As a writer and director, Guillermo Del Toro infuses his works with his own heart and soul.
If you've ever watched one of his interviews -----or listened to his films' commentaries,
you've realized how much meticulous work goes into crafting his stories.
Every frame, every cut, every prop, every color and every character have a purpose,
a meaning.
He doesn't like exposition or longwinded dialogue, which is why his films' visuals are so important.
A picture says a thousand words, and so, every picture that Del Toro takes the time to paint,
conveys to us his intentions and his message.
One of the elements that he uses to tell his stories is often seen on film, and so, we
might take it for granted; especially when watching movies about war, conflict or monsters.
Violence.
Guillermo Del Toro has a specific way of portraying violence in his films----especially his more
personal, non-superhero films.
He tries to elicit certain reactions from the audience in order to connect with the
story in a deeper way.
In today's video, we will be looking at three of his movies in particular
and what they can teach us about his portrayal of violence.
Guillermo Del Toro recounts an occasion in which he was attempting to jump a fence.
While going over, he accidentally fell on one of the fence's spikes and it went right
through his armpit.
He couldn't believe how painful such a dumb injury could be.
When we get hurt in real life, it doesn't always look cool or glamourous.
Especially not the way it's often seen on tv or in movies.
Hollywood has conditioned us to seeing characters be blown up, get bruised or broken and then
just get up and fight in spectacular fashion, without a hint of pain or discomfort.
Action films show us people bleeding out of perfectly placed and aesthetically
pleasing scars without being hindered by the blood loss.
Guillermo Del Toro repeatedly states that he doesn't want "hero wounds" or what he refers
to as a "Bruce Willis cut or graze".
Having the characters onscreen barely feel getting hurt or looking cool doing it disconnects
the viewers from the severity of the violence because if there are no real consequences
to fighting, getting stabbed or shot, we'll feel safe.
Del Toro means for us to feel the characters' pain.
He wants us to wince and cringe, imagining how it would feel to get hurt in an awkward
non-perfect-Hollywood way.
Jacinto gets stabbed in the armpit, just like Del Toro's unfortunate past experience.
Galvez breaks his ankle during the escape attempt.
Vidal's cheek gets lacerated and later he gets shot on the other side of his face.
Dr. Hoffstetler gets shot though his cheek and then Strickland drags him while holding
on to the bullet hole.
Even in Crimson Peak, Thomas gets a similar treatment.
Del Toro makes his characters suffer but not to the extent of focusing on the gore, because
that's not the purpose.
Violence for the sake of violence would be missing the mark.
For example, in Pan's Labyrinth, when the doctor is about to amputate a leg, the camera
cuts away.
We don't see the stuttering man's torture either, only the results of it.
It wasn't necessary to the plot or to what the director wanted us to feel.
Guillermo Del Toro is adept at juxtaposing the harshness of the real world and horror
rooted in fantasy.
In the commentary for Pan's Labyrinth, he says that his goal was to make us more susceptible
to fantasy and in turn, the fantasy to make us more vulnerable to the brutality of the
movie.
The Devil's Backbone is a ghost story that occurs during the Spanish Civil War.
Pan's Labyrinth is a fairytale set in Spain during Franco's dictatorship.
The Shape Of Water is a monster/love story that happens during the Cold War.
All three films have supernatural elements set against the backdrop of a hostile and
uncertain world.
Even though the films have outlandish and otherworldly elements, the context in which
they exist still exerts an influence over the characters' everyday life.
As we saw before, getting injured hurts.
No one is safe from the real-world violence that is a natural part of war times.
It reveals the harshness of reality and how it affects the characters.
Dr. Casares is witness to executions in The Devil's Backbone.
The people who ran the orphanage all meet their doom.
Innocent children are hurt by the explosion and many die.
It's the same in Pan's Labyrinth.
War and disease reap many lives.
One of the film's most brutal scenes is actually an amalgamation of two real accounts.
One is the story of a man that didn't remove his hat when a fascist entered a grocery store
and so the fascist smashed the butt of his gun on the man's nose.
