Deformed limbs.
XVII Partial movement in the “fingers” if possible.
Exposed roots resemble human limbs.
XVI See illustration in code V
–The dwarf in charge has created a series of automatons to keep him company. The army he created, he admits, has no Achilles heel at all.
–HB is given an object as a gift to use in the final duel. It gives him the advantage over the prince—
MSZ: Tell me a little more about the image of the mandrake [opposite], which seems to bring together a couple of themes that run through your work—fetuses, artificial life.
GDT: The mandrake root is something that I’ve been obsessed with since I was a kid. I don’t know where I read about it, or where I heard about it, but before I was seven years old, I was asking for a mandrake root for Christmas. There is a tape recording of me asking in a tiny child voice, “Can I get a mandrake for Christmas?” Because I wanted to turn it into a living being.
It’s one of the legends: that you can nourish the mandrake into becoming a baby, like a living, small person, like a homunculus. I really obsessed about the mandrake. I obsessed about the fetal, baby-like quality of it. I thought it would be really disturbing for it to have a tongue.
MSZ: So this page [opposite] is from the beginning of the notebook that covers Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy II. What was it like starting a new book?
GDT: I was starting a new notebook and I remember where I began. It was in a little hotel near the Gran Vía in Madrid. I remember exactly how full of hope and joy I was.
The movies would change rapidly through the notebooks. Some of the stuff survived—like the little phonograph at the bottom for the Fascist captain. But you see the elements that didn’t, too. For example, this little “nerve ghost,” which is what I call this little ghost with all the nerves exposed. They ate the fairies, which eventually the Pale Man does. I had this idea, which is on the next page about a wooden puppet that lives in the roots of the tree, which holds a chestnut that contains the key. Eventually that became two separate tasks for Ofelia, and he became the Pale Man instead of the wooden doll. I just thought it was really creepy to have a wooden doll coming to life.
MSZ: Here you say to use the stick bug instead of the fairies to guide Ofelia to the labyrinth at the beginning, and you mention a blind man. Blindness seems to be an issue that you deal with in a lot of your work, even with the Pale Man, for instance, where you’re obliterating the eyes.
GDT: The idea was there was a blind man who can traverse the labyrinth by knowing it, but not by sight. It was sort of a silly metaphor about real knowledge or faith, like faith being blind, and the girl believing in herself. At the beginning of Pan’s Labyrinth there were a lot of good ideas, but not necessarily in a shape that I found “gainly.” It was very ungainly.
MSZ: These places where you seem to be struggling to get things to cohere, and seeing which things to retain and which things should be jettisoned, are very interesting. You also mention them hanging the grandfather instead of the granddaughter. There seems to be a grandfather character in this, as well, hearkening back to Cronos and Mimic.
GDT: I decided that the blind man was the grandfather to the housekeeper, and then I decided I liked the housekeeper better with a brother than a grandfather. I thought she needed to be more active and less passive.
In “The Labyrinth” use the stick hug instead of the fairies at the beginning. Use it as a “guide” to lead the girl to the labyrinth. The blind man tells her the story while putting out bird traps.
–They hang the grandfather instead of the granddaughter
–Create a man made of wood instead of a toad.
–In L.M.L. use a voice-over, as if it were an instrument.
–In H.B.2., the burly agent is the troll brother.
–The grandfather was left blind from gunshot wounds, but what side was he on?? Vidal, what does he make of him?
–The doll with the nut licks up a drop a blood
–The trials are: (1) The nut, the one found in the hollow tree at the edge of the labyrinth. (2) There is a key inside the nut that unlocks the secret room in the Library. It opens the door where the dead children who eat fairies appear to her. (3) Using the tools she has gathered up, she “harvests” the mandrake root and hides it under her mother’s bed. (4) Kill the little one.
–If I switch 2 and 3 around, I achieve a bit more visual variety and can make use of the little phials filled with sleeping medicine
–Look at this drawing. The contrast between the blue and the intense reds is a bit risky.
–What key could be more interesting than the insect (??) and how could it be found?
–Will the wooden doll have a nut (??) Will his voice (the doll’s) be heard through a gramophone?? If so, make it a cylinder gramophone.
–Starting a new notebook. I met Steven Spielberg and he told me how much he liked “Hellboy.” Unreal.
–Flexibility defeats rigidity
–Bulbs.
–Seeds.
Inside the chestnut are 5 seeds that need to be planted beneath the branches of the ancient tree when the moon is full. Gifts to [?] The wooden doll with the secret key.
–Gold plays an extremely vital role in European fairy tales. In our tale, I would put gold and not food on the table of temptations. Which of the two would the public understand more easily? (??)
–8/9/04
We found a flat near El Retiro on J.J. street
–Watch Walter Murch’s Return to Oz again for its sound effects
