Guillermo del Toro Enthrals at Annecy Talking Up Stop-Motion Animation, Embracing Imperfection and Not Giving a F—
variety.comAnna Marie de la Fuente Speaking for nearly an hour at his master class, one of the key highlights of the Annecy Animation Festival this week, maestro filmmaker Guillermo del Toro kept his packed-to-the rafters audience enthralled – and in stitches – as he extolled the virtues of stop-motion animation and of embracing flaws.
Having just won a best animated feature film Oscar for his long-gestating stop-motion version of the classic tale “Pinocchio” gave his talk even more heft. “Stop-motion is, in my opinion, the most beautiful of all the forms of animation because it’s the most intimate, and is quite literally a connection between the animator and a physical model,” he said, adding: “It’s is the closest thing to playing with your toys.” “We are the weird mother-fuckers in this room,” he told the stop-motion animation filmmakers in the audience. “Your family thinks you’re useless and that’s good,” he added, prompting a burst of laughter. “All animators are weirdos, but stop-motion animators are the weirdest of them all; they’re in the violent lunatic asylum wing.
Why? Because they are out executing an art form that is too slow, too painful, too old world,” he went on, declaring the art form his “religion.” Saying that he tries to avoid digital sets and effects as much as possible, he declared: “I think that we need things that we know are made by humans to recover the human spirit.
I love things that look handmade. I f****** hate perfection.” At Annecy for a tribute to Mexican animation, Del Toro listed among his influences the first “King Kong” made, the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Ray Harryhausen” (“The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,” “Jason and the Argonauts”), among others.
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