, deeply traumatic event, the kidnapping 00:09:56.820 --> 00:09:59.620 of his father, Federico del Toro Torres, back 00:09:59.620 --> 00:10:02.000 in Guadalajara. You really can't overstate the 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:05.419 impact of this on his subsequent life, his art, 00:10:06.200 --> 00:10:08.039 everything. The weight of that experience is 00:10:08.039 --> 00:10:11.730 just... Immense. His father was held for 72 agonizing 00:10:11.730 --> 00:10:14.669 days. 72 days. Unimaginable. And the family eventually 00:10:14.669 --> 00:10:16.669 had to pay the original ransom amount twice. 00:10:16.769 --> 00:10:19.009 It totaled a million dollars to secure his release. 00:10:19.529 --> 00:10:22.009 Imagine that constant state of terror, the financial 00:10:22.009 --> 00:10:24.470 devastation, and just the absolute lack of control. 00:10:25.230 --> 00:10:27.049 Helplessness. And the sources highlight this 00:10:27.049 --> 00:10:29.509 extraordinary role played by James Cameron again 00:10:29.509 --> 00:10:31.289 during the crisis. It's incredible. Cameron, 00:10:31.309 --> 00:10:33.649 despite their recent professional sort of run 00:10:33.649 --> 00:10:36.610 in with Miramax. Right. Over mimic. Immediately 00:10:36.610 --> 00:10:39.149 offered to help pay the ransom. Del Toro accepted. 00:10:39.490 --> 00:10:41.870 It's just this profound act of friendship that 00:10:41.870 --> 00:10:44.450 really highlights the strong bonds artists can 00:10:44.450 --> 00:10:46.809 form, especially when they're facing industry 00:10:46.809 --> 00:10:49.769 hostility or personal disaster. And that experience 00:10:49.769 --> 00:10:52.370 was the final straw, basically. It was the breaking 00:10:52.370 --> 00:10:54.730 point. It prompted Del Toro, his parents, his 00:10:54.730 --> 00:10:57.350 siblings, the whole family to move abroad for 00:10:57.350 --> 00:11:00.750 safety. And that led directly to his profound 00:11:00.750 --> 00:11:03.750 sense of involuntary exile from Mexico. And when 00:11:03.750 --> 00:11:07.230 you look at his films. the recurring motifs of 00:11:07.230 --> 00:11:10.129 vulnerable children navigating these worlds ruled 00:11:10.129 --> 00:11:13.629 by corrupt, often faceless authoritarian forces. 00:11:13.830 --> 00:11:15.870 You can't help but trace it back. It's impossible 00:11:15.870 --> 00:11:18.110 not to connect it to this moment when his own 00:11:18.110 --> 00:11:20.750 family was victimized by essentially criminal 00:11:20.750 --> 00:11:23.289 institutional failure. It makes sense then why 00:11:23.289 --> 00:11:25.750 he relies so heavily on his trusted inner circle, 00:11:26.350 --> 00:11:28.370 particularly the other two pillars of modern 00:11:28.370 --> 00:11:30.870 Mexican cinema. Ah, the three amigos of Mexican 00:11:30.870 --> 00:11:33.669 cinema, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and 00:11:33.669 --> 00:11:36.700 Alejandro G. Iñárritu. It's more than just friendship 00:11:36.700 --> 00:11:38.580 isn't it? They're like a professional and emotional 00:11:38.580 --> 00:11:41.899 life raft for each other. They seem incredibly 00:11:41.899 --> 00:11:45.070 close. They maintain this incredibly strong, 00:11:45.070 --> 00:11:47.669 deep bond. They influence each other's decisions, 00:11:47.909 --> 00:11:51.090 give notes on scripts, cuts. They even co -founded 00:11:51.090 --> 00:11:53.690 that production company Cha Cha Cha Films. Right. 00:11:53.850 --> 00:11:56.629 Cha Cha Cha. Specifically to support each other's 00:11:56.629 --> 00:11:59.149 more independent visions, you know, against the 00:11:59.149 --> 00:12:02.129 demands of the studio system. It's a mutual support 00:12:02.129 --> 00:12:04.690 network. And the collaboration is tangible. It's 00:12:04.690 --> 00:12:07.029 real. We know, for instance, Quorum produced 00:12:07.029 --> 00:12:09.450 Pan's Labyrinth. And Inyartu actively helped 00:12:09.450 --> 00:12:11.669 with the editing of Pan's Labyrinth, too. It 00:12:11.669 --> 00:12:13.789 just shows how they use their collective power, 00:12:13.970 --> 00:12:16.169 their trust, to make sure that the individual 00:12:16.169 --> 00:12:18.830 voice, the very thing Del Toro fought for and 00:12:18.830 --> 00:12:22.269 nearly lost on Mimic, remains intact. Okay, let's 00:12:22.269 --> 00:12:24.450 turn now to the heart of his artistic philosophy. 00:12:24.830 --> 00:12:27.789 That idea that gives our listener the real key, 00:12:27.789 --> 00:12:30.990 I think, into his motivation. Del Toro famously 00:12:30.990 --> 00:12:33.080 insists he's only ever made one movie. Yeah, 00:12:33.100 --> 00:12:34.919 he actually said, I will have done one movie 00:12:34.919 --> 00:12:37.019 and it's all the movies I want, which is a pretty 00:12:37.019 --> 00:12:39.779 radical concept, right? Because he explicitly 00:12:39.779 --> 00:12:42.259 rejects that critical distinction people often 00:12:42.259 --> 00:12:45.100 make between his big English language stuff. 