Guillermo del Toro

“I want to talk about The Red Shoes. Black Narcissus and this, to me, are the pinnacles of color narrative. And Red Shoes is a parable of the passion of the arts destroying us all.”

“Now, Notorious. Why do I choose Notorious? That staircase sequence, you count the steps and he has to cut five or six times: points of view, tracking with them, wide, the Nazis arriving, coming out of the study. That is such a precise film. He was very, very concerned about rhythm. Final sequence. Watch it.”

“Black Narcissus and this, to me, are the pinnacles of color narrative. Black Narcissus is maybe one of the five most beautiful movies ever made. Easily. And the fact this is all done artificially, meaning matte paintings, set extensions. Black Narcissus is a parable of desire. Well, Black Narcissus. You can not own it too many times. Never.”

“Salesman, one of the greatest documentaries of the working man and the patois of the period and all that. I suggest very wholeheartedly that you have a bottle of booze, some ice, and you do a double program of this and Glengarry Glen Ross.”

“All That Heaven Allows. Sirk, a master of staging. He uses mirrors, glass, reflections, and the actors moving in a way that creates one-minute, two-minute masters that are breathtaking. This movie is so beautiful. Sirk has the black-and-white values built in his color. And that’s how I did Nightmare Alley. Watch it in black and white, it works absolutely perfect. It’s not as expressive, it’s not as eloquent, it’s not as full of desire, but the image design is extremely powerful.”

“Now, Fellini. I love Amarcord, I love all his neorealism period and all that. But this movie and Casanova are the ones I revisit the most. I remember one of my favorite scenes ever committed to film is the scene where they discover the frescoes in the subway. Oh, I found another Roma that I like. Alfonso had been talking about making this movie for about 20 years. I think that the last image of her going basically into the clouds is one of the most poetic.”

“And Age of Innocence. Another Scorsese people don’t revisit enough. I have, on and on and on and on and on, for Frankenstein, Crimson Peak, because he understands Edith Wharton, Henry James, all the pulsations of the era. Repression is part of narrative exercise. It’s not just what you let loose, but what you contain. And Scorsese is a master of playing with repression. He absolutely is.”

“Au revoir les enfants. Masterpiece. Oh my God, Louis Malle nails it. This is a movie I watched over and over again before attempting Devil’s Backbone.”

“I already have this. But, you know, it’s very funny when people say, 'Oh, you must love this filmmaker or that filmmaker.' They never guess Wes. But I have more– In my imagination, in my kinship, I have a lot more in common with him than with a lot of people, because we are ultimately both creating strange tableaus that can be very mannered but they try to approximate truth. The undercurrent of heartbreak, the loss, the pathos this guy has, that’s why his stuff works. And this box is fantastic.”