Guillermo del Toro isn’t just great because he’s a talented filmmaker, but also because he’s an unadorned and passionate lover of cinema. In fact, the Criterion Collection's streaming service has a whole series of shorts called At the Movies with Guillermo where the director giddily deconstructs some of his favorite movies.
The passion del Toro has for movies also comes through in the film essays he writes.. He did it last year for when he beautifully deconstructed his fellow compatriot Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” and he’s doing it again this year with an eloquently written essay on Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.”
In the essay, written for Variety, del Toro calls Scorsese’s magnum opus “ascetic” and “the work of a master,” hailing that it is the director’s “memento mori.” The essay is filled with meaningful references and shows truly how much del Toro values stories and everyone that contributes to good stories. I mean he just whiffs off existential wisdom off the cuff like "Remember, death is the true north of life, it seems to say". Jesus, what a treasure to have this guy.
A recurring motif in fable and parable is that of the man that loses, trades or sells his shadow in his earthly pursuits. The motif can be seemingly benign as in “Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” or rather more troubling as in Von Chamisso’s “Peter Schlemihl,” or Hans Christian Andersen, but it is invariably loaded with existential and symbolic consequence.
For, what is a shadow? And, if we lose it, who will ever know? After all, a shadow does not have a life of its own, a will of its own, it weighs nothing and it does nothing — except, perhaps, anchor us to the ground, thus testifying, for a fleeting moment, that we exist.
If “GoodFellas” and “Casino” were the vanitas (the mortified splendor framed by tragic downfall), then “The Irishman” is the memento mori. Remember, death is the true north of life, it seems to say. “The Irishman” reaches deep. It is a granite mausoleum — erected to man lost in the tides of history, surrendering his soul to obedience. In this parable, every character carries his own epitaph. This, too, shall pass.
Wisdom is needed in film these days. You can find energy, spectacle or attitude in abundance. But wisdom? That is harder to find. And rare is the filmmaker whose skill, experience and connection with the zeitgeist can channel it through. Looking back, one can invoke late Renoir, Bresson, Bergman, Oliveira or Kurosawa, but the list gets meager when you reach current American cinema – conceivably because in its youth-obsessed culture, it seems to phase out the sage in favor of the maverick.
Can't wait to read his thoughts on “Cats.”