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 Banner by Wes Vance |
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Guillermo del Toro has emerged over the past fifteen years as a top talent in direction, not just for horror, but for all genres. It just so happens that del Toro is most loyal to the genre he loves. From CRONOS to THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE to HELLBOY, del Toro has made a career of thought provoking, edge of your seat, scary blockbusters that also heighten the emotions and make for brilliant storytelling. Last year, del Toro received his first Oscar nomination for PAN'S LABRYNTH, his best work to date. It's no surprise that del Toro, whose themes of children at times of horror, would produce THE ORPHANAGE and lend support to newcomer Juan Antonio Bayona. While recently wrapping production on HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY, which comes out July 2008, del Toro took the time to talk about his latest release as a producer to the Crypt and others in a discussion on why THE ORPHANAGE appealed to him and the unique tale of how he met Juan Antonio Bayona. The following are highlights from that discussion.
So what’s the difference between producing a flim and presenting a film and why did you choose to present this film? GUILLERMO DEL TORO: The way I say it is that producing is like dating and presenting is like marriage. No matter what disagreements may happen down the line, the kid (the film) is going to carry your name for the rest of your life. The reality of the commitment which always seems easy in retrospect, it’s a huge commitment when there’s no movie and you have a script and a director, who knows what can come out of those. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s bad. This was the first time that I committed to presenting a movie because I felt it was that sure an event. My presentation credit was committed into production and it was non-conditional, which meant if the movie came out and it was an absolutely revolting piece of crap, I would still have to have Guillermo del Toro presents. That’s how much I believed in the project. What moved you to do that? GDT: The last turn of the movie because everything thematically that has been threaded through the movie; not seeing is not believing, believing is seeing, what is a ghost, all these threads transformed so nicely into an emotional payoff in the last ten minutes. I cried when I read the screenplay and I still cry every time I see the movie. I’m going to start going to the ballet because I really have discovered an incredibly sensitive side of myself. How did you meet Juan Antonio? GDT: There’s a couple of truly bizarre stories but we met in 1992 or 1993. He was either a reporter or was pretending to be a reporter while I was promoting CRONOS. I believe he was a fake. He started asking really good questions and I asked if he wanted a cup of coffee and he agreed so we talked and he said that he did short films. He showed me some of the stuff that he was doing. We maintained contact throughout the years and I always admired his short films. At THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE we met again and he asked if I wanted to help him on a feature I said “Absolutely” but there was no script. Then at PAN’S LABRYNTH I was in the early stages of pre-production and he came and gave me the screenplay for THE ORPHANAGE. In between, there was a really freaky story. There was a guy that was using his short films, passing them out as his own. They were the new short films and the new videoclips that Juan was doing, so I didn’t know. This guy showed up and showed me the films and I thought he had some talent, so I hired him to do the storyboards for BLADE II. And then he was revealed to be a complete fake and I realized that I liked the short films without even knowing they were Juan Antonio’s, so I wanted to help the filmmaker even though I didn’t know at the time they were his. Was he a good storyboard artist? GDT: No. (Laughter) Truly, if you saw Spielberg’s CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, that was this guy. Depending on the day you talked to him, he was a musician, a neurosurgeon, everything and he was pretty good at faking everything. It’s a long story but one day it will be told. How did you know that the films were Juan Antonio’s? GDT: Because he was stealing from other people too. He stole three different director’s short films. One day this guy actually landed a directing gig with that reel and he was in the middle of making a direct to video movie in Canada when one of the real directors went and showed his film at Cannes to a production company and the production company said “You’re kidding me. This short is directed by a guy who is making our direct to video film for us in Canada.” He insisted that it was his and the production company said “No it’s not yours, you should be ashamed of yourself” and then it was like a domino. They called the guy and he broke out crying on the set in Canada saying “I know I faked it” and the call went all the way through me. This movie has many similar themes to your own films. How much input did you give to Juan Antonio and Sergio? GDT: I read the screenplay. Everything you see in the movie was already there. I guess I reacted to the fact that the movie postulates everything I believe which is that believing is seeing and that you can will the world to be the place that you inhabit, and that faith is stronger than destiny so there are many threads, the analysis of what is a ghost, things I really find compatible. I said to Juan Antonio that I needed to meet with Sergio and we need to talk, the three of us before I commit. So we met and I gave them ten suggestions, and they refused six. Four stayed in the movie. I really liked the way they had a chemistry together. I realized that they have a very clear vision of what they wanted to do so it was out of those suggestions that I got really interested in doing it because I felt these guys are really onto something they believed in. The ideas or anything I came up, it’s an honor that it stayed in the movie but the creation was all there already. Over the last couple of years, there were good films that didn’t see the light in a commercial sense. Was it important to you to get involved in order to give the film that kind of exposure? GDT: I think that if anything that’s why it was important for the movie that I could act as a bodyguard or a godfather