Cabinet of Curiosities

by Guillermo Del Toro

  He also built a conscious whimsicality into them. “What I love is the idea that the deepest stuff in these notebooks is the stuff that looks the quaintest, and the stuff that looks the deepest is the stuff that is much more playful and crazy and not necessarily meaningful.”

  In designing the notebooks, Guillermo was intent on rendering flaws into the weave, deliberate stains and blemishes. “In the end,” he says, “perfection is just a concept—an impossibility we use to torture ourselves and that contradicts nature. We pursue it—God knows we have to, as artists—but ultimately, like [Friedensreich] Hundertwasser says: A straight line is pure tyranny. In art, as in life, the love of imperfection is the perfect love.”

  More than valuable objects, mementos, or artworks, the notebooks possess an almost magical significance for Guillermo, who explains, “It’s really important in our life to have talismans. Everybody has one or two or three. In my case, I have dozens. You have to imbue things that surround you with power.”

  In this way, one of the notebooks played a direct role in perhaps the most important juncture of Guillermo’s career. “I lost the notebook at the end of shooting Hellboy, right before Pan’s Labyrinth. It was a very important moment because I was considering doing a big superhero movie. Avi Arad [then head of Marvel Studios] had seen pieces of Hellboy and had liked Blade II, and he offered me Fantastic Four. It was a big, big, big movie for me. And I was thinking, ‘Do I do Pan’s Labyrinth, or do I do Fantastic Four?’ And I was in London, and I left the notebook in a cab.

  “I always say everything that happens is a ciphered message. Like Freud said, ‘There’s nothing accidental.’ And I was thinking, Why did I lose the notebook? I spent all night meditating—I do transcendental meditation now and then—and I cried a lot. I really cried and cried and cried because these books are for my kids; I want my kids to have something from their father.

  “And finally I said, ‘I get it. It’s because I was about to lose myself. I’m going to do Pan’s Labyrinth.’ And at that moment, the phone rings, and it’s the cab driver bringing it back to the hotel. I had given him an address for a comic book shop in London, and he had seen the logo of the hotel on the piece of paper, and he remembered.”

  Guillermo continues to draw and write in the notebooks, and in truth, he does so for both his daughters and himself. “When I start a screenplay or a movie, a shoot, I carry all of them with me, and I browse through them because it’s like having a dialogue with a younger me. I see the stuff that was important to me at twenty-nine or thirty. I view them with great curiosity. ‘Oh, this kid was interested in this; this kid was interested in that. That’s funny.’ And ideas will spark that you wouldn’t have had before. At the end of one notebook, I made a list of what I was going to achieve in the next five years of my life. I was twenty-nine or thirty. I look back at it, and I have done all of that and more.”

  While the early notebooks record an avid mind capturing impressions and developing ideas in an exuberant, spontaneous way, the later ones are increasingly self-aware, done with the knowledge that others will ultimately scrutinize them. They have been crafted with precision, each page composed as its own work of art, although images and words are now often disconnected. “I do the drawings first,” Guillermo explains. “I write around them. These things are not chronologically intact.”

  The notebooks form a piece with Guillermo’s house and films, but they exhibit one key difference: With those other works of art, we see the end results brought fully to fruition, presented to us wholly formed, the edges neatly planed off. The notebooks are both process and product, expression and rumination. They are Guillermo’s creativity laid bare.

  In these notebooks, we see the private man and his stance toward a public world—processing problems and working out solutions, viewing present and future with guarded optimism and counterbalanced by painful experience. On these pages, Guillermo’s projects intermingle in the most intriguing ways. Mimic, Blade II, Hellboy, The Devil’s Backbone, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Pacific Rim all crash into each other. They bleed together, inform one another. It’s as if the toy shop came alive when the toy maker was sleeping. The extravagant vampire design first considered for Blade II reaches full expression in The Strain, Guillermo’s trilogy of novels with Chuck Hogan; notions of clockwork mechanisms and tentacled nightmares migrate from one project to the next.

