Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo Del Toro
by Allen Faguaga

Guillermo Del Toro is a film director, screen writer, producer, and novelist born October ninth nineteen-sixty-four in Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico. He caught an interest for monsters as a young boy and also studied make-up and special effects with the legendary Dick Smith. He started off creating his own short films and working as a makeup supervisor and then he formed his own company (Necropia) & production company (The Tequila Gang). He has his own unique style and thinks outside the box when going about directing a film. One of the main actors Del Toro has directed include Ron Perlman such as in Blade two and Hell Boy one and two. Pacific Rim (2013) is Guillermo Del Toro’s newest work that tells a story of Earth being at war with Kaijus that emerged from an inter-dimensional portal on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

As a child Guillermo Del Toro was very intrigued by monsters and kaiju movies such as Godzilla, Gamera, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, and Rodan. Some of his favorite monsters include: Frankenstein’s monster, the Alien, Gil-man, Godzilla and the Thing. Kaiju movies gave him joy and he considers monsters to be symbols of great power. Guillermo says, “I fell in love with monsters because I love celebrating imperfection through really perfect images,” but he has a problem with the idea of perfection because he believes perfection is a fascist idea, an impossible idea, and yet he seeks perfection in displaying imperfection. Del Toro feels that “Kaiju’s are sort of the revenge of kids-because we are born into a world we don’t fit in, a world that is to big for us.” He also believes that, “Every deficiency we have in our social or personal behavior comes from a moment in our childhood” so he uses this in his movies such as in Pacific Rim when Mako faces the very monsters that took everything from her. He says this is because “I love to explore the idea of either conquering that fear or dealing with it very pointedly.”

In Guillermo’s work he has a creative out of the box type of style when going about creating the film. Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, and Federico Luppi are usually apart of the crew that Guillermo casts. Someone else Del Toro is known for working with usually is Guillermo Navarro a cinematographer. Del Toro is also known for having a dark feel in creating dark scenes such as in Blade Two and Hell Boy One & Two. Some symbols that Guillermo is known for using in his work include religious items and relics such as archangels. He often uses insect imagery or religious imagery and themes of Catholicism. In Del Toro’s movies major scenes are known to happen underground or underworld like areas such as sewers, large basements, and subways. Del Toro likes to use amber as a dominant color as noticed in Blade Two and Hellboy.

When creating Pacific Rim (2013) Guillermo’s newest work he first made the decision not to do a war movie, not a commercial and not a film that would promote recruitment media for the army. He says, “The first position was to focus on ingenuity, self sacrifice, intelligence, and the beautiful celebration of rust and decay.” Then his second position he says, “I don’t want to make the movie about the beginning of the war or when we are winning, I want to make the movie about when we are losing when we are the resistance, when we are against an oppressive force that is so big that all we have left is each other.” In his third position he discusses the language and avoiding using the language of the military, instead he made the decision to use the language of a western. As the director Del Toro focused on “big, beautiful, sophisticated visuals” and action that would satisfy an adult audience, but has stated his “real hope” is to introduce the kaiju and mecha genres to a generation of children.

Guillermo has been introduced and worked in many different genres, but he alternates from action and horror genre films. Some of the movies that Guillermo has directed include: The Devil’s Backbone (2001), Blade Two (2002), Hellboy (2004), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Hellboy Two (2008), and Pacific Rim (2013). The Devil’s Backbone is a Spanish-Mexican Gothic horror film about a 12 year old boy who has lost his father in the Civil War. Del Toro then went on to direct Blade Two casting Wesley Snipes & Ron Perlman in an American vampire superhero action film. Hellboy an American supernatural superhero film with Ron Perlman as Hellboy fighting the forces of darkness. Pan’s Labyrinth is a Spanish-Language dark fantasy film that involves the escape of a young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer into a fantasy world. He then returned along with Ron Perlman as Hellboy in another American supernatural superhero film when he directed HellBoy Two: The Golden Army. Pacific Rim his newest work is a science fiction monster film that involves two bodies in a special weapon going against kaijus that came from the pacific in an effort to save the world.

Guillermo Del Toro is a creative thinker, film director screen writer, producer, and novelist. Ron Perlman is one of the main actors that Guillermo often casts and likes to work with. He has had a passion for monsters since he was a child and sees them as symbols of great power which helps him in the process of creating his movies. Del Toro uses amber as a dominant color in his movies and uses insect and religious imagery helping set up themes of Catholicism. Guillermo has alternated from horror and action films and his movies cannot have a world wide effect, such as people can enjoy the movie and you wont hear about a giant kaiju attack. Guillermo Del Toro is a creative man motivated by the desire to achieve and not by the desire to beat others.

Work Cited

1. “‘Pacific Rim’ Director Guillermo Del Toro in Studio Q.”YouTube. YouTube, 11 July 2013. Web. 09 Sept. 2013.
2. “Guillermo Del Toro.”Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 09 Mar. 2013. Web. 09 Sept. 2013.
3. IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 09 Sept. 2013.
4. “Pacific Rim (film).”Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Sept. 2013. Web. 21 Sept. 2013.

Two Clips

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqwkzzpcdT4
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0npWmWUFyo
Pacific Rim Trailor (2013) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-ZcqwvQbas