Friday, March 29

‘The Alley of Lost Souls’: Curiosities of the new film by Guillermo del Toro

The new one Guillermo del Toro movie is about to premiere in Mexico. The Alley of Lost Souls this based on the novel Nightmare Alley, written by the American William Lindsay Gresham, in 1946, and has a cast made up of Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe y Richard Jenkins.

The story follows the life of Stanton Carlisle, who learns magic acts of a clairvoyant and a mentalist in a circus from which he benefits by moving to a city to deceive the population until his worst demons headed by his ambition and arrogance on a border between truth and lies next to a mysterious psychiatrist.

The curiosities of Del Toro’s film

After the success of The Shape of Water, which was awarded four Oscars in 2018, followers of the work of Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro await the premiere of the film on January 27. Before that happens, we tell you some fun facts behind it.


Guillermo thought of Leonardo DiCaprio

Environmentalist and actor Leonardo DiCaprio was the director’s first choice to bring the main character to life.. However, despite the interest of both, could not be specified due to a delay in the start of filming which was combined with the commitments of the Oscar winner for The Revenant.

Bradley Cooper nude

Due to the nature of the script, the lead Bradley Cooper agreed to do her first frontal nude in the cinema. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, actor crated this experience as a big problem, since he was without clothes for six hours in front of the film crew.

I can still remember that day naked in front of the team for six hours, and it was Toni Collette’s first day. It was pretty strong. What we were exploring, to do it in a real way, demanded that we undress in an emotional way”, he assured.

The set in Toronto

Productions around the world were affected after the pandemic caused by COVID-19 Y The Alley of Lost Souls was not an exception, because he had to suspend its filming for six months from its start in 2020, in Toronto.

Because of this, the tents designed by the creative team that were specially assembled for the circus set were damaged by strong winds. Production designer Tamara Deverell made classic mechanical attractions such as a Ferris wheel, a carousel and a funhouse.

Rooney Mara’s pregnancy

Rooney Mara got pregnant with her first child from her relationship with fellow actor Joaquin Phoenix, who came into the world in September 2020, just when the project was underway.

It is because of that in some of the appearances of the actress they had to hide their pregnancy, like when he shows up at the bus station. Six months later she had already had her baby, just in the next scene when he enters the bathroom.

narrative tools

Although Del Toro was used to other types of cuts, in this film he was encouraged to include sequence shots, which also allowed improvisation of the cast in important scenes that were longer sequences.

The Mexican stated that these new tools as narrator they challenged him to learn his craft day by day and he is likely to continue using them in the near future.

Spiderwoman

Although for this film Guillermo del Toro moves away from the iconic monsters that have characterized his career, the evil is developed in the field of human beings, in one of the scenes it is shown a spider with the head of a woman.

Although this ‘monster’ not originally in the book, the Mexican explained that it was based on a anecdote from his childhood when he visited a fair in the Agua Azul park.

love was born in the script

For this project, Guillermo del Toro worked closely with Kim Morgan for the screenplay adaptation. They met in 2018, but the couple fell in love and he married almost secretly in May of last year.



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