Of the directors who carved their place into the history of cinema, Guillermo del Toro stands out as an inventive visionary, a master of the whimsical dread, and a father of monsters and curious creatures. His films are different from most in the fantasy genre, the result of multiple influences that have shaped the Mexican director over the years. Mr del Toro’s Lovecraftian accents and fatherly love for horror tale monsters are but two of the elements that have defined his cinematic art since before he even picked up his father’s Super 8 to film his own version of ‘Planet of the Apes’ (1968).

Starting with ‘Cronos’ (1993), his first feature-length movie, and going through ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ (2001), ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ (2006), to his more recent ‘Pacific Rim’ (2013), ‘Crimson Peak’ (2015), and ‘The Shape of Water’ (2017), it is easy to spot the director’s love of everything weird and spine-tingling. But if one wishes to truly understand Guillermo del Toro, one must first journey from his Guadalajara childhood all the way into Bleak House, his beloved museum of creepy, fantastic and otherworldly. There is plenty to unpack.

‘PAN’S LABYRINTH’ (2006), ©ESTUDIOS PICASSO/WILD BUNCH

Monsters, Cinema, Death

These are the three things that best describe del Toro’s imagination and its cinematic manifestations. In ‘At Home with Monsters: Inside His Films, Notebooks, and Collections’, the companion book to the eponymous Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibit from 2016, he writes: ‘When I was a child—a very young child—a hairline fracture became evident in my soul. I felt growingly disfranchised, puzzled, and at odds with the adult world. It was made up of rules and notions that were both alien and unexplained, and life came to feel like a rigged game. It was entirely composed of lies.’

As adults, we lie about almost everything—how much money we make, how tall we are, what our natural hair colour is, what our dreams are made of. We lie to others and we lie to ourselves, and yet we frown upon fantasy and consider it childish. It was this sense of creative injustice that fuelled del Toro’s love of stories ever since he was a little boy.

‘THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE’ (2001), ©EL DESEO/TEQUILA GANG

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1964, Guillermo del Toro was mostly raised by his Catholic grandmother. His childhood, which he frequently revisits in his films, was marred by repressed Catholicism and bullying classmates. It was saved by books, movies, and horror comics. He started drawing at a young age, much like the orphaned Jaime in ‘The Devil’s Backbone’, and he hasn’t stopped since. His notebooks are standalone works of art that have nurtured his imagination and have given birth to memorable monsters. It’s where he records ideas, lines of dialogue, various lists and images—food for his films, he’ll say.

His love of cinema comes from this period, too. He devoured pretty much any B-movie and horror film that he could find, as well as the more classical works from Alfred Hitchcock and Luis Buñuel. He loved the Universal monster movies that made it to Mexican television, and he voraciously consumed fan magazines. Del Toro taught himself English in order to understand the slang and puns of American periodicals like ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’.

A YOUNG GUILLERMO DEL TORO WITH RON PERLMAN

In his teenage years, he worked as a projectionist for his local cinema club, watching several movies every week and passionately discussing them with other cinephiles. It was Luis Buñuel’s ‘Los Olvidados’ (1950) that proved the art value of cinema to a young del Toro, his love of film only matched by his love of comic books. Moebius (Jean Giraud), Frank Frazetta and Richard Corben count as his earlier influences in illustration. This later transpired into adulthood through his work on two Hellboy films with Mike Mignola.

There are a couple of other elements that were absorbed into his cinematic work. One came in the form of James Whale’s ‘Frankenstein’ (1931), as del Toro identified with the outsider status of Boris Karloff’s confused and abused monster. He found in Frankenstein an eloquent analogy to his directorial approach, since his movies are collages of used, discarded and different source materials that were given new life and purpose.