00:12:45.259 --> 00:12:48.639 Like Hellboy or Pacific Rim. Exactly. And his 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:50.940 smaller, you know, critically adored Spanish 00:12:50.940 --> 00:12:54.340 language masterpieces, he insists they are equally 00:12:54.340 --> 00:12:57.419 personal, all part of the same story. But how 00:12:57.419 --> 00:12:59.980 can that really be true? I mean, how can a film 00:12:59.980 --> 00:13:03.720 about a giant red demon fighting Nazi remnants 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:07.519 be thematically the same as a bleak historical 00:13:07.519 --> 00:13:10.419 fable set during the Spanish Civil War? We need 00:13:10.419 --> 00:13:12.159 to draw those lines for the listener. OK, let's 00:13:12.159 --> 00:13:14.299 look at the core dramatic conflict in each. Take 00:13:14.299 --> 00:13:17.379 Pan's Labyrinth. The protagonist is Ophelia, 00:13:17.580 --> 00:13:19.980 right, an outsider. She's navigating the brutal 00:13:19.980 --> 00:13:22.679 institutional evil of Captain Vidal. The ultimate 00:13:22.679 --> 00:13:26.000 fascist. Absolutely. And she finds her solace, 00:13:26.039 --> 00:13:29.740 her agency, in this magical but also deeply flawed, 00:13:30.059 --> 00:13:32.740 imperfect underworld. OK. Now look at Hellboy. 00:13:33.240 --> 00:13:36.240 Hellboy is the ultimate outsider. A giant red 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:38.519 demon fighting the institutional evil of the 00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:41.820 Nazis. And he's aided by other imperfect, monstrous 00:13:41.820 --> 00:13:44.259 creatures like Aide Sapien and Liz Sherman. Right. 00:13:44.379 --> 00:13:46.940 The BPRD team. The pattern is identical. The 00:13:46.940 --> 00:13:48.759 heroes are flawed. They're monstrous. They're 00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:50.500 marginalized. And the villains, they're always 00:13:50.500 --> 00:13:52.759 the ones demanding order, purity, conformity. 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:55.200 Think about the amphibian man in the shape of 00:13:55.200 --> 00:13:57.740 water, too. Another outsider. targeted by the 00:13:57.740 --> 00:14:00.779 oppressive military -industrial complex personified 00:14:00.779 --> 00:14:03.059 by Colonel Strickland. So it doesn't matter if 00:14:03.059 --> 00:14:05.960 the stakes are global Kaiju battles or a little 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:09.419 girl's fantasy escape. The core theme is the 00:14:09.419 --> 00:14:12.870 same. the flawed individual versus the suffocating 00:14:12.870 --> 00:14:15.250 institution. Exactly. And to get a deeper handle 00:14:15.250 --> 00:14:17.730 on this, we really have to focus on those Spanish 00:14:17.730 --> 00:14:21.450 Civil War films. The Devil's Backbone from 2001 00:14:21.450 --> 00:14:24.929 and Pan's Labyrinth from 2006. The companion 00:14:24.929 --> 00:14:28.429 pieces. They're absolutely a pair. Both set against 00:14:28.429 --> 00:14:30.750 the backdrop of that conflict, which led to the 00:14:30.750 --> 00:14:33.570 oppressive authoritarian rule of Francisco Franco 00:14:33.570 --> 00:14:36.830 in Spain. Pan's Labyrinth in particular just... 00:14:36.730 --> 00:14:39.529 transcended genre, transcended national boundaries. 00:14:39.649 --> 00:14:41.929 It became this global phenomenon. Huge critical 00:14:41.929 --> 00:14:44.750 success, Oscars. Six Oscar nominations, three 00:14:44.750 --> 00:14:47.350 wins, plus the Golden Globe for foreign language 00:14:47.350 --> 00:14:50.350 film, massive. And the celebration of these films, 00:14:50.450 --> 00:14:52.889 it lets us dive deeper into his view of the horror 00:14:52.889 --> 00:14:55.929 genre itself, which he sees as inherently political. 00:14:56.129 --> 00:14:57.929 Yeah, this is crucial. He creates this kind of 00:14:57.929 --> 00:15:00.470 moral framework for storytelling, distinguishing 00:15:00.470 --> 00:15:02.870 between two types of fairy tales. Okay, what 00:15:02.870 --> 00:15:05.889 are they? Well, this distinction really illuminates 00:15:05.889 --> 00:15:08.990 his whole - anti -establishment ethos. He defines 00:15:08.990 --> 00:15:11.090 the first type of fairy tale, the one he calls 00:15:11.090 --> 00:15:15.230 reprehensible, as pro -institution. Pro -establishment. 00:15:15.470 --> 00:15:17.230 These are the stories that preach obedience. 00:15:17.669 --> 00:15:20.929 You know, don't wander into the woods, stay pure, 00:15:21.330 --> 00:15:23.850 obey authority, that kind of thing. And the alternative. 