source: Tumblr, thegreatpeanut. Edith Cushing and Thomas Sharpe
Inspired by the new movie by the Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro, "Crimson Peak", I decided to go a little behind the scenes and snoop around any additional information about the production and the cast. Due to the fact that I am generally not into gossip and more into fact, I was very pleased to find a clip on Talks At Google's channel on YouTube with an interview with the master himself and the 3 actors playing the lead characters (I wrote about the movie in my previous blog post, if you feel like finding out a bit more on the topic). Since the interview is almost an hour long, I wanted to share with you just a fragment of it. I really want to know your opinion on the subject if you endure to read the quotation in whole... The interviewer asked Guillermo about the things that scared him. He answered "Politicians!" - and then added:
Guillermo del Toro, source: www.criterion.com
"Another thing that scares me - and that's why I make movies - because I thoroughly believe in love and I think think that love has become almost something to be afraid of. We are almost in the equivalent to the Victorian times - [in] Victorian times [people were] afraid of sexuality and they used these tales [ghost stories/gothic romance] to talk about sexuality in a veiled way. And I feel that we are in a world where we become very negligent to talk about emotions and love. That scares me a lot. Because we don't want to be vulnerable. The automatic cool (?)* is to be distant and aloof and you instantly are smarter if you're sceptic. And if you're a believer, you instantly sound stupider. [...] When people think why this "Twilight" [series] is so successful - strangely enough - for whatever gothic element "Twilight" has, you realise that now we're using it to articulate love. They couldn't talk about sex in the Victorian era and now the only way that a fantasy about a perfect love can be articulated is gothic. The guy has to be a vegetarian vampire [laughs]. And it speaks of the morals of our times."
* I didn't quite catch that :)
Franco Zefirelli's 1968 movie "Romeo and Juliet"
I chose to put it in writing, because what Guillermo said trully shoke me to the core. I wanted to shout out: DITTO!, but realised that, in fact, his words were a huge wakeup call for me as well.
I've been meaning to write a blog post on Guillermo Del Toro (the director ofPan's Labirynth) newest production, CRIMSON PEAK, for a few weeks now, but I felt like I need to digest the topic a bit. I saw the movie two weeks ago and I was really impressed with it. This post could very well be 2 pages long, but I won't do that, obviously. Let me just state that - as a gothic romance, it is as beautiful and scary as it is dark and memorable. I haven't been so impressed with the set (the house in which the action of the movie takes places ) and the performance of the actors who played the main parts in the film for a very long time. You can always count on Jessica Chastain and Tom Hiddleston to deliver.
Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain as Sir Thomas Sharpe and Lady Lucille Sharpe
The entrance and the hall of Allerdale Hall aka Crimson Peak. Since the set does exist in Ontario, I would love to visit it. Isn´t it amazing? It feels haunted and alive and gothic. It was described to have the feeling of a killer-jar for the butterflies with all the spikes and angles that you can see.
Sir Thomas Sharpe introduces his new bride, Edith, to the house. Photo taken from Architectural Design webpage
The master suite. Look at all the details! Credits: Architectural Design
I feel as the trailers don't do the film justice (but you probably want to watch one, so here you go - be prepared to be scared and grossed out, because there are ghosts and it IS a Guillermo Del Toro movie after all), so here are some pictures and featurettes taken from the movie to perhaps tempt you to watch it. I loved how the director and the actors stayed true to the convention of a gothic romance - there is a virginal, innocent girl falling in love for a stranger with a dark past and a secret, there is the creepiness and ghosts, and the gloomy, Victorian, onirious-like mansion is a caracter itself, yet they have played with it a bit as well. The young and innocent Edith seems to be a delicate butterfly but yet she is quite defiant and independent. The portrayal of Lucille, played impeccably by Jessica Chastain is so perfect - the more you get to know about this character, the more you loathe her and - at the same time - pity her. The story and the secret behind it is trully heartbreaking, even though you can figure it roughly all out towards the end, it still escalates both in action and in intensity of the feeling that flow through you.
I would gladly corner you somewhere at the university and talk you to death about this movie, in the meantime, I recommend it, especially is the aesthetics of the movie appeal to your taste (which they have to me, even though I kept my eyes mostly closed for the parts in which ghosts showed up).
Edith Cushing as the butterfly, Sir Thomas Sharpe as the stranger with the dark past, Lady Lucille as the moth and Dr Alan McMichael as the Guardian Angel - the characters of Crimson Peak