BORIS KARLOFF AS ‘FRANKENSTEIN’ (1931)

Growing up in ‘60s and ‘70s Guadalajara, Guillermo del Toro had several disturbing confrontations with death, the second other seminal element. He saw corpses in the streets more than once, as well as in a morgue and in the catacombs beneath the local church. He was pummelled by the notion of the original sin and even subjected to the horrors of exorcism because of his grandmother, in a useless attempt to obliterate his obvious love of monsters and fantasy. Today, the director is an outspoken critic of institutional Catholicism, saying: ‘The fantastic is the only tool we have nowadays to explain spirituality to a generation that refuses to believe in dogma or religion.’

In his films, the prospect of immortality that is promised in Catholic doctrines as a reward for obeying the church is translated into an arrogant desire that ultimately leads to the self-destruction of those who chase such wild dreams. In the end and despite the array of both wonderful and terrible experiences, del Toro walked into adulthood with a clear sense of belonging in the world of horror fantasy. ‘I really think I was born to exist in the genre’, he says. ‘I adore it. I embrace it. I enshrine it. I don’t look upon it or frown upon it in a way that a lot of directors do. For me, it’s not a steppingstone, it’s a cathedral.’

ANGEL OF DEATH SCULPTURE, INSPIRED BY ‘HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY’ (2008)

Themes, Influences, Inspiration

In his films, del Toro often asks an interesting question: what happens when two opposing frameworks for understanding the world confront one another? Different protagonists fight against forces of disorder, struggling in their own way. Some refuse to admit the futility of this war, while others learn to accept chaos, emerging victoriously with greater powers of their own.

Colour plays an essential role in the way he communicates his cinematic vision. In an interview with Keith McDonald and Roger Clark, Guillermo del Toro points to Federico Fellini as a key influence. The Italian director once said: ‘When I transitioned into colour, I made a point of having the colour tell the story.’ Following in his footsteps, Mr del Toro applied similar purpose to colour in his movies. For example, he patterned ‘Cronos’ with the colours of the alchemical process—black, red, white, and gold, with an addition of water and fire elements into the overall canvas.

‘Colour gives you the key of the film in the same way that some songs are better in one key than another, and [the keys] define the genre of the song’, the director said.

‘CRONOS’ (1993), ©CNCAIMC/GRUPO DEL TORO

Many of del Toro’s creations feature children as central characters. They are witnesses, victims, or agents. Frequently, they are able to perceive alternate realities, producing unfiltered emotions in a way that adults cannot. Most importantly, the director refuses to shield his young protagonists from fear, abandonment, harm, or death. Well read in folklore and fable literature, del Toro insists that children cannot be protected, that they are vulnerable—and fairy tales often prove it. His films will sometimes reference classic illustrated editions of children’s stories from the 19^th century, with one instance being Ophelia in ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, who is dressed similarly to Alice in Wonderland as rendered by Arthur Rackham.

‘PAN’S LABYRINTH’ (2006), ©ESTUDIOS PICASSO/WILD BUNCH

Victoriana is a copious source of inspiration for Guillermo del Toro. The Victorian Period, loosely considered to cover the Romantic era and the Edwardian age, is thoroughly represented by Charles Dickens in the director’s mind. He named his beloved Los Angeles personal residence/museum of curiosities after the English writer’s ‘Bleak House’ novel. Houses in both Victorian novels and his films are endowed with pasts as complicated and unresolved as their inhabitants. Mr Dickens’s memorable melange of realism and fantasy is but one of his many influences that can be found across the whole span of del Toro’s work.

INSIDE BLEAK HOUSE, ©JOSHUA WHITE/JWPPICTURES.COM/LACMA

Filled with puzzles, talismanic items, secret keys and quests for forbidden knowledge, his films draw their strength from a vast collection on the topics of magic, witchcraft, and the occult. Many of his characters are scientists, whom he considers ‘contemporary successors to the monks and alchemists who explored the boundaries between the holy and the unholy’—this is brilliantly exemplified by the fourteenth-century alchemist who kickstarts the present-day action in ‘Cronos’ with his scarab-like device that gives immortality along with a thirst for blood.