  Notebook 3, Pages 48A and 48B, which include the receipt for the taxi ride in London during which del Toro lost his notebook [left], as well as the record of the police report del Toro filed [right].

  Most of all, Guillermo’s notebooks present the same creative generosity one finds in the man himself. Whether he’s talking in the room where it always rains, or adding to his notebooks, or sharing his fantastic visions on-screen, he gives the gift of his whole self, and in this way makes our world a little more messy, visceral, boisterous, and exalted.

  The thing about great storytellers is that they are full of great stories. Pretty much everything Guillermo says or writes is by turns fascinating, surprising, appalling, hilarious, enchanting, or moving. And like all truly great storytellers, he’s also a great soul. His stories can’t help but instruct, impart, and illuminate. In Hollywood, a dark vision is often merely a faddish pose. But you can tell when a writer-director has never seen a dead body, never spied anguish up close. With Guillermo, his heart of darkness is authentic, born of a fully lived life. He not only observes deeply but feels deeply, and he has survived to tell the tale.

  “You try to make the right choices,” Guillermo notes. “I’m not a fatalist. I think that the plan, the universal plan and the universal energies, have a direction for everything. I don’t think there is a design that we can comprehend, but I think that we are all agents of destruction or construction in our lives, and one must try to make the best choices within that. When people talk about heaven and hell, I always think of Defending Your Life, the Albert Brooks movie. I think that you have a responsibility not to propagate the cancer of despair, resentment, and envy. You have the responsibility to make the right choices for the people around you and yourself. We are not going to be important, but I think the collective choices that we make are. We are going to be extinct or not by the accumulation of those choices.”

  Notebook 3, opened to Pages 9A and 9B while resting on Notebook 4. Since starting his third notebook, del Toro has always used the same type of leather-bound volume, a number of which he bought from a vendor in Venice while traveling to promote Cronos.

  Notebook 3, Pages 17A and 17B.

  On one of the notebook pages for Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo has the Faun giving Ofelia a volume that reads, “The book contains every possible destiny, every possible future which your decisions could create. It was made just for you, written in your father’s blood, and will reveal its secrets to your eyes alone. Infinite and limited.”

  Of this, Guillermo says, “That’s very Borges and is ‘The Garden of Forking Paths.’ Because the whole movie is about choice, and every choice gets defined when it’s made, and the choices are revealed only at that moment. So the Faun gives her a book where essentially the book tries to guide her one way or another, and she takes her own choice. This is the book that writes itself, a riff on a famous Borges story called ‘The Book of Sand,’ where every page you turn fuses with the rest and is both infinite and limited.”

  Through the images in this book and the conversations with Guillermo, you’ll be given the opportunity to see the world through different eyes. There is wisdom here and heartache, exaltation, exhaustion, joy, and deep compassion.

  When Guillermo began writing in the notebooks, they were for himself, then for his daughters, and now we have been invited to share in them. And at the very last, these notebooks are addressed to the boy Guillermo once was, to his past and future, a love letter of hope and of the impossible made possible. As he puts it, “If I were a kid in Mexico and I read this book, I’d be inspired.”

&nb
sp; At this stage of his life and career, Guillermo knows full well that whatever path he chooses, it will be the journey he is meant to be on . . . the road he has built for himself.

  Notebook 4, Pages 43A and 43B.

  BLEAK HOUSE

  “Anything to vary this detestable monotony.” —CHARLES DICKENS, BLEAK HOUSE

  “They’re my friends. I made them.” —J.F. SEBASTIAN, BLADE RUNNER

  The Comic Book Library at Bleak House.

  “TO ME,” GUILLERMO CONFESSES, “the beautiful thing about Bleak House is that when I come in and go out of the house, it is cleansing for me. Catholics go to church, Jews go to temple. I come here.”

  He adds, “Spiritually, my life is here. I exist in this house, really.”

