The current issue of Rue Morgue, July 2016, includes an article by Dave Alexander titled “Beyond the Walls of Bleak.” It is inspired by the upcoming tour of some of Guillermo del Toro’s collection in his Bleak House called “At Home with Monsters,” beginning with the venue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (For more background on the exhibit download the PDF file.) In one segment of the article Alexander introduces a quote from del Toro:

“As the show’s title suggests, to understand At Home with Monsters one has to understand the function of Bleak House and its contents. Del Toro regards it as sacred space.

‘It’s where I literally recharge my batteries. I feel a change in my energy, and it’s incredible and inspiring for me, so objects are not there as a collection, they are almost like talismans, they are relics. [They are] holy relics the way that Catholics have an image of Saint Joseph or Saint Peter whoever they worship – that’s the value of these things for me. I have a Saint Gill-Man from Creature From the Black Lagoon or Saint Dick Smith or Saint Dr. Pretorius – images of characters that are a part of my inventory of saints. When people say I am a collector, I feel as if collectors are obsessed with the object, of its value, specifically in the market of collecting. I don’t give a shit about any of that! If I buy a toy, I take it out, I play with it, I put it on the shelf to look at, it’s not hidden. No piece of my collection is hidden from view. Everything is on display…[because] it’s an expression of myself.'”

I resonate with two aspects of this quote. First, del Toro equates his experiences with the items in his collection with a religious or spiritual one, and the items themselves are not just collectibles, they are religious relics. In several previous posts here at TheoFantastique I’ve drawn attention to the religious or spiritual aspects of the fantastic, and this dovetails with del Toro’s own perspective and experiences. Del Toro said something similar to his comments at Rue Morgue on this topic in a recent Q&A with the media at the Fantasia Film Festival that is even more explicit: “I’m not a collector. I’m a religious man.” Second, as a collector myself I’m glad to see del Toro’s approach as a parallel to my own in finding value not in the potential resale of a given item, but instead in the play and experience of the item that constitutes its value.

For those like me who would like to attend the event but can’t, a forthcoming volume provides a window into his collection: Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters: Inside His Films, Notebooks, and Collections.