The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro

by Tierney, Dolores; Shaw, Deborah; Davies, Ann

• ISBN13: 9781137407832
• ISBN10: 1137407832
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-10-02
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Offering a multifaceted approach to the Mexican-born director Guillermo del Toro, this book examines his many roles: as special effects meister, screenwriter, comic fan, and horror guru. The contributors marshal their expertise in the fields of horror, fantasy, the gothic, and Spanish and Latin American cinema to provide a comprehensive account of del Toro's work and its impact on Mexican, Spanish, and American film production. Examining his wide-ranging oeuvre (fiction writing, filmmaking, special effects), the contributors trace the connections between his Spanish language and English language commercial and art film projects.

Author Biography

Dolores Tierney is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Sussex, UK.
 
Deborah Shaw is Reader in Film Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK.
 
Ann Davies is Chair of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Stirling, UK.

Table of Contents

Foreward; Paul Julian Smith
Introduction; Dolores Tierney, Deborah Shaw, and Ann Davies
PART I: DEL TORO'S PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES
1. "There is No such Thing": Del Toro's Metafictional Monster Rally; Glenn Ward
2. Guillermo del Toro's Monsters: Matter Out of Place; Ann Davies
PART II: DEL TORO'S ENGLISH-LANGUAGE WORKS
4. "This is Something New . . . Or—Something Very, Very Old": The Strain Trilogy in Context; Simon Bacon
5. Adapt or Die: Mimicry and Evolution in Guillermo del Toro's English-Language Films; Peter Hutchings
6. Of Monstrous Masses and Hybrid Heroes: Del Toro's English-Language films; Laura Podalsky
7. Pacific Rim: Reception, Readings and Authority; Niamh Thornton
PART III: DEL TORO'S SPANISH-LANGUAGE WORKS
8. Reflected Horrors: Violence, War and the Image in Guillermo del Toro's El espinazo del diablo / The Devil's Backbone (2001); Miriam Haddu
9. Transnational Political Horror in Cronos (1993), El espinazo del diablo (2001) and El laberinto del fauno (2006); Dolores Tierney
10. Between Fantasy and Reality: the Child's Vision and Fairy tales in Guillermo del Toro's Hispanic trilogy; Juan Carlos Vargas