Guillermo del Toro also cites H.P. Lovecraft as one of the key influences in his creative life, whose work is foundational to both the horror and science fiction genres. The American writer’s vivid expressions of madness, transformation and monstrosity have been the source of inspiration and frustration to numerous directors, and Mr del Toro is no exception. There is a smidge of Lovecraft in almost each of his films. ‘Lovecraft did something very interesting with the traditional Gothic and horror narrative. He brought a scientific and existential point of view to it’, says del Toro in his exhibition book.

LIFE-SIZE STATUE OF H.P. LOVECRAFT IN BLEAK HOUSE, ©CHRIS MOORE

However, it’s the freaks and the monsters that are the true building blocks of his films. To him, they’re all fascinating—the movie ones as much as those found in nature, literature, in myths and in art. ‘It’s either tragedy or superiority that makes a good monster’, del Toro notes. These creatures are beautiful and heroic in their individuality, and they are also mirrors of society’s hypocrisy. According to the director, ‘the conventional standards of perfection that surround us in commercial culture are corrosive, demonizing the imperfections that characterize us all.’

While he usually identifies with the tragic type of monster, Mr del Toro is equally skilled at creating truly horrifying and indestructible fiends, too. The creation process begins with him thinking of the monster as a character, not merely a mixture of terrifying elements or a force that impacts the plot in one way or another. The creature must be visually convincing from every single point of view. Most importantly, his monsters strive to be instantly recognizable, impossible to forget, and downright iconic.

Many of them have insect-like features and behaviours. They’re designed for survival, usually in an elegant manner, but they still manage to cause an emotional reaction of fear and revulsion in most people.

‘PACIFIC RIM’ (2013), ©WARNER BROS.

Bleak House

‘I built a house made of books, art, film, and monsters. A house of many stories: dark and stormy stories. A house with secret passages and sliding bookshelves and portraits that follow you as you walk by. I dreamt it all those years ago, alone in the dark, but I only got to build it at age forty-four’, Guillermo del Toro speaks fondly of his home. It inspired an extraordinary exhibition that could be admired at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Art Gallery of Ontario in recent years. Parts of his collections were taken from Bleak House and put on display for the whole world to see the creepy and wondrous things that make his mind click.

Bleak House isn’t just Guillermo del Toro’s residence. It is a cornucopia of objects, notebooks, maquettes, drawings, paintings, film concept art, and artefacts—assemblies of film memorabilia, art, and literature which he considers to be essential sources of inspiration. Bleak House feeds his very soul. These collections grow organically, not chaotically. Del Toro is precise and personally involved in the arrangement and curation of every object. There is purpose in this dedication, as Bleak House is crucial to his working process.

GUILLERMO DEL TORO IN BLEAK HOUSE WITH A LIFE-SIZE STATUE OF SCHLITZIE AND H.R. GIGER ORIGINAL ARTWORK, ©JOSH WHITE/JWPICTURES.COM

Life-size sculptures of Hans and Schlitzie from ‘Freaks’ (1932), Edgar Allan Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft are among the more memorable ‘residents’, along with a plethora of monster figurines, and portraits and/or miniatures of Forrest Ackerman, celebrated magazine editor and literary agent who once represented Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, giants of science fiction; makeup effects legend Dick Smith, whom the director studied under; and revered stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen.

The house is crafted into thematic sections, and there is an enormous head of Frankenstein’s monster adorning the foyer. A history section includes busts of magicians Harry Houdini, Howard Thurston, Chung Ling Soo, and Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. In the rain room, there is a life-size sculpture of Boris Karloff in chair as he’s transformed into Frankenstein’s monster by renowned horror makeup artist Jack Pierce. Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil from ‘The Exorcist’ (1973) is also present.

THE FOYER OF BLEAK HOUSE, ©JOSH WHITE/JWPICTURES.COM

One will find thousands of books, as well, of both fiction and non-fiction. Among his most prized possessions, Mr del Toro mentions the entire collection of ‘Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of the Supernatural’, a twenty-four volume set that was published in 1970, and which the director loved to pore over as a child. Alas, Bleak House is any fantasy and horror aficionado’s dream home.

