Guillermo del Toro’s attempt at adapting one classic novel resulted in the filmmaker drawing from real deaths he witnessed in Mexico.

SUMMARY

After winning his first Best Director Oscar, Guillermo del Toro directed the 2021 psychological thriller Nightmare Alley.
Del Toro admitted that the protagonist’s bleak and diabolical fate was meant to represent the political situation at the time.
The director also revealed taking inspiration from witnessing deaths while growing up in his homeland of Mexico.

Following his Best Director Academy Award win, Guillermo del Toro has tried to be slightly more experimental with his projects. After 2017’s The Shape of Water, del Toro’s next project was the 2021 neo-noir psychological thriller Nightmare Alley, based on William Lindsay Gresham’s book of the same name.

A still from 2021’s Nightmare Alley (Credit: Searchlight Pictures).

During an interview, del Toro discussed his work on the movie, revealing the diabolical nature of its main character’s fate, which most viewers who had read the book were already aware of. However, del Toro had an almost uncanny approach to the source material, even going as far as to draw from personal experiences to craft the movie, and here is what he had to say.

Guillermo del Toro discussed the diabolical fate of his protagonist in Nightmare Alley

Guillermo del Toro won his first Best Director Oscar for his 2017 romantic dark fantasy film The Shape of Water. He followed it up with his 2021 adaptation of the classic William Lindsay Gresham novel Nightmare Alley, starring Bradley Cooper as Stanton “Stan” Carlisle.

Guillermo del Toro directed 2021’s Nightmare Alley (Credits: CBS News).

During an interview with The Guardian, del Toro talked about his work on the movie, admitting that the bleak real-world political situation of the time. As a result, it is only natural that the film’s protagonist meets a diabolical and bleak ending.

You don’t watch the history of Jesus and root for him not to get crucified. You don’t watch Oedipus and bet that he’s not going to bed his mother.

Del Toro made the above statement, explaining the power and difficulty of making a movie like Nightmare Alley where the protagonist is incapable of change.

The director shed additional light on Stanton’s fate in the movie, describing it as a sum of his choices. Therefore, del Toro did not see the character’s fate as a punishment but simply as a consequence of Stanton’s failure to introspect and change.

Guillermo del Toro revealed the real inspiration behind Nightmare Alley

Bradley Cooper as Stanton “Stan” Carlisle in Nightmare Alley (Credit: Searchlight Pictures).

During the same interview, del Toro also admitted that, unlike his previous film, Nightmare Alley wasn’t made with a sense of romanticism. The director explained that the film wasn’t born out of love or hope. Instead, the filmmaker took inspiration from his experience as an immigrant and his childhood in Mexico.

I saw real corpses when I was young. People who had been shot, or had accidents. You get a sense of how fraught things are.

del Toro made the above statement, expressing that life wasn’t all rosy for him while growing up. As a result, the Crimson Peak director felt that the notion of living and death as an impending destiny is fused into a single concept, which he attempted to explore in the movie.

Despite del Toro’s best efforts, the film failed to deliver impressive box office numbers, grossing just $39.6 million (via Box Office Mojo). Nonetheless, it was nominated in four categories, including Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards but failed to register a single win.