“The Shape of Water” is being tapped as the definitive adult fairy-tale of our time. Guillermo del Toro is crossing over into icon status for his command of the fantasy genre with films like “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Crimson Peak” and “Pacific Rim.” Del Toro appeared as part of the TimesTalks ScreenTimes series to discuss “The Shape Of Water,” his personal goals as a filmmaker and why practice makes perfect.
Del Toro noted that development on ‘Shape’ started “about 6 years ago” and it is one of his favorites along with one of his earliest films, “The Devil’s Backbone.” del Toro is exceedingly committed to his craft and actively finds new ways to challenge himself as a filmmaker. “This film was the first time I could exhale. I asked myself, ‘What am I trying to say with this film? What am I doing differently?’ I wanted it to be like a song. It’s a love letter to love and cinema.” And while “The Shape of Water” is different than his past films, it still bears all the characteristics we have come to recognize as part of Guillermo del Toro’s breathtaking work.
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Del Toro went on to describe his personal motivations in film but in life in general. “[Film-making] is a funny thing, it’s a bad deal with the devil. You spend three years of your life working, for one line on IMDb,” he said. “…for you [the audience] it’s just a thing on your shelf, but for me it’s the brackets in which my life [exists].” Del Toro also said the films that mean the most to him are the ones that come after to him after crisis, “when I am on the edge of the edge and I jump, you know?” He specifically pointed to “The Devil’s Backbone” as saving his life following his horrific experience with Harvey Weinstein, Mirimax and Dimension Films on “Mimic.” The same holds true for one of his most revered films to date, “Pan’s Labyrinth” which “no one wanted to finance,” as well as this project which followed a “tumultuous” time in his life. “I just want people to know that it’s okay to be imperfect and it’s okay to belong to the people that love you.”
A serial optimist, del Toro approaches each project from a hopeful standpoint and has no regrets. Well, almost none. “I said no to things that were tremendous,” del Toro said. Dark Universe though, which del Toro said was generously offered to him by Universal didn’t pan out. “I repent on that one but I still have no regrets. You learn more from failure and mistakes than you do from success. Success is disorienting.” One can only be left to imagine what “The Mummy,” “Bride of Frankenstein,” and “Dracula” would’ve been with Guillermo del Toro at the helm of that franchise.
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Regardless, Guillermo del Toro is everywhere, with numerous projects in the works. “What many people don’t understand is the natural state of a project is for it not to happen. We [filmmakers] know that you can spend a ton of time writing screenplays and developing things and it may not happen.” With many of his projects he assesses that he spends maybe 1 1/2 to 2 years just in the design process. “I have written 25 screenplays and made 10 films. At this point I made so much visually that hasn’t happened that I tell my team ‘for every project that doesn’t get made we are practicing and honing our storytelling skills.’ What you learn serves you,” he explained.
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When asked about his influences del Toro replied, “an artist creates two things: mystery, which he or she cannot answer, and synthesis. We are the synthesis of all our experiences; it’s not about remaking anything. You distill it, reprocess it and something new comes out.” In terms of the”The Shape of Water” del Toro said, “I tried to shoot it in a way that celebrates the old way of shooting even though the story is new and different in many ways; the greatest [thing] is when the audience goes past photographic rendition to see something more.” Del Toro attests that this film celebrates both love and cinema, the influences of films like “The Red Shoes” in 1948 and “The Harder They Come” in 1972, “there’s a moment in which you recognize the visual rephrasing of Andy Warhol‘s work and that is what I tried to do with my films.” It is beyond evident that Guillermo del Toro is an artist, each film is a piece of resonant art that transcends photographic capture and in this sense he’s consistently achieved his goals.
“….the film is a story about love: love is understanding and not transformation,” the director add, expertly pointing out that a common trope in love stories is the fallacy that love requires some form of change. “There is a common theme in all my films and that is, ‘All we have is each other.’ ”
“The Shape Of Water” opens this weekend.