Ghosts of the past

GUILLERMO DEL TORO TELLS TF OF CRIMSON PEAK’S KEY INFLUENCES...

HITCHCOCK’S REBECCA AND ITS NOVEL COUNTERPART

“In Gothic Romance the true protagonists are often the antagonists. They are complex and attractive in a way that eludes the heroes. To this point, Daphne Du Maurier even avoided naming the protagonist and made Rebecca an imposing absence. An ever-present negative space. I tried to make the ancestry (especially the parents) similarly oppressive in Crimson Peak. Mrs Danvers in both film and novel, is tied to the mansion and becomes one with it – to the point where she is destroyed when it is destroyed. Rebecca is viewed as a minor Hitchcock by some (due to the interference of David O’Selznick). I have to disagree. It is classy and elegant and restrained, and mines ideas that will later surface in Suspicion and that were quite personal to Hitchcock. Joan Fontaine’s meek performance as the protagonist eerily emulates the ‘invisibility’ of the narrator in Du Maurier’s novel.”

UNCLE SILAS BY JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU

“This is my favourite Gothic Romance book in that it almost approximates a fairy tale. It’s an iniciatic journey that follows a girl into adulthood and through the darkness and horror that family can be.”

THE INNOCENTS AND ITS COUNTERPART BOOK THE TURN OF THE SCREW

“Henry James (and Edith Wharton) loved their supernatural tales to remain oblique. James said something – and I am paraphrasing here – about gothic romance being about ‘conquering the ghosts, that represent the past, before being able to move into the future’. That was very influential to me in creating

Crimson Peak. It has a great simplicity and wisdom. Jack Clayton’s film was a great inspiration only in as far as camera style and mood. I think gothic romance is about atmosphere and mood and Clayton’s complex camerawork aids that beautifully.”