00:15:24.190 --> 00:15:26.669 the kind he actually champions. He champions 00:15:26.669 --> 00:15:30.590 the second type, the completely anarchic and 00:15:30.590 --> 00:15:33.529 anti -establishment fairy tale. These are the 00:15:33.529 --> 00:15:35.610 stories that encourage questioning, wandering, 00:15:35.909 --> 00:15:38.309 rebellion against the established order. They 00:15:38.309 --> 00:15:40.350 tell you that you must go into the woods to find 00:15:40.350 --> 00:15:43.830 your true self, even if it's dangerous, especially 00:15:43.830 --> 00:15:45.970 if it's dangerous. And this connects right back 00:15:45.970 --> 00:15:47.850 to his personal politics, doesn't it? He's pretty 00:15:47.850 --> 00:15:50.820 open about it. Oh, completely. Del Toro describes 00:15:50.820 --> 00:15:53.519 himself, without any hesitation, as a little 00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:56.919 too liberal, and he openly expresses his hatred 00:15:56.919 --> 00:15:59.460 of structure, of institutionalized things, whether 00:15:59.460 --> 00:16:02.419 that's social hierarchies, religious dogma, economic 00:16:02.419 --> 00:16:05.769 constraints. He hates imposed order. So that 00:16:05.769 --> 00:16:07.629 hatred of structure, that's the real common thread 00:16:07.629 --> 00:16:10.210 linking all his villains. That's it. They are 00:16:10.210 --> 00:16:12.470 unified not by their specific brand of evil, 00:16:12.710 --> 00:16:15.470 but by their shared attribute of authoritarianism. 00:16:16.129 --> 00:16:19.110 The industrialist in Kronos, obsessed with profit 00:16:19.110 --> 00:16:22.350 and eternal life. The Nazis and Hellboy demanding 00:16:22.350 --> 00:16:25.659 racial purity. The francsosts in Pan's Labyrinth 00:16:25.659 --> 00:16:28.600 demanding absolute political and military obedience. 00:16:28.779 --> 00:16:31.000 Even the fascists in his Pinocchio demanding 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:34.200 nationalist fervor. Exactly. His horror is always 00:16:34.200 --> 00:16:36.379 aimed upwards at the top of the pyramid at the 00:16:36.379 --> 00:16:39.379 power structure. And he uses the creature, the 00:16:39.379 --> 00:16:42.759 monster, as a kind of mirror to show us the beautiful, 00:16:43.179 --> 00:16:45.259 flawed humanity that the structure is trying 00:16:45.259 --> 00:16:48.360 to crush. And this thematic consistency, regardless 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:51.299 of the genre, regardless of the budget. It ultimately 00:16:51.299 --> 00:16:53.960 culminated in the absolute height of his mainstream 00:16:53.960 --> 00:16:56.279 acclaim, didn't it? With the Shape of Water in 00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:58.600 2017. That film was just a monumental moment. 00:16:58.820 --> 00:17:00.720 It won him the Golden Lion at the Venice Film 00:17:00.720 --> 00:17:02.840 Festival. First Mexican director ever to win 00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:05.559 that. And then of course it went on to basically 00:17:05.559 --> 00:17:07.900 sweep the Academy Awards. Best picture, best 00:17:07.900 --> 00:17:11.839 director. Four wins out of 13 nominations. It 00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:14.930 was definitive proof. that his deeply personal 00:17:14.930 --> 00:17:17.890 kind of anarchic vision of love and monsters 00:17:17.890 --> 00:17:21.089 could win over the biggest mainstream audience 00:17:21.089 --> 00:17:23.250 imaginable. Okay, let's transition to a subject 00:17:23.250 --> 00:17:25.769 that's so deeply ingrained in his visual language, 00:17:26.089 --> 00:17:28.470 his symbolism. yet it's something he personally 00:17:28.470 --> 00:17:31.349 rejects. His religious views and how they feed 00:17:31.349 --> 00:17:33.730 into his creation of monsters. It's the ultimate 00:17:33.730 --> 00:17:36.329 GDT contradiction, isn't it? He was raised in 00:17:36.329 --> 00:17:38.970 this strict Catholic household, completely immersed 00:17:38.970 --> 00:17:42.470 in the iconography, the dogma, but he is now, 00:17:42.470 --> 00:17:45.069 as he puts it, mercifully lapsed. Right. He loves 00:17:45.069 --> 00:17:47.329 that Bunuel quote. I'm an atheist, thank God. 00:17:47.430 --> 00:17:49.769 It sums it up perfectly. The influence is absolutely 00:17:49.769 --> 00:17:52.009 undeniable. You can see it everywhere, but the 00:17:52.009 --> 00:17:55.230 personal belief, gone. And the path to atheism 00:17:55.230 --> 00:17:57.410 for him, it wasn't just some intellectual exercise, 00:17:57.509 --> 00:18:00.509 was it? It was a deeply visceral, almost practical 00:18:00.509 --> 00:18:02.890 reaction to the harsh realities of the world. 