Into the Future

Guillermo del Toro has recently finished penning the script for Disney’s upcoming ‘Pinocchio’ (2021) and ‘Nightmare Alley’ (2021), along with a sequel to ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ (2019). Mr del Toro has also found a certain joy in animation with ‘Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia’ (2016-2018), and he is currently moving ahead with ‘Wizards’, the third instalment of the Arcadia series.

For almost a decade, the director has struggled with a repeatedly cancelled adaptation of Lovecraft’s novella, ‘At the Mountains of Madness’, originally published in 1936. Refusing to surrender and constantly surrounded by portraits and busts of the writer at Bleak House, del Toro continues to plot and work on a way to bring this particular story to the silver screen.

GUILLERMO DEL TORO IN BLEAK HOUSE NEXT TO A LIFE-SIZE STATUE OF EDGAR ALLAN POE, ©JOSH WHITE/JWPICTURES.COM

Refusing distinctions between high and low culture, Guillermo del Toro is utterly unapologetic about what moves him in this life. Having found inspiration in the comics of Bernie Wrightson and Alan Moore, in TV shows like ‘The Twilight Zone’ (1959-1964) and ‘The Outer Limits’ (1963-1965), in the moving images of Federico Fellini and James Whale, and in the art of Francisco Goya and James Ensor, he uses his influences as instruments for crafting deeply philosophical themes.

Like an alchemist, del Toro takes these bits and pieces and transmutes them into incredible film worlds where monsters and innocents are given new purpose, driven by the very mystery and uncertainty that defines the human condition.

One of the few good things to come out of the coronavirus lockdown is a plethora of high-quality theatre, musicals and opera productions that are streamed for free by some of the most reputable arts venues in the world.

One such initiative came from the National Theatre, which has used its Youtube channel to stream some of the most memorable past theatre productions in the NT Live portfolio. Streaming a new play every Thursday at 7.00pm GMT, the productions are then available to watch on demand for seven days.

After kicking off their streaming programme on 2 April with Richard Bean’s ‘One Man Two Guvnors’, on 30 April came the turn of Danny Boyle’s critically acclaimed 2011 production of Mary Shelley’s iconic Gothic tale, Frankenstein. The play was streamed on two consecutive nights, highlighting stellar performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller who exchanged the roles of the Creature and Victor Frankenstein on each successive evening.

The writer, Nick Dear, and the director, Danny Boyle, moulded the play around the Creature’s point of view, stripping away the various thematic structures present in the book. They preserved a more linear form, choosing to focus on philosophical themes of existentialism, human tendencies and limitations. Perhaps a reflection of the Creature himself, whose sole desire in life is to be a good man and to have a mate to share his earthly existence with.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH AS THE CREATURE. © CATHERINE ASHMORE

Notwithstanding the reduced size of the story, it is still quite difficult to fathom how such darkness managed to come out of the mind of an eighteen-year-old young woman, at a time when science was just beginning to make significant strides and when unspoken of gruesome experimentations would take place behind closed doors.

However, galvanism was indeed a popular topic at the time and it must have been difficult to ignore the increasing popularity of mortsafes, which were invented to prevent body snatchers from desecrating graves in exchanges for a few quid from anatomists who would always be looking for fresh cadavers for their scientific observations and experiments.

The play opens with the Creature coming out of a metaphorical womb made out of skin in Frankenstein’s quarters, under Bruno Poet’s a thousand suspended bulbs. As he stumbles and struggles to stand up and keep his balance, he is carefully discovering his physical capabilities. His moves and trajectories seem to have been accurately directed.

SET LIGHTING BY BRUNO POET. © BRUNO POET

The contrast in Cumberbatch’s and Miller’s interpretations of the Creature is swiftly becoming apparent. While Cumberbatch’s Creature makes us root for him as he is rediscovering the world with the innocence of a child, Miller’s rebirth is raw and animalistic, almost having us expect evil doings on his part.