  Bleak House is Guillermo’s second home and working office, his artistic masterpiece, his cluttered attic, his pride and joy. It’s where he goes to draw and write, to recharge his batteries, to explore unfettered his creative whims. When in Los Angeles and residing at his family’s home nearby, he visits Bleak House at least two hours every morning and one hour at night, seven days a week. He delights in giving tours to luminaries from around the globe, including other noted directors.

  The moment you step inside, you are dazzled by the extent of the visual delights. Bleak House bursts with “over 550 pieces of original art,” Guillermo notes. In fact, Bleak House has recently grown, so extensive is the collection. What began as one house has now expanded to include a neighboring structure, which is still finding its own distinct identity. Like the first, it features Guillermo’s prize possessions. For instance, the second wing’s living room is filled with magnificent preproduction maquettes of creatures from Pacific Rim (2013), which are flanked by a stunning bronze by Stanislav Szukalski and a full-size replica of Robert Picardo’s Meg Mucklebones from Ridley Scott’s Legend.

  “When I was a kid,” Guillermo says, “I read Vathek by William Beckford. In it, Fonthill Abbey was mentioned. That was his personal treasure: an entire building—or series of Gothic buildings—created to lodge his collection of strange artifacts, oddities, and scientific anomalies. He inherited an obscenely large fortune, so he was able to secure every treasure he could dream of. And dream he did. Within my means, I have also indulged in collecting. But I do it because it is the world as I understand it; as it exists in my soul.”

  Guillermo is quick to point out that neither Bleak House is intended to be a museum or storehouse. Both homes are working spaces, with each room serving a different purpose. “For example, I have a room where I assemble models,” he says. “The reason is as banal as the fact that it is well-lit and is set up so I can put the actual place where I assemble the models close to a window. Because I need to ventilate when I prime. Otherwise I get really high.”

  However, creative inspiration, not base practicality, is what Bleak House is made for. In the main house, Guillermo says, “The Rain Room is literally my favorite place. I spend 90 percent of my time at Bleak House there, writing. But my second favorite room is the Sun Room, the Manga Room, the cabin in the back. I love to draw there, more than in the real drawing room, which is upstairs, because the Manga Room has really good energy. It’s so peaceful.”

  Sometimes, though, where Guillermo works is more a question of what feels right on any given day. “If I want to write a scary story, I don’t necessarily go into a scary room,” he explains. “If I want to write a light-hearted story, I don’t go into a light-hearted room. It’s just whatever feels comfortable on the day. I do most of my writing on sofas. I sit exactly like my mother—one leg under my other leg, leaning. I have every form of desk known to man—I collect them as objects—but I never write on a desk. Except for the desk in the Rain Room. I can put my elbow on an adjacent desk, so it’s comfortable.”

  It’s hard not to wonder: Will Bleak House continue expanding until it consists of, not one or two structures, but an entire block? Guillermo says no. “Most of the time, it’s just my personal office,” he elaborates. “I don’t want to expand because I think it would be unfair to the house and the neighbors. It needs to remain a home.”

  And what a home! A journey into Guillermo’s imaginative world would hardly be complete without a tour of one of the most remarkable residences in the world. Beckoning warmly, Guillermo bids us to accompany him into the hallways, rooms, and recesses of Bleak House. . . .

  THE FOYER

  Entering the Foyer of Bleak House, the first thing that confronts you is an enormous head of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster, fashioned by former Tussauds sculptor Mike Hill. Hill had considerable difficulty making the head that massive. It took numerous attempts to get the proportions right. But since this is one of Guillermo’s favorite monsters—along with the Gill-Man from Creature from the Black Lagoon and Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera—it was no surprise that Guillermo snapped up the sculpture when it was exhibited at Monsterpalooza in 2011 and installed it in his home.

  On one wall above the entryway are prints of Manhattan in troll language from Hellboy II: The Golden Army (“because,” he says, “the conceit was that the Troll Market was underneath the Brooklyn Bridge”). Taking center stage is a full-size figure of the demon Sammael from Hellboy, made for Guillermo by Spectral Motion.

