Ron Perlman Recalls the Moment He Knew Guillermo del Toro Was a "Filmmaker of the Highest Order"
I don’t know about you, but I’ve enjoyed most of the films that Guillermo del Toro has made. Sure, some are better than others, but you can’t deny that the guy is freakin’ talented. Not only do I enjoy the stories he tells but I also love his visual style and the art and designs that he puts into his productions.
Ron Perlman has been working with Del Toro since he was cast in the 1993 film Cronos. It was during the production of that movie that Perlman knew the filmmaker was a genius. During a recent interview with CB, the actor recalled the moment he knew Del Toro was gong to be a filmmaker of the highest order.
“I'll never forget, in Mexico City, we were working on his first film, which is called Cronos. And nobody knew who he was. I didn't know who he was. I was getting to know the man. You really don't have a feel for the filmmaker because you're too busy in the foxholes along with him, just trying to get the movie in the can. And then this movie had so little money and was so f***ed financially, that it took two weeks for us to see our first set of dailies. The very first frame that came up on somebody's VCR, I guess, it was Guillermo's VCR, that I was sitting with him. He asked me to watch these dailies with him. The very first frame, I said to myself, I said out loud in front of everybody, This guy is as good as they get. He's [François] Truffaut, he's [Akira] Kurosawa, he's William Wyler, he's Francis Ford Coppola.’”
I love that that Perlman was able to see the director’s talent just in the dailies of the film on a VHS tape. He went on to say:
“There was just something about the way he frames an image, which is quintessentially the thing that separates cinema from every other art form, that you just know he's got it, that he's a filmmaker of the highest order. And it turned out I was right. That's odd in and of itself because I'm usually never right about anything. But now, all these years later, the world has found out what I was clumsily trying to just say at that moment.”
Cronos was a great horror-fantasy film. In it, “Antique dealer Jesus Gris stumbles across Cronos, a 400-year-old scarab that, when it latches onto him, grants him youth and eternal life -- but also a thirst for blood. As Jesus enjoys his newfound vitality, he's unaware that a dying old man, Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook), has sent his nephew, Angel, to find the scarab and bring it back to him. But Jesus will not give immortality up easily, even risking the life of his orphan granddaughter.”
I have yet to see Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, but I’ve been looking forward to watching it. Hopefully, I’ll get to catch it later this week as work starts to slow down.