Sunday, May 5, 2019

Becoming a One-Man Orchestra

An artist in every way imaginable, Guillermo del Toro is a profound inspiration to me. As an unabashed cinephile, I latch onto filmmakers that wow me and try to learn from their art. Names like Christopher Nolan, Denis Villenueve, Akira Kurosawa, Steven Spielberg, and Paul Thomas Anderson populate my watchlist as I fervently seek to consume their perspectives and glean their genius as best I can. Yet among all of these filmmaking giants, the one that stands the tallest to me is Guillermo del Toro -- director of Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone, Hellboy: The Golden Army, The Shape of Water, and even Pacific Rim to name a few of his masterworks. The true uniqueness of Guillermo del Toro is the reality that he is a one-man orchestra. He writes, directs, produces, edits, and is always seeking to be better at his craft with each passing day.

Shortly after his breakout success in 2006 with the immaculate Pan's Labyrinth sweeping the Academy Awards and becoming iconic for a larger audience than he had dreamed of, del Toro committed to explore narrative in a bigger way than he ever had before. “I said that in the next 10 years I am going to direct animation, direct a video game, write a novel and do a TV series. I wanted to learn every narrative aspect of the business.” In the years that followed, Guillermo did just that by writing vampire novel The Strain, show-running for Dreamworks' animated series Trollhunters, and consulted with industry legend Hideo Kojima on various video games projects. 

The lesson I feel I can internalize the most from the example of Guillermo del Toro is to always be challenging myself. It would have been easy for him to quit after Pan's Labyrinth took off and to live a comfortable life in the momentum of that success. Nevertheless, he instead used that opportunity to grow even more as an artist and as a person. In the industry I'm heading into, it's crucial to always be learning, advancing, and challenging yourself. I feel that I can emulate the life of del Toro by doing just that. 
Pictured - The man, the myth, the legend himself: Guillermo del Toro.
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3 comments:

  1. James KunzlerMay 5, 2019 at 10:11 PM

    Pan's Labyrinth is probably in my top 5 favorite films. I think it was much more deserving of Best Picture than the Shape of Water, but Shape of Water was beautifully made as well

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  2. Eli GMay 7, 2019 at 3:07 PM

    I see power in embracing unfamiliarity. What we never like is feeling uncomfortable and that is the essence of the learning process. We have to be patient and humble, willing to accept our innocence within this unfamiliar world. When we push ourselves to accumulate to a new environment, we eventually become masters of mediums unconsidered.

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  3. Derek S.May 8, 2019 at 10:22 AM

    I've always heard that everything you want is sitting just outside your comfort zone. It seems universally accepted now that we have to be willing to leave that sphere of safety to reach a greater hight. It's always easier said than done and it takes a lot of self-discipline to do that. People like Del Torro really inspire me and make me believe in what is possible when we feel fear or insecurity but we push forward anyway and achieve something great.

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