As a director, I design every movie to be true to itself, and damn it if they like it, and damn it if they don't.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of artistic integrity over public approval.
Guillermo Del Toro expresses a strong conviction that as a director, his primary responsibility is to create films that are authentic and true to their own essence. He reflects a resolute attitude towards criticism, indicating that his artistic vision takes precedence, regardless of whether it resonates with audiences or not.
In practice
In a film class discussing the importance of authenticity in art, this quote by Guillermo Del Toro can be cited to emphasize artistic integrity.
I don't try to sanction other people's joy in monsters. I mean, I think the fact is, humor, fantasy - you know, like fear, desire or laughter - create genres of their own: comedy, melodrama, or erotic films or horror films... The boundaries cannot be defined. It's to each his own.
If you ask me, I alternate between truly bizarre, what you would call 'Hollywood' movies and truly bizarre, what you would call 'arthouse' movies.
But I think we are seeing a resurgence of the graphic ghost story like The Others, Devil's Backbone and The Sixth Sense. It is a return to more gothic atmospheric ghost storytelling.
The saddest journey in the world is the one that follows a precise itinerary. Then you're not a traveler. You're a f@@king tourist.
When you start with Super 8, you are everything. You're the DP, the sound man, the effects guy. And what I started understanding, by working for other people, is that the best type of director is someone who rose through the ranks.
The way they control a population is by pointing at somebody else - whether they're gay, Mexican, Jewish, black - and saying, 'They are different than you. They're the reason you're in the shape you're in. You're not responsible.' And when they exonerate you through vilifying and demonizing someone else, they control you.
There's no way that music could ever go down the tubes. I can't imagine a civilization without music. When you realize today that music is such a part of people's lives. And will always be, really.
The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor.
For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
If the culture shifts, if people think differently about women, the art will shift, too. You can't ask art to make social change. It's not what it's for.
Until I was a teenager, I used red pokeberries for lipstick and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner. I used honeysuckle for perfume.
As a filmmaker, I believe in trying to make movies that invite the audience to be part of the film; in other words, there are some films where I'm just a spectator and am simply observing from the front seat. What I try to do is draw the audience into the film and have them participate in what's happening onscreen.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.