00:18:03.109 --> 00:18:05.970 Yeah, profoundly jarring. He says he became a 00:18:05.970 --> 00:18:08.670 raging atheist after this incredibly haunting 00:18:08.670 --> 00:18:11.569 real world experience. When he was volunteering 00:18:11.569 --> 00:18:14.750 at a Mexican hospital, he apparently saw a pile 00:18:14.750 --> 00:18:17.809 of discarded human fetuses. Oh, wow. And he just 00:18:17.809 --> 00:18:20.410 found it absolutely impossible to reconcile the 00:18:20.410 --> 00:18:24.009 idea of an all loving, all seeing God with that 00:18:24.009 --> 00:18:27.329 level of suffering, that tangible. horrifying 00:18:27.329 --> 00:18:30.490 reality of human loss and decay. Yet despite 00:18:30.490 --> 00:18:33.769 that intellectual and emotional rejection, Catholicism 00:18:33.769 --> 00:18:36.890 is constantly present in his work. The visuals, 00:18:37.109 --> 00:18:40.109 the symbols, why does he keep drawing so heavily 00:18:40.109 --> 00:18:42.670 on it? The altars, the relics, the confessionals. 00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:45.339 Because I think he needed to reclaim the aesthetic 00:18:45.339 --> 00:18:47.940 power of that belief system. His critique is 00:18:47.940 --> 00:18:50.460 aimed squarely at the institution, not necessarily 00:18:50.460 --> 00:18:52.980 the spiritual impulse itself. He's repeatedly 00:18:52.980 --> 00:18:55.039 stated how the Catholic Church's complicity with 00:18:55.039 --> 00:18:57.339 Franco's Spain just horrified him. He's even 00:18:57.339 --> 00:18:59.599 apparently included actual quotes used by priests 00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:01.680 in concentration camps in some of his scripts, 00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:03.980 highlighting that terrible collaboration between 00:19:03.980 --> 00:19:06.500 religious and political oppression. So he essentially 00:19:06.500 --> 00:19:09.279 secularized his faith. He took the power, the 00:19:09.279 --> 00:19:11.380 feeling, the wonder, and transferred it into 00:19:11.380 --> 00:19:14.700 his art. Precisely. He believes that art and 00:19:14.700 --> 00:19:17.299 storytelling now serve those primal spiritual 00:19:17.299 --> 00:19:20.319 functions in his own life. And this brings us 00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:23.180 right to the absolute core nugget of his entire 00:19:23.180 --> 00:19:26.240 worldview, the famous insight that really defines 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:29.200 every single protagonist he's ever created. That 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:32.720 line, monsters are the patron saints of imperfection. 00:19:32.910 --> 00:19:35.910 That phrase is practically a theological manifesto 00:19:35.910 --> 00:19:38.470 for him. He explains that he found it utterly 00:19:38.470 --> 00:19:41.369 impossible to reconcile the Catholic dogma of 00:19:41.369 --> 00:19:43.710 needing to exist in a perfect state of grace 00:19:43.710 --> 00:19:47.089 with his own much darker, messier view of humanity 00:19:47.089 --> 00:19:49.509 and of himself. So the monster offers another 00:19:49.509 --> 00:19:52.170 path. An alternative path to salvation, exactly. 00:19:52.250 --> 00:19:54.710 The monster, the deformed, the creature. They 00:19:54.710 --> 00:19:57.190 demonstrate that being flawed, being other, isn't 00:19:57.190 --> 00:19:59.589 a punishment. It's actually a powerful, even 00:19:59.589 --> 00:20:02.190 noble state of existence. It provides, in his 00:20:02.190 --> 00:20:05.470 work, words, a deep cleansing allowing for imperfection. 00:20:05.490 --> 00:20:07.509 That's really profound. It means the monster 00:20:07.509 --> 00:20:09.369 isn't the thing to be beaten, it's the actual 00:20:09.369 --> 00:20:12.509 object of redemption. Exactly, and you see this 00:20:12.509 --> 00:20:15.650 Catholic symbolism consciously co -opted even 00:20:15.650 --> 00:20:17.650 in his most acclaimed film, The Shape of Water. 00:20:18.549 --> 00:20:20.690 He's noted that the film deliberately deploys 00:20:20.690 --> 00:20:23.980 a very Catholic notion where A humble force, 00:20:24.140 --> 00:20:26.480 the force of humility embodied by Elisa, the 00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:29.700 mute cleaner, is the only one capable of recognizing 00:20:29.700 --> 00:20:32.240 the godlike nature of the creature. And she's 00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:34.099 granted grace because of it. And subsequently 00:20:34.099 --> 00:20:37.400 granted grace, yes. And the amphibian man himself 00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:40.960 residing in water, it's an echo of the fish, 00:20:41.140 --> 00:20:44.359 right? A hugely powerful early Christian symbol. 