And I thought that was a really arrogant gesture, and I took it for the captain’s father, who says, “Let my son, like his father, die like a true man.” And he’s ready to do that at the end. He pulls out the watch and he’s ready to say, “Tell my son—” And they say, “We won’t tell him shit. You’re gonna be forgotten.” And then he says something I feel very much about the Old World right now, and it’s very much the theme of Hellboy II: “We have gained arrogance instead of wisdom, we have gained cruelty instead of intelligence, and made the world a cruel, cold place.”
And then it says, “She puts the mandrake root under the bed. Explosions. Pitched battle. A wounded man.” This is pretty much the way the movie is. “Theft of the antibiotics. They’ve captured one of them. Mercedes and the doctor speak to one another. The antibiotics are the same. Torture, the deaf-mute’s suicide.” And I made him a stutterer instead of a deaf mute. But at one point I thought, “Well, what if the guy survives, and they find he’s a deaf mute? And they have to interrogate him, but he can’t speak. So he starts writing, and as he is writing, he commits suicide.” I thought he would grab a pen and stab himself rather than talk. But, as it is, they tortured this stuttering guy.
–IN HB II, Abe: You’ve been listening to Barry Manilow. —No, I most certainly am not (and he hides the CD) The book Remains
–Later you’ll both listen to him together and you’ll break into tears
–Abe is delighted by all the jokes Kate Corrigan tells
–FACE REPLACEMENT in the case of the faun.
–Do you haunt this bridge?
–How much does it cost to support HB?/annual.
–The Spanky method to disappear in the river, use it in HB II
–Cloak of invisibility/ring.
–Prison Break/MAXIMUM SECURITY area.
–The inside of the mill is RED.
–I’ll need something small in return: your seed.
–You can SEE the forest from the valley, but not from the forest.
–As soon as the self ceases to exist. The world exists.
–Criticism gives one the illusion of participating in the act of creation by way of an autopsy. The act is there and it exists and moves and challenges you while criticism fights to approve and validate.
–EVERYBODY TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF.
IT’S ONLY THROUGH ART THAT YOU’RE ABLE TO GLIMPSE OTHERNESS.
–One door is made of gold, another silver, another wood.
–Signed by the lawyers at GUILFOYLE GUILFOYLE.
–SCARLET dress for the girl during the episode with the toad.
–Story of the fox and the [?] pigeons.
–Stuart Baxter: LOCATION SCOUT and professional PHOTOGRAPHER.
–The guests are DRY and DEAD: A SOUL SUCKING PIG.
–Use a THORN FOREST for HB with a sword.
–Sequence in the rain in which Liz or RC is kidnapped.
–Anything you want to tell us about your foes: Well they have great fancy-pants names “Lord of this-that” and they smell.
–How much do they owe? Don’t worry about it—a hand gesture would be better
–Look at me you, BASTARD. The captain in the cantina.
–There are a thousand ways to kill a man, only one way to give him life.
–He who has nothing but feet will contribute his feet.
He who has nothing but eyes will contribute his eyes.
For this great spiritual project. “The finger and the moon” A. J.
THE MAGICIAN
CORNELIA FUNKE
HOW DOES ONE WRITE about a true magician? It is quite a dangerous task, as a true magician can’t be summoned or captured by words. And Guillermo del Toro is one of the greatest magicians of our time. Under his spell, words whisper and spread burning sparks over the silver screen to explode in a thousand archetypal images, so old and so new at the same time.
Guillermo del Toro takes “Once upon a time” and wraps it into black and golden yarns. He weaves the truth about the world from images and words until the shimmering fabric tells us all about the darkness and the light—the shadows that haunt us and our most secret wishes and dreams.
The labyrinth of the human heart… Guillermo knows all about it. And like every true magician, he dares to lose himself on its winding paths. He explores even its most frightening corners, just to bring back the truth.
He hunts for creatures and tales between its hedges, ancient remnants that have guarded our secrets since the very first story was told around a fire to fight the fear of what hides in the dark.
Guillermo brings back the treasures of myth and fairy tale and feeds them with the fears and hopes of our time. That’s what makes his storytelling so powerful and unique—he deciphers our modern age with tools from the past. He uses the oldest language to reveal what we try to hide—all the desires of the human heart, all its weakness, fear, anger, and cruelty. Fairy tales never lie about human nature, and neither does Guillermo del Toro. His art proves that nothing is more realistic than fantasy. He paints the political reality of our world and times on the screen using the colors of our subconscious.
But he doesn’t just reveal the demons. Guillermo also knows about the angels. And maybe it is that quality that makes all his work so unforgettable and profound—he looks at us with such tenderness although he knows about our dark side. Guillermo’s haunting screen landscapes are deeply humane, and even his most nightmarish horrors know about love. That’s something only a true magician can do—summon all the demons and, despite their growls and screams, still let us hear the angels’ footsteps in the dark.
