When people say that cinema is life, I say, “Impossible.” Any cinema that strives to be realistic, in my opinion, is going to be confused with a theater play. But any cinema that attempts to be truthful is not afraid of assuming that it is not life. It’s an impossible endeavor.

^{For del Toro, the notebooks are a place where he can record and develop ideas to use in his filmmaking endeavors. Frequently, they change over time.}

Like René Magritte used to say, “The vocation of art is mystery.” That’s why one of the quintessential beauties of cinema is the spilled cup coming back to the hand by running film in reverse. I don’t care how many years go by, that’s pure magic. Why? Why is it so great?

MSZ: Because it’s impossible.

GDT: Because it’s impossible. In the same way, what the eye of the camera can see is so much more powerful than what the human eye can see. Think about this: We have such a fascination with slow motion. It’s primal. It doesn’t matter—it never goes out of style if you use it right. There are programs on the Discovery Channel that are dedicated to making you drool at a balloon being perforated by a bullet. Because you’re trying to stop time; you are trying to stop life.

I think cinema resonates with a piece of our brain that is way, way in the back. Because the way you watch a movie is not the way we watch life. When you go to a mall, yes, you’re absorbing, subliminally, Drink Coke, and Buy this, and Buy that. But cinema is different because when you go to a theater, it’s like you are going to church. You sit in a pew, and you look at an altar, and the reception is completely different.

^{Here, an image of a man shaving with a straight razor first drafted for the unmade Meat Market was realized in different ways in both Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy II.}

MSZ: You often present screenings of movies and give talks on the nature of film. Does participating in these events help nurture you as an artist?

GDT: Oh, yes. If you dedicate yourself only to the business of film, your soul dies. I have come to the tragic conclusion that you have to be a mediocre businessman in order to be a good artist. I’d rather not make as much money and be at peace with my decisions and be free and not dependent on a big apparatus.

I think it’s really important to do things that make you no money, that give you no apparent benefit except they renew your little love affair with cinema. Seeing those movies with an audience is great. I mean, I introduced one of the movies I produced at the LA Film Festival, and I said, “This is as close as it gets to me taking you out for cookies and milk like Andy Kaufman.”

MSZ: What about producing? I’ve noticed you’ve taken a lot of young filmmakers under your wing. What do you look for?

GDT: When I look at short films, and I look at a lot of them, I don’t bother with the originality. Originality is one virtue that, without context, means nothing to me. Originality in context is valuable, but I think that, when you’re learning to write, you always follow an example. Like learning to write cursive. All the short films by kids, or young adults, whatever, I think they are like cursive. They need to imitate somebody.

Alfonso Cuarón and I, until we were in our twenties, every time we shot a piece of fiction, we would say, “I’m going to try this.” Like, I remember we were doing a TV series, and I had seen Scorcese’s Life Lessons with Nick Nolte [in the film New York Stories]. And it’s not that I had any rhyme or reason, but I said, “I’m going do a sequence with those chain dissolves he does so beautifully. I want to learn them!” That became the sole reason why I did that TV episode.

GUILLERMO AND ME

^{ALFONSO CUARÓN}

IN THE LATE EIGHTIES, I had just directed my first gig for a television show called La Hora Marcada, a Mexican anthology series of horror stories modeled on The Twilight Zone.

I was waiting in the production office to have a meeting with the producer. I had just finished making a very loose adaptation of a Stephen King short story. Everybody had praised it, and I felt proud. I had painstakingly storyboarded it, and even though I was aware of its shortcomings, I felt it was better than the norm.

Across the waiting room there was this guy sitting on a sofa looking at me with a mix of curiosity and mischief. I immediately knew who he was, since I had heard so much about him. He was the special effects makeup artist from Guadalajara who had studied with Dick Smith; he had worked on designing corpses, mutilated hands, and bullet wounds for a couple of people I knew working in film. He loved his work and was always ready to lend a hand to a production in need. Everybody described him as smart, funny, and very, very strange.

Now he was smiling at me from across the waiting room.

“You’re Alfonso, right?”

“Yeah…? You’re Guillermo?”

“Yup. You directed that episode based on the Stephen King short story.”

“Yeah, you know it?”

“It’s a great story.”

And so we went on to praise King and embarked on one of the first of many lengthy conversations we were to have about literature, film, and art. We became excited—it was immediately clear that we shared the same eclectic taste, that we spoke the same language. Suddenly, out of the blue, he asked: “If the Stephen King story is so great, why did your episode suck so much?”

There was no malice in his statement, just an honest opinion. I burst out laughing. When I could finally speak again, I asked, “Why do you think that?” And he went on to explain, in a very eloquent and well-informed way, what he thought was wrong with my show. And he was right.

That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, one which has provided insights into my work and life that have become invaluable.

^{A drawing in the Blue Notebook, Page 141 of Sagrario–the Count’s friend from The Left Hand of Darkness, del Toro’s adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo.}

Guillermo went on to direct episodes for the same TV show, and he did the prosthetics for my episodes. We were certain that we were doing amazing stuff. One day he discussed an idea he had for an episode. It was the story of a little girl living with her abusive alcoholic father and the child-eating ogre that was haunting her. He said that he wanted to design the ogre and that he would be too busy working on the prosthetics to direct, so he asked me to do so instead. I agreed, and Guillermo cast himself as the ogre, enduring his own prosthetics. We were very self-congratulatory about the end result, which everybody else also praised. We thought we’d achieved greatness.

Several years ago, Guillermo re-watched the episodes we directed for La Horn Marcada and later told me over dinner, in words that can’t be printed, how awful they all were—both his and mine. Once again, I’m sure he was right.

At that same dinner, he went on to tell me about an idea he’d had for his next film. It was a story very similar to the one he’d told me about many years before, with a little girl and a child-eating ogre. He went on to make that film, which he called Pan’s Labyrinth.

I think that when people ask me about the notebooks and why I use them, it’s because they are a record of those sorts of ideas. You can see where it started, but then it bounces to another idea, and then a third one comes up, and page by page you see an evolution.