We see the Creature enthuse as he observes the sun, the grass, the birds around him with great curiosity. Nothing seems to await him on his journey but pure discovery and wonder.

The industrial theme of the times is introduced onto the stage by means of a steampunk train full of workers, a décor detail masterfully put together by the production’s set designer, Mark Tildesley.

Doomed to be abhorred by everyone who would set eyes on him, the Creature is quickly introduced to the harsh reality of human cruelness, as he is abused mentally and physically at every step.

He does, however, experience kindness for a brief period of time, as he comes across blind old De Lacey in his path, whose condition doesn’t discriminate against the Creature’s rough appearance. Wonderfully and warmly portrayed by Karl Johnson, the old man welcomes the Creature into his home and over the course of a year educates him on all things philosophy, history and the four seasons.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH AS THE CREATURE. © CATHERINE ASHMORE

One key moment in the play is when De Lacey teaches the Creature about the original sin. He says, ‘There are two schools of thought: one says that we’re all made imperfect and require the assistance of a higher authority, a deity to overcome the sin of being born. The other school of thought, to which I subscribe, insists that when we leave the womb we are pure. That a babe in arms is untainted by sin, that evil is the product of social forces and that God has nothing to do with how a man turns out; be it good or be it bad.’

In other words, if the Creature is a monster, it is only because he is met with cruelty and discrimination again and again till his patience runs out and he is forced to exercise vengeance. A monster on the outside, society shapes him into a monster on the inside.

This second school of thought is perhaps a clever mechanism to raise a mirror to our own society and show how each of our actions can prompt even greater reactions, should we be careless.

The play is not all gloomy though. Between the Creature’s sarcastic remarks, Frankenstein’s cluelessness vis-à-vis mundane matters and De Lacey’s witty remarks, the creators have managed to sprinkle this dark tale with unexpected humorous bits.

The main protagonists’ clever role-switching further accentuates the question that nearly every reader of Mary Shelley’s book has asked themselves over the past two centuries: ‘Who is the man and who is the monster?’ Perhaps their distinct interpretations of the Creature reflect the two contrasting schools of thought: one is born pure and the other a sinner. Miller’s Creature seems to subscribe to the latter, while Cumberbatch’s to the former.

Upon meeting the old man’s family, he is once again abused, which prompts him to burn down their house and kill everyone, including his benefactor. The Creature flees to find Frankenstein, having found clues as to his whereabouts in the diary he stole when he fled the scientist’s home.

JONNY LEE MILLER AND BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH. © CATHERINE ASHMORE

As he locates the Frankenstein family, the Creature’s twisted logic dictates that he murders William, Victor’s younger brother, in order to lure his mad maker to him. His plan works like a charm.

As Victor finds him, the Creature asks Frankenstein to build a mate for him, with the promise that once he does, the couple will leave Europe and no one will hear from them again.

Frankenstein obliges and travels to Scotland, leaving behind his patient betrothed Elizabeth (a most gentle Naomie Harris) and his father (a stern yet warm George Harris).

As Victor manages to construct a new creature, female in form this time, his firstborn is promptly besmitten with her and begs Frankenstein to bring her fully to life, explaining that he already loves her.

Another key moment is Victor’s reaction upon hearing the Creature’s detailed account of the physical symptoms of love. Both Frankenstein, and the audience, realise that the scientist himself is incapable of love, having spent his entire life obsessing over his work. He remarks that love is ‘anarchic, volatile, vertiginous, mad. Above all it is uncontrollable!’, perhaps also drawing a parallel between love and the Creature himself.

NAOMIE HARRIS AND JONNY LEE MILLER. © CATHERINE ASHMORE

As the Creature starts to realize that he’s been tricked, Victor hacks the girl’s body, ensuring she would never see the light of day.