  Throughout Bleak House, other original props, concept art, storyboards, and preproduction maquettes from Guillermo’s films have been carefully selected and artfully scattered, but they do not dominate the collection. Were Guillermo to house everything designed and built for his films, he’d need a series of warehouses rivaling Charles Foster Kane’s. Instead, only those mementos from Guillermo’s films that hold a special fondness or significance for him are included among the wealth of glittering objects.

  The Foyer at Bleak House.

  A life-size sculpture of H.P. Lovecraft by Thomas Kuebler watches over the Horror Library at Bleak House.

  Certain artists make regular appearances throughout the house. A perennial favorite is Basil Gogos, the famed cover artist for the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. His portrait of Guillermo is featured prominently in Bleak House’s entryway.

  Dominating another wall is a large painting of Saint George killing the dragon that looks old but is actually a recent painting by Russian artist Viktor Safonkin. It holds special significance for Guillermo: “It’s one of my favorite images: (a) it speaks of impossible tasks, (b) it’s a great image because of the way the dragon is rendered.”

  Guillermo adds, “I love dragons. They are my favorite fantasy creatures and are the most beautiful animals in all of mythology.” He cites a theory he likes, articulated by David E. Jones in An Instinct for Dragons, that proposes the dragon “is an imaginary amalgam we, as a species of primates, made from the predators we feared the most—the reptiles, the birds of prey, and the big cats.”

  The Horror Library is also home to one of the original Cronos device props, clasped by a silicone hand used for some of the film’s special effects.

  THE HORROR LIBRARY

  To the right of the Foyer is one of Bleak House’s many libraries, where a full-size—and utterly convincing—figure of H. P. Lovecraft stands perusing a volume. Lovecraft is one of Guillermo’s most cherished icons, a spiritual godfather, and Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness is Guillermo’s most-longed-for, unmade film project.

  The Lovecraft statue was sculpted by Thomas Kuebler. “I had it commissioned,” Guillermo says. “I approved every stage of the sculpt. People think his likeness is very easy; it’s actually very difficult. He has a few quirks, the fold by the mouth, the lantern jaw. They can be cartoonish.”

  The Lovecraft figure stands watch over Guillermo’s beloved books on horror, including the first book he ever bought—an anthology edited by Forrest J Ackerman, which Guillermo purchased in 1971 when he was seven. The Horror Library is filled with classic stories by such outré and macabre authors as Arthur Machen, M. R. James, and Sheridan Le Fanu. “Everything that is in Spanish means that I bought it w
hen I was very young,” Guillermo explains. Ravenous for knowledge, Guillermo began teaching himself English as soon as he could, so he could read more broadly: “I was very young. I was less than ten, and I was bilingual. I started with a dictionary and all the movies from America, which were subtitled, not dubbed.”

  In the Horror Library, Prince Nuada’s sword from Hellboy II rests quietly a few feet away from the baby bug prop from Mimic. “And that’s one of the real Golden Army soldiers, life-size,” Guillermo says. “Next to it is the chopped-up head from Blade II.” Another familiar figure from Guillermo’s oeuvre stands out. “That’s the first concept maquette ever done of Hellboy,” Guillermo notes. “That was done by Matt Rose. And this is the Cronos device on one of the silicone hands we used in the movie.”

  Guillermo avidly collects items from cherished movies and TV shows, including the Devil figure featured in Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. “That’s my favorite character in the whole movie,” Guillermo says. Scattered throughout the room are also visual touchstones from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Phantom of the Opera, Lost in Space, and Night Gallery. The replica figure of Baron Boris von Frankenstein, based on Boris Karloff, from the stop-motion-animated Mad Monster Party was made for him by the animation crew on Blade II.

  This library also holds a miniature scene from Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Disney, in particular, has been a towering influence on Guillermo. But to really appreciate that, we need to stroll down the hallway and find a certain bookcase, which slides to reveal a secret room. . . .