Guillermo Del Toro adopts a more sympathetic approach to the undead creature at the heart of his version of “Frankenstein”.
“Someone asked me the other day, has really scary scenes?” Del Toro said during a conversation at the Cannes Film Festival with Oscar -winning composer Alexandre Deplat. “For the first time, I considered that. It is an emotional story for me. It is as personal as anything. I ask a question about being a father, to be a son … I do not make a horror film – I never try to do it.”
Desplat and Del Toro were on stage to discuss their collaborations on films like “The Shape of Water” and “Pinocchio” as a means of highlighting the pivotal role that music plays in the creation of films. They work together again on “Frankenstein”, which Netflix will publish this fall. It seems that they are aligned so as not to go for obvious fears in their adaptation of the Gothic novel by Mary Shelley.
“Guillermo’s cinema is very lyrical, and my music is as lyrical,” said Deplat. “So I think that the music of” Frankenstein “will be something very lyrical and emotional … I am not trying to write horrible music.”
The two have not yet finalized the scoring, but they seem to get closer. “We find emotion,” said Del Toro. “And what I can say is, for me, is an incredibly emotional film.”
In Del Toro’s films like “The Shape of Water” or “Cronos” or even “Hellboy”, he often seems to sympathize the most with the kind of creatures that other filmmakers describe as monsters. This does not interest him.
“In” The shape of the water “, the creature is frightening during the first 15 minutes and then becomes a very moving character,” noted Deplat.
“The first time I thought I was going to avenge the creature was when Marilyn Monroe will come out [of the movies] In `The Seven Year Itch ” with Tom Ewell, and she says that the creature just needed someone to love him,” said Del Toro. ” I fell in love with Marilyn, and I fell in love with the creature in this scene very early. And I thought, you know, everything we have, what we have people who look at people in the wrong direction. This is what we have in this world. »»
“Frankenstein” features Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth. In addition to his work on “Frankenstein”, Desplat also scored two films in competition in Cannes this year, “The Phoenic Scheme” by Wes Anderson and “Eagles of the Republic” by Tarik Saleh.
