Guillermo Del Toro, the American dream is a generator of nightmares

(ANSA) - ROME, 03 DEC - "Darkness awaits those who seek it". This is the phrase that marks the entire story of The Fair of Illusions - Nightmare Alley, a journey into noir signed by Guillermo DelToro, which portrays the 'monsters' of the soul and brings back to an America of the late 30s - early years 1940s, between itinerant fairs and high society, capable of evoking today's society as well. Starring a cast that includes Bradley Cooper (also co-producer), Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, RooneyMara, David Strathairn, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, the film will arrive in the US on December 17 (critics already speculate various nominations for the Oscar) and in Italy on January 27 with Walt Disney Company Italia.

    For Del Toro, an admirer of authors of the genre such as McCain, Westlake, Worwick, Massimo Carlotto and Paco Ignacio Taibo, ilnoir, "like horror, tears off the veils of apparent normality, exposes very pure moral questions". The film is the adaptation of the novel Nightmare Alley published in 1946 (in Italy it came out this year with Sellerio), a sulfur story written by William Lindsay Gresham. "I think the American dream is an amazing nightmare generator," Del Toro points out. In the film, "the protagonist" is always two steps away from losing everything, because he based it on lies, he has no shield of truth ".

    The story revolves around a 'homme fatale', the fascinating and enigmatic Stanton Carlisle (Cooper), a vagabond with a dark past and three strong women: "Each in its own way gives a face to an archetype, the naive (Mara), the femme fatale ( Blanchett), the concrete woman with a heart of gold (Collette). I see in each dimension almost like a superheroine, also because they all manage to survive the encounter with Stan ".

    For Rooney Mara, one of the strengths of the film is precisely "the fact that Guillermo does not stage a single archetype of woman, as often happens, but three different ones, resulting in real, concrete, and human women". Among the curiosities, the cameo in the film by Romina Power: her father Tyrone had been the protagonist in 1947 of the first film adaptation. (HANDLE).