to really push open doors financially in terms of access and ultimately in terms of exposure. There were a couple of moments where it was easier to get a door kicked on a festival if I was godfathering it or it was easier to get a distributor to really look at it. Those are moments where you feel useful as a producer or getting the budget or getting an actor. What was really important for me is that it didn’t come out as a horror commercial product that was done without any finesse and I really knew Juan Antonio and Belen and Sergio were onto something special. Were there any moments where on set you felt want you wanted to meddle into the film and take over as a more experienced director and have there been any cases of that in the films you produce? GDT: No but there have been cases like that in the past. What films? GDT: I’d rather not say but I always believe at the end of the day, it is the director’s decision. I can only push so far because I believe the director is the ultimate arbitrator. In the case of this movie there was never a single time where that happened. The only time was in post where I thought the sound mix on the scares was a little too loud. It was louder than what is in there now. I told them that the movie really works, don’t make it so hyper? Did they agree with you instantly? GDT: They actually did because I believe they did because I think an eardrum was busted during a screening. I think other than that, the movie is completely the merit of those guys. There have been instances in the past in producing where you step in and I always say at the end of the day with any benign producer working with me I remember saying to them it’s your call. I remember when we showed BLADE II to New Line, I remember a meeting where Bob Shaye said “It’s really violent, it’s really disgusting, but if that’s how hardcore you want to go, we won’t change it.” I told him that’s how hardcore I want to go and he said “We won’t change it.” There were some people who wanted to make the violence less graphic and I told them that by doing that it would make the film more pernicious because it’s so over the top that it’s not serious violence. Splitting a guy in two is better than hearing the sound of him being cut in two, it’s less realistic. It seems that the mainstream critics seem to turn their nose at the horror genre and you seem to be the exception, as all of your films are universally praised. THE ORPHANAGE is at its core a horror film.What to you is the definition of horror and where do you see the genre heading? GDT: Well generically the definition of any film that would be labeled horror, in my mind it needs to have supernatural elements to it. People make the difference between terror and horror and it varies according to who you talk to but to me in order to really exist in that genre it needs the intervention of a supernatural element, imagined or not, it’s all the same to me. What I admired the most when I was growing was the work of those people that were threading acceptability as creators like David Cronenberg or George Romero who absolutely to me are socially important filmmakers in that genre. With THE ORPHANAGE, I wanted to introduce a new voice into the genre. I wanted to say “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to give you Juan Antonio Bayona and now I’m going to leave the stage.” And that’s all I’m doing. I’m saying this is a guy you should pay attention to, now let me get the fuck out of here. You’re also promoting an English language version of this film. Is Juan Antonio interested in directing this version or is he moving on? GDT: He’s moving on but we talked about it early on because I said to him when I came up with the ten ideas I said to him the other six I’ll save for when I do the remake. There is part of me that thinks there is other information in the tale. What would be a mistake was to try to screw with the movie to make it fit with what I thought. What I tried to do is give them complete freedom and having the chance of presenting a new version of it. Do you think this would work in English because there are a lot of foreign films, especially horror films that are adapted here with some not so great results? GDT: The thing is some stories have a template that is so universal that it is possible. One of those templates is a ghost story. A ghost story is almost like transporting a template that is universal. You have no problems. What you have to do which I try to do in the movies I produce is to bring the idiosyncrasies of the plays where you should. For example if you look at CHRONICLES, a film I produced a couple of years ago, it is a serial killer movie but it has all the idiosyncrasies of what would happen in an Ecuadorian serial killer movie. Would the bad guys be punished? Would the good guys be that good? When I see a good genre movie , I like those elements. When I saw the movie that the guy who did THE HOST, the movie he made before that, it was called MEMORIES OF MURDER. What I loved about that was it was completely Korean in its idiosyncrasies, the way they investigated the plot techniques, that is what makes a movie particular. If I just translate Spain for another geographic location, it would be a mistake, but if you really give it an American set of idiosyncrasies, it would be a wonderful movie. It seems that with THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE, HOUSE OF VOICES, and now with THE ORPHANAGE, that the orphanage is a theme in European film. GDT: HOUSE OF VOICES was produced by Christophe Gans right? Yes it was. GDT: Excellent film. I spoke to Christophe that when we were doing this the themes are similar but he didn’t mind that at all. He wished us well. Do you sense that the thematic setting is purely European though? GDT: I think there is certainly a European sense of horror, but you can see in many movies that have an artistic streak to them, a sense of composition, a sense of camera work that is far more aesthetically inclined. Then there is a propulsive headbanging horror that people associate normally with American horror and I think that’s a mistake. I think Romero is a very American filmmaker but he’s not a headbanger. Cronenberg is a guy who is very influenced by the European filmmaking but he’s an American filmmaker. He’s Canadian isn’t he? Yes. GDT: North American, so I’m still right (Laughter). Thank you for your time. GDT: Take care everybody and thank you.
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