00:20:44.660 --> 00:20:46.900 So he takes the visual language of his upbringing, 00:20:47.500 --> 00:20:50.440 maybe even his trauma. and repurposes it to speak 00:20:50.440 --> 00:20:52.539 against the very systems that might have caused 00:20:52.539 --> 00:20:55.200 that trauma. Perfectly put, and this duality, 00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:57.420 this complexity, it even extends to how he views 00:20:57.420 --> 00:20:59.880 his own mortality. How so? Well, he maintains 00:20:59.880 --> 00:21:02.000 his atheism quite firmly. I don't think there 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:04.759 is life beyond death, I don't, but he holds onto 00:21:04.759 --> 00:21:06.660 this kind of spiritual hope for the very final 00:21:06.660 --> 00:21:09.339 moment. Oh. He believes that in the very last 00:21:09.339 --> 00:21:11.859 minute of our lives, we achieve this absolute 00:21:11.859 --> 00:21:15.220 clarity, a sudden complete realization of who 00:21:15.220 --> 00:21:18.259 we truly are and what we've done, and that ultimate 00:21:18.910 --> 00:21:21.269 unavoidable moment of human truth, he says, will 00:21:21.269 --> 00:21:24.950 either grant you profound peace or the most tremendous 00:21:24.950 --> 00:21:28.829 overwhelming fear. Wow. And that quest for finding 00:21:28.829 --> 00:21:32.230 peace in our flawed selves, that informs every 00:21:32.230 --> 00:21:35.230 imperfect soul he puts on screen. OK, let's shift 00:21:35.230 --> 00:21:37.329 gears a bit now to his more recent accomplishments. 00:21:37.730 --> 00:21:39.750 We need to look at his late career successes, 00:21:40.009 --> 00:21:42.490 particularly this pivot toward animation, which 00:21:42.490 --> 00:21:44.329 now seems like it's going to dominate his future 00:21:44.329 --> 00:21:46.759 work. Yeah, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, which 00:21:46.759 --> 00:21:49.960 came out in 2022. It was a massive triumph, obviously, 00:21:50.279 --> 00:21:52.279 but it was a real passion project, something 00:21:52.279 --> 00:21:54.200 that had been languishing in development hell 00:21:54.200 --> 00:21:57.619 for over a decade. And his version completely 00:21:57.619 --> 00:21:59.980 transformed the classic tale, didn't it? Setting 00:21:59.980 --> 00:22:02.480 it during the rise of Mussolini. Exactly. Setting 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:04.799 it in fascist Italy during the rise of Benito 00:22:04.799 --> 00:22:06.859 Mussolini. And again, that choice of setting 00:22:06.859 --> 00:22:09.180 is absolutely not arbitrary. It ties directly 00:22:09.180 --> 00:22:12.140 back to his core thematic hatred of authoritarianism. 00:22:12.420 --> 00:22:15.619 Making the wooden boy a symbol of resisting state 00:22:15.619 --> 00:22:18.259 control. Resisting state indoctrination, yeah. 00:22:18.680 --> 00:22:21.740 And the success was undeniable. It nailed the 00:22:21.740 --> 00:22:24.339 best animated feature award at the Oscars that 00:22:24.339 --> 00:22:27.740 year. Huge win for stop motion. Huge. And that 00:22:27.740 --> 00:22:30.019 triumph seems to have set the stage for what 00:22:30.019 --> 00:22:32.400 he views as a kind of thematic and aesthetic 00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:35.839 closure. His next big project, the one everyone's 00:22:35.839 --> 00:22:38.279 waiting for, is the live -action Frankenstein 00:22:38.279 --> 00:22:42.539 film for Netflix. Probably 2025. Frankenstein. 00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:45.440 That feels like the ultimate GDT project. It 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:47.839 really does. And he stated that this film closes 00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:50.640 the cycle. A specific aesthetic, a rhythm, a 00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:52.839 type of empathy that he feels he's been pursuing 00:22:52.839 --> 00:22:56.660 relentlessly since Kronos, way back in 93. After 00:22:56.660 --> 00:22:58.779 Frankenstein, he says, he feels he needs to do 00:22:58.779 --> 00:23:01.000 something very different. And that something 00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:03.539 very different involves a pretty fundamental 00:23:03.539 --> 00:23:06.000 shift in his career focus, right? He's planning 00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:07.980 to step away from live action. Largely, yeah. 00:23:08.089 --> 00:23:10.269 He recently announced plans to leave live action 00:23:10.269 --> 00:23:12.289 filmmaking after maybe one or two more projects 00:23:12.289 --> 00:23:15.009 and focus almost exclusively on animation moving 00:23:15.009 --> 00:23:17.069 forward. What's driving at? Is it just frustration 00:23:17.069 --> 00:23:19.509 with the studio system? Well, the motivation 00:23:19.509 --> 00:23:21.549 seems complex. Part of it definitely sounds like 00:23:21.549 --> 00:23:24.250 frustration with the industrial machine. He openly 00:23:24.250 --> 00:23:26.269 admitted that five of his live action projects 00:23:26.269 --> 00:23:28.650 got turned down by studios in just two months 00:23:28.650 --> 00:23:32.109 recently. Five projects. Wow. Yeah. But, you 00:23:32.109 --> 00:23:33.930 know, I might challenge the idea that it's purely 00:23:33.930 --> 00:23:37.150 rejection driving him. Del Toro is so fundamentally 00:23:37.150 --> 00:23:40.009 a craftsman. Maybe animation, particularly the 00:23:40.009 --> 00:23:42.210 incredibly painstaking work of stop motion, is 00:23:42.210 --> 00:23:44.769 the only medium left where he feels he retains 00:23:44.769 --> 00:23:47.950 that full hands on meticulous craft that he craves. 