At the same time, every element of the movie is pure del Toro. Image courtesy of 20th Century.įirst adapted into the Edmund Goulding-directed film in 1947, del Toro’s Nightmare Alley has a similar approach to the material, including following the original’s structure so closely as to almost become a tribute to it rather than another take on the novel. And he’s fine if we decide against doing so. In many of his films, he wants us to like-or at least feel compassion for-his monsters, but here, he’s more interested in having us simply observe those who are wicked and decide if they are worth feeling any empathy toward.
We’ve seen evidence of this second point in mild doses in his work for years, but with his telling of the Lindsay Gresham novel Nightmare Alley, he cuts loose in a way I’ve been waiting to see him do for ages. I’ve had enough conversations with director Guillermo del Toro ( Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water) over the years to know two things about him: 1) he has the soul of an artist trapped inside the mind of a genre-loving kid, and 2) he’s been waiting to get a bit ruthless in his work for a long time.
0 kommentar(er)
