Inside His Films, Notebooks, and Collections
Publisher: Insight Editions
Release Date: August 30, 2016
“This exhibition presents a small fraction of the things that have moved me, inspired me, and consoled me as I transit through life. It’s a devotional sampling of the enormous love that is required to create, maintain, and love monsters in our lives.” –Guillermo del Toro
An unusual new exhibit on the work of Guillermo del Toro recently opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) before moving on to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and the Minneapolis Museum of Art (MIA). Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters is the exhibit’s official catalogue, and claims to focus on del Toro’s creative process, including the well-defined themes that he obsessively returns to in all his films, the journals in which he logs his ideas, and the vast collection of art and pop culture ephemera that he has amassed at Bleak House (the director’s unusual “man cave”). The book is filled with imagery from the exhibition, including art selections curated by del Toro himself and pertinent pages from his own journals.
Essays by various curators and historians focus on the nature of collecting or give historical information about monsters and their importance. These essays are interesting enough, but those wishing for real insight into the director’s creative process might be disappointed. This information is confined to a short but interesting interview with del Toro. Unfortunately, the interview could hardly be considered an in-depth study of his creative process. Even the handful of pages from the director’s notebooks don’t really provide much in the way of actual information about the director’s work.
Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters will make a great souvenir for those who attend his expedition, but those who want concrete insights to the director’s work or creative process will feel short changed. This beautiful but somewhat anemic book is for the completest.
Review by: Devon Powell
Cinema Literate 