Guillermo del Toro

When I was younger, I would read every single one until I found the one that would never leave my brain.

I remember a few that are really well phrased.

Jay Hoberman of the Village Voice wrote a great – he put down Blade II beautifully.

He said, the only thing remotely scary about Blade II is that it's done by the same man that did Devil's Backbone, which is beautiful.

And the first version of Waterloo Bridge, which his version is so brutal and sort of Brechtian.

He was a very interesting director and a very interesting man.

It's very modern, by the way.

I mean, for 1931, this film, well, Whale and a lot of this era of Hollywood filmmaker is extremely influenced by German cinema.

And to the point where Whale does an artifice that is not apparent to the audience until you tell them to look for it.

If the shadows on the set didn't fall the way Whale liked it, he would spray paint them.

Whoa, really?

Yeah, there's a lot of shadows in the window that don't correspond to the light that is being poured on the set.

And the shadows are painted with spray paint on the walls.

And now that I told you, if you watch it again, you'll see it here and there.

It did up to a certain point, and it did only on certain movies.

Like, for example, on Pinocchio, the creation of Pinocchio is shot like a horror film.

But the creation of the creature in this film is shown like a concert, like a joyful cornucopia of anatomical parts, blood, ligament, and muscles, which has never been shown in any other versions before.

But to me, it was mandatory because I wanted to see

Victor at his professional best and at his artistic best.

So I talked to my composer, Alexander Desplat, and I said, we're going to do it with a waltz.