Mad with anger, the Creature flees the small hut, only to return a while later on Victor’s wedding day. Managing to avoid a paranoid Frankenstein, who had been expecting his vengeful reappearance ever since, he sneaks into the couple’s bedroom where he meets Elizabeth. She is only the second person to show him understanding and kindness. However, the Creature is only interested in revenge at this point and pays Frankenstein back with the same coin by abusing and murdering his new wife.

Victor Frankenstein leaves his home once more in pursuit of the Creature, following him across continents. When he finally catches up with his creation in the Arctic Circle, they realize they are bound to one another and disappear together into the icy darkness.

National Theatre’s weekly streams are free to watch. However, if you can, please consider supporting the theatre through the coronavirus crisis by donating at nationaltheatre.org.uk or text NTATHOME 10 to 70085 to give £10.

National Theatre has just announced the next collection of plays to be streamed on their Youtube channel for free over the next few weeks.

Following the coronavirus lockdown that has seen theatres around the world lower their curtains indefinitely, National Theatre has launched a Youtube channel dedicated to streaming productions that had been previously screened in cinemas globally as a part of National Theatre Live.

They kicked off their exciting programme on 2 April with Richard Bean’s ‘One Man Two Guvnors’ featuring a Tony Award-winning performance from James Corden, followed by Sally Cookson’s stage adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Jane Eyre’, Bryony Lavery’s adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’, and ‘Twelfth Night’ featuring Tamsin Greig as Malvolia in Shakespeare’s classic comedy.

TOM HIDDLESTON IN CORIOLANUS. © JOHAN PERSSON

Following stellar performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller who exchanged the roles of the Creature and Victor Frankenstein on two consecutive nights (30 April and 1 May, respectively) in Danny Boyle-directed ‘Frankenstein’, Gillian Anderson and Tom Hiddleston are now headlining the next carefully-curated selection of plays.

The streaming schedule for the following weeks is as follows:

7 May – ‘Antony & Cleopatra’, starring Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo, and directed by Simon Godwin.

14 May – Inua Ellams’ ’Barber Shop Chronicles’, with Fisayo Akinade, Hammed Animashaun, Cyril Nri and Sule Rimi.

21 May – Tennessee Williams’ ’A Streetcar Named Desire’, directed by Benedict Andrews and starring Gillian Anderson as Blanche, Ben Foster as Stanley and Vanessa Kirby as Stella. Fun fact: this is the fastest-selling show in Young Vic history.

28 May – James Graham’s ‘This House’, directed by Jeremy Herrin, and featuring Phil Daniels, Reece Dinsdale, Charles Edwards and Vincent Franklin.

4 June – the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Coriolanus, staged by former Artistic Director Josie Rourke and starring Tom Hiddleston, Alfred Enoch, Deborah Findlay and Mark Gatiss.

Each production will be screened live every Thursday at 7.00pm GMT, and will then be available on demand for seven days.

GILLIAN ANDERSON IN A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. © JOHAN PERSSON

Even though all productions will be streamed for free, National Theatre encourages viewers to donate what they can via Youtube. The money donated will be shared with the co-producing theatre organisations of each stream, including the Donmar Warehouse, Fuel, Leeds Playhouse and the Young Vic, which will help support them during this difficult period of closure.

Lisa Burger, Executive Director and Joint Chief Executive said, ‘I’m delighted that in this next collection of titles to be streamed as part of National Theatre at Home we are including productions from our NT Live partner theatres. When we launched National Theatre at Home last month, we wanted to offer audiences the opportunity to engage with theatre during this time of isolation while we were unable to welcome them to the South Bank or into cinemas.

‘This initiative wouldn’t have been possible without the support of a great number of artists for which we are incredibly grateful. We have been absolutely thrilled by the response from viewers enjoying the productions from right across the globe, and we have also been surprised and delighted at the generous donations we’ve received since closure. Whilst the National Theatre continues to face a precarious financial future, we now feel able to make a payment to all artists involved, as we recognise a great many are also experiencing a particularly challenging time at this moment. While theatres across the world remain closed, we’re pleased that we can continue to bring the best of British theatre directly into people’s homes every Thursday evening.’