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Guillermo del Toro’s innate love of film comes through when he speaks, even when he’s sounding off with a dire warning about what is at stake as the film industry is rocked by AI and the forces of business consolidation.
“We are on the verge of image illiteracy. We are on the verge of cinema illiteracy,” del Toro told the industry crowd gathered Monday night for the BFI America dinner event held in Hollywood to celebrate del Toro’s selection for the prestigious BFI Fellowship kudos.
Del Toro, the Oscar-winning helmer behind “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Hellboy,” “The Shape of Water” and last year’s “Frankenstein,” sounded the alarm about the encroachment of AI in what has heretofore been the thoroughly human-led process of making art.
The human desire to express oneself is as old as the first images crafted on ancient cave walls in antiquity, he stressed. Del Toro also nodded to the rising tide of political polarization that threatens creative freedom around the world.
“The pact between man and image is sacred,” del Toro told the starry crowd at Mother Wolf. Art can help bring people together, he said, “but we are in a time when that is in danger.” He called artificial intelligence a form of “natural stupidity.”
“We are told images can be generated by artificial means. The existence of an image is not just to be there. It is to connect us, to make us feel beauty,” he said.
Del Toro told the room that his ties to the British Film Institute go back to his teenage years growing up in Guadalajara, when he would write to the BFI to have them send 16mm prints of titles from the legendary British helmer Carol Reed and other classic films to screen for his cinema club.
Del Toro’s heartfelt speech lived up to the advance billing from Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who introduced del Toro as a one of the modern masters of film. Sarandos noted that he first met del Toro when he was shepherding an animated adaptation of “Trollhunters” for Netflix. At the first creative meeting for the show, Sarandos got a crash course in why del Toro is so renowned among his fellow filmmakers.
“I went into the meeting thinking, ‘Why is this master filmmaker steering what I thought was a cartoon for us?’” Sarandos recalled. “And then I watched Guillermo create a universe in front of my eyes.”
The BFI fellowship is the highest honor that the organization can bestow on a filmmaker as recognition of their impact on the world of film. Del Toro told the crowd he was “moved” when he finally got the chance to visit the BFI’s voluminous vault that stretches back to 1935. Del Toro has pledged to donate one-third of his own papers and archives to the BFI archive.
In introducing del Toro, BFI CEO Ben Roberts told the crowd, “The heart of the BFI is the National Archive — one of the greatest collections of film in the world.”
The intimate room was packed with boldface names including Netflix’s Bela Bajaria and Dan Lin; Warner Bros. Pictures’ Pam Abdy; former Paramount Pictures chief Sherry Lansing; and filmmakers Jon Favreau, Michael Mann, Bill Hader and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Del Toro emphasized that he is moving into the “giving back” phase of his life by working with organizations such as the BFI to teach and advocate for film. Del Toro said he plans to teach classes on the genius of early Alfred Hitchcock films for the BFI.
“We are not gatekeepers. We are gate-holders so more people can come in and out of the church of cinema,” del Toro said. “I’ve been saved by images so many times in my life.”
The miracle of film is its permanence. Movies are living entities that are spark anew every time someone takes in a classic like Preston Sturges’ beloved 1941 film “Sullivan’s Travels” for the first time. “These films are never from the past,” he said. “When someone sees them for the first time they are present.”
Del Toro’s impassioned speech blended the highs and lows of this moment when movies can travel farther than ever before with the flick of a button. (“I celebrate all the love that we all bring to it,” he enthused.) But he reinforced his larger point that the industry needs to rally around filmmaking with a vehicular metaphor.
“Right now, the bus is so close to a cliff, we all have to lean to the right side,” he said.
The fundraiser hosted by BFI America will support the organization’s annual Film on Film Festival that will return to London next June. BFI chief Roberts told Variety that the BFI’s festival and its expansive film preservation efforts are part and parcel of its charter to advocate for the art of film and the needs of the British film industry itself.
“On top of our cultural role, where the U.K. is lead body for film, we’ve got a role working with government and industry on shaping policy and looking ahead at what’s coming down the pipe,” Roberts said. “We say our job is to ensure that the conditions are right for success in filmmaking.”