The other story is based on Guillermo Del Toro's past experience.
During a street brawl, he and his friends were getting beaten up.
While he was getting whipped with chains, he noticed that his friend was being beaten
with a bottle.
What surprised him the most was that the bottle didn't break.
In The Shape Of Water, the violence isn't as overt or ever-present.
It's implied through intimidation, threats and it is the consequence of betrayal.
It's very much a reflection of the secretive conflicts present in the Cold War.
Overall, the violence on screen shows us that the stakes are high.
Even those close to the protagonist aren't safe from the looming threat in their reality.
This leads us to realize that the film's main character might not survive the story, and
if they do, they won't make it out unscathed.
Carlos and the other boys might have survived the orphanage but they end up dying as nameless
soldiers in Pan's Labyrinth.
Ofelia is in danger of suffering the fate of the rebels.
Elisa risks being treated like the Russian spies.
The acts of violence are a constant reminder of the danger the protagonist is in.
We are therefore less inclined to predict how it will all end.
All three of the aforementioned films have clear antagonists.
It's not the ghost, nor the faun or the water creature, but men in positions of power: Jacinto,
Vidal and Strickland.
They are complex characters far removed from the big bad moustache twirling evil villains
we sometimes see in film.
Jacinto accidentally murders Santi and instead of addressing his mistake, he dumps the boy's
body in the well because he doesn't want to do anything that might jeopardize his chances
of stealing the secret stash of gold.
The kids' lives are expendable in his quest to getting what he feels he deserves.
He even kills Conchita, a woman he had feelings for, just to save face.
He uses violence to get what he wants.
Vidal is a military man.
He's meticulous, preoccupied by outward appearances, protocol and wants others to reflect his need
for precision and obey his words without question.
Even after torturing a man, he remains untouched by blood.
He uses violence and the threat of violence as a tool of suppression.
Once he is stabbed, we bear witness to his unflinching determination and persistence.
Strickland is a patriot.
He's loyal to his country.
He epitomizes the ideal of the American dream of the era.
He sees the use of violence and the threat of it as his own God-given right & responsibility
to maintain order.
Through his relentlessness, we are shown his fear of losing the respect and position that
he's worked so hard to achieve.
All three antagonists are eventually injured, maimed or disfigured.
Before blowing up the orphanage, Jacinto gets hit across the face; his nose is broken and
his right eye is bloodied.
During the movie, he's been shown as a person who sees the world differently from the others.
He sees it the way a fascist would.
His red eye is an indication that he's no longer hiding his worldview and is fully accepting
his murderous role.
Vidal is stabbed repeatedly and gets his cheek lacerated.
Del Toro describes it as a castration because Vidal's vanity has been attacked by a woman.
The director also mentions in the commentary that when Vidal sows his own wound, he becomes
the big bad wolf or the ogre.
The man who prided himself in looking slick and powerful died bloody and disheveled.
Strickland loses his fingers early on and has them re-attached.
Throughout the film we see the deterioration of his stability through his fingers' putrefaction.
The climax is when he confronts Zelda and her husband.
He isn't physically violent towards the couple, but he is intimidating.
They know that he could harm them.
Strickland willingly tears off his rotting digits, fully embracing his rage and revealing
how committed he is to his mission.
The antagonists' acts of violence show us their character but when they are recipients
of violent acts, their mutilated exterior matches their inner selves.
The facade is gone and we see them for the monsters they really are.
The way Guillermo Del Toro uses violence isn't meant to desensitize us but to make us relate
to the characters----to care about their situation and understand that it's not a given that
the good guys will win in the end.
He doesn't want to repulse us with blood, guts and gore, but draw us in, to empathize
with the hero and even understand the villain.
When making a film about conflict, the violence should not be extravagant and self-important.
It should be in the service of the characters and the story.
Violence reveals the true character of the person committing the act and the person receiving
it.
It can show us the inner fragility of the characters emboldening themselves with it
or the inner strength of the character rebelling against it, fully aware of the harsh consequences.
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Until next time.