00:23:48.089 --> 00:23:51.269 That commitment to the physical, the real, clearly 00:23:51.269 --> 00:23:54.609 bleeds into his very strong, highly skeptical 00:23:54.609 --> 00:23:56.849 views on artificial intelligence and filmmaking. 00:23:57.230 --> 00:23:58.930 He talked about this very recently, September 00:23:58.930 --> 00:24:01.900 2024. Oh, he's incredibly protective of the art 00:24:01.900 --> 00:24:04.960 form against automation. His critique of AI output 00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:07.880 is just scathing. He dismisses it as basically 00:24:07.880 --> 00:24:11.619 semi -compelling screensavers. Yeah. He argues 00:24:11.619 --> 00:24:14.240 that AI fundamentally lacks the necessary ingredients 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:18.089 of true human art. The risk, the failure, the 00:24:18.089 --> 00:24:20.930 visible, tangible human effort that's required 00:24:20.930 --> 00:24:23.089 to create something that can genuinely make a 00:24:23.089 --> 00:24:25.029 viewer cry because they lost a son, a mother, 00:24:25.390 --> 00:24:27.529 that human connection. And he sees it as a threat 00:24:27.529 --> 00:24:29.710 because of the philosophy behind the people pushing 00:24:29.710 --> 00:24:32.890 it. Absolutely. He views AI as being primarily 00:24:32.890 --> 00:24:34.990 in the hands of people who see it as a solution, 00:24:35.190 --> 00:24:38.089 a way to cut costs, streamline production, replace 00:24:38.089 --> 00:24:41.410 human ingenuity, and crucially, human craft. 00:24:41.490 --> 00:24:43.930 Which is completely counter to his entire ethos. 00:24:44.029 --> 00:24:46.880 It's anathema to guy who spent 10 years learning 00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.839 practical makeup from Dick Smith. For del Toro, 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:52.299 art is defined by the struggle, the effort, the 00:24:52.299 --> 00:24:54.819 imperfection. If that struggle is eliminated 00:24:54.819 --> 00:24:57.619 by some mechanized solution, then the result, 00:24:57.619 --> 00:25:00.299 for him, ceases to be meaningful art. So the 00:25:00.299 --> 00:25:02.740 move towards animation, this medium of almost 00:25:02.740 --> 00:25:05.380 excruciating frame -by -frame effort. It feels 00:25:05.380 --> 00:25:08.279 like the ultimate artistic rejection of algorithmic 00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:10.960 ease. It's doubling down on craft. Okay, beyond 00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:13.819 the screen, Guillermo del Toro is just, well, 00:25:14.019 --> 00:25:17.019 a fascinating figure. An incredibly expansive, 00:25:17.160 --> 00:25:23.470 almost maniacal He is the ultimate cinephile, 00:25:23.490 --> 00:25:26.130 isn't he? And an accumulator of knowledge. He's 00:25:26.130 --> 00:25:28.490 confessed to watching, on average, three films 00:25:28.490 --> 00:25:31.609 a day. Three a day? How does he have time? I 00:25:31.609 --> 00:25:34.349 have no idea. But his devotion to cinema goes 00:25:34.349 --> 00:25:37.170 way back, back to his student days when the very 00:25:37.170 --> 00:25:39.490 first book he ever published was a biography 00:25:39.490 --> 00:25:41.930 of Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock. Interesting first 00:25:41.930 --> 00:25:43.769 choice. What does that tell us? Well, Hitchcock 00:25:43.769 --> 00:25:47.029 is a master craftsman, right? A storyteller obsessed 00:25:47.029 --> 00:25:50.609 with guilt, institutional failure, the psychological 00:25:50.609 --> 00:25:53.609 weight of the unseen, themes that clearly run 00:25:53.609 --> 00:25:56.009 parallel to Del Toro's own obsessions. Makes 00:25:56.009 --> 00:25:57.750 sense. And if you look at his favorite film lists, 00:25:57.789 --> 00:26:00.230 it's not just horror. It's this brilliant mix 00:26:00.230 --> 00:26:02.630 of the psychologically complex, and the formerly 00:26:02.630 --> 00:26:06.549 perfect. His 2022 site and sound poll list included 00:26:06.549 --> 00:26:09.569 Fellini's surreal Eight and Half, Kubrick's