The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro


Book Description

Offering a multifaceted approach to the Mexican-born director Guillermo del Toro, this volume examines his wide-ranging oeuvre and traces the connections between his Spanish language and English language commercial and art film projects.




The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro


Book Description

Offering a multifaceted approach to the Mexican-born director Guillermo del Toro, this volume examines his wide-ranging oeuvre and traces the connections between his Spanish language and English language commercial and art film projects.




The Three Amigos


Book Description

This is the first academic book dedicated to the filmmaking of the Mexican born directors Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuarón. The book examines the career trajectories of the directors and presents a detailed analysis of their most significant films. These include studies on del Toro's Cronos/Chronos, El laberinto del fauno/Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army; Iñárritu's Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel; and Cuarón's Sólo con tu pareja/Love in the Time of Hysteria, Y tu mamá también, and Children of Men. All three have worked in diverse industrial contexts, and between them they have made key films that have changed the nature of filmmaking in Mexico, Hollywood blockbusters, US independent films, 'European' art films, and films that defy easy classification. They have had unprecedented international success and have crossed linguistic, national and generic borders, cutting through traditional divisions created by film markets. As a result, this book challenges the ways both markets and critics have created clear-cut distinctions between mainstream commercial and independent art cinema, and the ways they have conceptualised US, Latin American and European cinema as discrete entities. The work of the three directors creates new hybrid formations and makes us rethink ways in which we have understood the auteur label. The main theoretical approaches applied in this book to analyse the directors' working practices and texts centre on new readings of auteurism and transnational film theories. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of film studies and Hispanic studies, and general cinema enthusiasts who are interested in the films of the three directors.




The Supernatural Cinema of Guillermo del Toro


Book Description

Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro is one of the most prolific artists working in film. His directorial work includes Cronos (1993), Mimic (1997), The Devil's Backbone (2001), Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Hellboy II (2008) and Pacific Rim (2013). He has also worked extensively as a producer, with several screenwriting credits to his name. As a novelist he coauthored The Strain Trilogy (2009-2011), which he also developed into a television series for FX in 2014. Del Toro has spoken of the "primal, spiritual function" of his art, which gives expression to his fascination with monsters, myth, archetype, metaphor, Jungian psychology, the paranormal and religion. This collection of new essays discusses cultural, religious and literary influences on del Toro's work and explores key themes of his films, including the child's experience of humanity through encounters with the monstrous.




Rethinking Genre in Contemporary Global Cinema


Book Description

Rethinking Genre in Contemporary Global Cinema offers a unique, wide-ranging exploration of the intersection between traditional modes of film production and new, transitional/transnational approaches to film genre and related discourses in a contemporary, global context. This volume’s content—the films, genres, and movements explored, as well as methodologies used in their analysis—is diverse and, crucially, up-to-date with contemporary film-making practice and theory. Significantly, the collection extends existing scholarly discourse on film genre beyond its historical bias towards a predominant focus on Hollywood cinema, on the one hand, and a tendency to treat “other” national cinemas in isolation and/or as distinct systems of production, on the other. In view of the ever-increasing globalisation and transnational mediation of film texts and screen media and culture worldwide, the book recognises the need for film genre studies and film genre criticism to cast a broader, indeed global, scope. The collection thus rethinks genre cinema as a transitional, cross-cultural, and increasingly transnational, global paradigm of film-making in diverse contexts.




Contemporary Cinema of Latin America


Book Description

This book focuses on a selection of internationally known Latin American films. The chapters are organized around national categories, grounding the readings not only in the context of social and political conditions, but also in those of each national film industry. It is a very useful text for students of the region's cultural output, as well as for students of film studies who wish to learn more about the innovative and often controversial films discussed.




Divine Horror


Book Description

From Rosemary's Baby (1968) to The Witch (2015), horror films use religious entities to both inspire and combat fear and to call into question or affirm the moral order. Churches provide sanctuary, clergy cast out evil, religious icons become weapons, holy ground becomes battleground--but all of these may be turned from their original purpose. This collection of new essays explores fifty years of genre horror in which manifestations of the sacred or profane play a material role. The contributors explore portrayals of the war between good and evil and their archetypes in such classics as The Omen (1976), The Exorcist (1973) and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), as well as in popular franchises like Hellraiser and Hellboy and cult films such as God Told Me To (1976), Thirst (2009) and Frailty (2001).




Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters


Book Description

The perfect companion piece to an enthralling new exhibition on the visionary work and fervent imagination of director Guillermo del Toro. In 2016, a new exhibit on the work of visionary director Guillermo del Toro will begin 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). This book will be the perfect accompaniment to the exhibition, which focuses 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 and inspiring collection of art and pop culture ephemera that he has amassed at his private “man cave,” Bleak House. Filled with imagery from the exhibit, including favorite pieces of art that del Toro has chosen for the exhibit, and pertinent journal pages, the book will further delve further into the director’s world through exclusive in-depth interviews and commentary from notable figures in the art world. Forming a perfect companion to the exhibition, this book will deliver an engrossing look into the mind of one of the great creative visionaries of our time.




Latinx Ciné in the Twenty-First Century


Book Description

Today’s Latinx motion pictures are built on the struggles—and victories—of prior decades. Earlier filmmakers threw open doors and cleared new paths for those of the twenty-first century to willfully reconstruct Latinx epics as well as the daily tragedies and triumphs of Latinx lives. Twenty-first-century Latinx film offers much to celebrate, but as noted pop culture critic Frederick Luis Aldama writes, there’s still room to be purposefully critical. In Latinx Ciné in the Twenty-First Century contributors offer groundbreaking scholarship that does both, bringing together a comprehensive presentation of contemporary film and filmmakers from all corners of Latinx culture. The book’s seven sections cover production techniques and evolving genres, profile those behind and in front of the camera, and explore the distribution and consumption of contemporary Latinx films. Chapters delve into issues that are timely, relevant, and influential, including representation or the lack thereof, identity and stereotypes, hybridity, immigration and detention, historical recuperation, and historical amnesia. With its capacious range and depth of vision, this timeless volume of cutting-edge scholarship blazes new paths in understanding the full complexities of twenty-first century Latinx filmmaking. Contributors Contributors Iván Eusebio Aguirre Darancou Frederick Luis Aldama Juan J. Alonzo Lee Bebout Debra A. Castillo Nikolina Dobreva Paul Espinosa Mauricio Espinoza Camilla Fojas Rosa-Linda Fregoso Desirée J. Garcia Enrique García Clarissa Goldsmith Matthew David Goodwin Monica Hanna Sara Veronica Hinojos Carlos Gabriel Kelly Jennifer M. Lozano Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez J. V. Miranda Valentina Montero Román Danielle Alexis Orozco Henry Puente John D. “Rio” Riofrio Richard T. Rodríguez Ariana Ruiz Samuale Saldívar III Jorge Santos Rebecca A. Sheehan




New Transnationalisms in Contemporary Latin American Cinemas


Book Description

Through a textual analysis of six filmmakers (Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Fernando Meirelles, Walter Salles and Juan José Campanella), this book brings a new perspective to the films of Latin America's transnational auteurs.