incredibly 00:26:09.569 --> 00:26:12.650 precise Barry Lyndon, and yeah, genre classics 00:26:12.650 --> 00:26:15.049 like Bride of Frankenstein, but also modern crime 00:26:15.049 --> 00:26:17.430 sagas like Goodfellas and No Country for Old 00:26:17.430 --> 00:26:21.269 Men. eclectic, but refined taste. And naturally, 00:26:21.569 --> 00:26:23.930 he has his own personal pantheon of favorite 00:26:23.930 --> 00:26:26.829 monsters. Oh, absolutely. Starting with his proclaimed 00:26:26.829 --> 00:26:29.990 unhealthy Frankenstein fetish. Mary Shelley's 00:26:29.990 --> 00:26:32.750 novel is arguably the single most important text 00:26:32.750 --> 00:26:35.549 in his life. It informs his entire philosophy 00:26:35.549 --> 00:26:37.710 of the misunderstood creature. The ultimate outsider. 00:26:37.970 --> 00:26:40.490 Exactly. His other beloved outsiders include 00:26:40.490 --> 00:26:43.210 the sleek biological terror of the xenomorph 00:26:43.210 --> 00:26:46.859 from Alien. the noble Gilman from Creature from 00:26:46.859 --> 00:26:49.640 the Black Lagoon, the sheer scale and power of 00:26:49.640 --> 00:26:52.140 Godzilla, and the transformative body horror 00:26:52.140 --> 00:26:54.740 terror of John Carpenter's The Thing. They're 00:26:54.740 --> 00:26:57.420 all figures of transformation, alienation, and 00:26:57.420 --> 00:26:59.640 otherness. And his personal environment, his 00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:02.299 houses, they reflect this obsessive nature, right? 00:27:02.299 --> 00:27:04.339 He organizes his world around his collections. 00:27:04.579 --> 00:27:07.559 He is a true dedicated collector. He owns not 00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:10.980 just one, but two separate houses dedicated exclusively 00:27:10.980 --> 00:27:13.059 to storing his massive accumulation of books, 00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:16.049 poster art, action figures, props, artifacts. 00:27:16.490 --> 00:27:19.289 He collectively calls it his bleak house. Bleak 00:27:19.289 --> 00:27:22.089 house after Dickens. After Dickens, yeah. It's 00:27:22.089 --> 00:27:25.990 like this immersive living museum of all his 00:27:25.990 --> 00:27:27.789 influences and obsessions. These collections 00:27:27.789 --> 00:27:29.789 are highly specialized, aren't they? They reveal 00:27:29.789 --> 00:27:32.589 these deep thematic interests. We know about 00:27:32.589 --> 00:27:34.650 his dedicated space called the Dickens Room. 00:27:34.910 --> 00:27:37.670 That room apparently houses every single work 00:27:37.670 --> 00:27:41.009 by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and literally 00:27:41.009 --> 00:27:43.569 hundreds of volumes dedicated just to Victorian 00:27:43.569 --> 00:27:46.470 London. This immersion in the 19th century is 00:27:46.470 --> 00:27:48.809 critical. Why Victorian London specifically? 00:27:49.009 --> 00:27:51.450 Well, think about it. That period is the root 00:27:51.450 --> 00:27:54.170 of the Industrial Revolution, institutionalized 00:27:54.170 --> 00:27:57.549 poverty, the rise of forensic science, all themes 00:27:57.549 --> 00:28:00.609 he constantly explores. And crucially, his interest 00:28:00.609 --> 00:28:03.750 in this era includes being a self -proclaimed 00:28:03.750 --> 00:28:07.160 Jack the Ripper aficionado. This fascination 00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:09.740 with an unseen killer who targeted the marginalized 00:28:09.740 --> 00:28:12.180 and exposed the utter failure of institutional 00:28:12.180 --> 00:28:15.319 control, the police, the government, it aligns 00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:18.519 perfectly with his lifelong hatred of institutionalized 00:28:18.519 --> 00:28:20.799 horror and power structures. So his collecting 00:28:20.799 --> 00:28:23.480 isn't just like fanboy culture, it's almost an 00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:26.259 academic pursuit that directly feeds his creative 00:28:26.259 --> 00:28:29.059 engine. Absolutely. And while he's clearly drawn 00:28:29.059 --> 00:28:32.700 to classic literature and cinema, he also champions 00:28:32.700 --> 00:28:35.880 modern storytelling mediums. He's a really passionate 00:28:35.880 --> 00:28:38.559 advocate for video games. Really? Yeah. He calls 00:28:38.559 --> 00:28:41.980 them the comic books of our time and notes, quite 00:28:41.980 --> 00:28:44.299 rightly, that they're a medium that gains no 00:28:44.299 --> 00:28:47.160 respect among the intelligentsia. He often points 00:28:47.160 --> 00:28:49.819 to games celebrated for their artistry and emotional 00:28:49.819 --> 00:28:52.839 depth, citing things like ICO and Shadow of the 00:28:52.839 --> 00:28:55.980 Colossus as genuine masterpieces. That's great 00:28:55.980 --> 00:28:58.000 to hear. championing games like that. It is. 00:28:58.119 --> 00:29:00.140 And finally, there's this great detail that just 00:29:00.140 --> 00:29:02.660 speaks volumes about his character and his connection 00:29:02.660 --> 00:29:06.000 to Mexico despite his exile. How's that? Back 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:09.039 in 2019, the Mexican government suspended funding 00:29:09.039 --> 00:29:11.480 for the student teams who were meant to attend 00:29:11.480 --> 00:29:13.980 the International Mathematical Olympiad. Oh, 00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:16.799 no. So del Toro just stepped in. Without hesitation, 00:29:17.240 --> 00:29:19.759 he personally used his own money to pay for the 00:29:19.759 --> 00:29:21.839 flights for the entire Mexican team, ensuring 00:29:21.839 --> 00:29:24.440 they could attend and compete. Wow, that's incredible. 00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:27.259 It was this remarkable act of philanthropy and 00:29:27.259 --> 00:29:29.420 just real support for the next generation of 00:29:29.420 --> 00:29:31.880 Mexican talent. It proves that while he might 00:29:31.880 --> 00:29:34.779 be geographically exiled, his civic commitment, 00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:38.299 his connection remains incredibly strong. Wow. 00:29:38.359 --> 00:29:40.400 OK, so this has been an essential deep dive, 00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:43.339 I think, into a creator who is just defined by 00:29:43.339 --> 00:29:45.740 these productive contradictions. He's a strict 00:29:45.740 --> 00:29:48.480 atheist who uses the symbolic way to Catholicism 00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:51.660 to argue against abuses of power. He's an international 00:29:51.660 --> 00:29:54.029 filmmaker who despises corporate structure. And 00:29:54.029 --> 00:29:56.890 he's a devotee of the physical, the sometimes 00:29:56.890 --> 00:29:59.690 grotesque, who views monsters as the ultimate 00:29:59.690 --> 00:30:02.349 figures of hope and grace. Yeah, his whole career 00:30:02.349 --> 00:30:04.769 feels like the physical manifestation of this 00:30:04.769 --> 00:30:07.529 single, deeply personal philosophy. A philosophy 00:30:07.529 --> 00:30:10.289 forged in the fires of creative loss, like with 00:30:10.289 --> 00:30:13.769 omnivore, industry conflict like Mimic, and devastating 00:30:13.769 --> 00:30:16.390 personal trauma. That 72 -day kidnapping that 00:30:16.390 --> 00:30:18.890 led to his involuntary exile. And he applied 00:30:18.890 --> 00:30:22.210 that same philosophy equally to Oscar -bait historical 00:30:22.210 --> 00:30:25.769 fantasies and ma - monster versus robot blockbusters. 00:30:25.930 --> 00:30:28.309 He reached the absolute heights of mainstream 00:30:28.309 --> 00:30:31.569 acclaim with the shape of water. And proved the 00:30:31.569 --> 00:30:34.470 artistic legitimacy again of frame by frame animation 00:30:34.470 --> 00:30:36.849 with Pinocchio. And his commitment now is shifting 00:30:36.849 --> 00:30:39.589 definitively it seems toward the craft and risk 00:30:39.589 --> 00:30:43.109 of handmade creation explicitly rejecting the 00:30:43.109 --> 00:30:46.069 easy mechanized solution of AI. He's digging 00:30:46.069 --> 00:30:48.950 his heels in for the human element. So we leave 00:30:48.950 --> 00:30:51.130 you the listener with this final provocative 00:30:51.130 --> 00:30:53.960 thought to mull over. Since Guillermo del Toro 00:30:53.960 --> 00:30:56.480 has explicitly stated that his upcoming Frankenstein 00:30:56.480 --> 00:30:59.980 film closes the cycle on the specific aesthetic 00:30:59.980 --> 00:31:02.500 and rhythm he's pursued since Kronos, what comes 00:31:02.500 --> 00:31:06.119 next? If his monsters are universally the patron 00:31:06.119 --> 00:31:08.880 saints of imperfection, and he is now choosing 00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:12.279 to limit himself primarily to the excruciating, 00:31:12.519 --> 00:31:15.019 meticulous labor required of stop -motion animation, 00:31:15.740 --> 00:31:18.319 what new, maybe very different forms of beautiful, 00:31:18.539 --> 00:31:20.539 flawed humanity will emerge from this workshop. 00:31:20.700 --> 00:31:23.539 What kind of refined, perhaps even more empathetic 00:31:23.539 --> 00:31:26.059 monster will he need to create when the medium 00:31:26.059 --> 00:31:29.700 itself demands that absolute, pure, risk -laden 00:31:29.700 --> 00:31:31.839 frame -by -frame craft? What does the monster 00:31:31.839 --> 00:31:34.279 look like after the cycle closes? Something to 00:31:34.279 --> 00:31:35.859 think about. Thank you for joining us on this 00:31:35.859 --> 00:31:37.119 deep dive. We'll see you next time.