«Beautiful Things Are Fragile»Intertextual connections and the(re)construction of identity in Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak (2015)

Abstract

This chapter argues that the consciously intertextual natureof the 2015 film Crimson Peak did not only enable Guillermo del Toro torender a heartfelt homage to time-honoured classics in the gothic tradition;it also operates at a strategic level in the enactment of a multi-layered rite ofpassage operating at three levels. On the one hand, with regard to its leadingcharacters, it explores the physical and psychological traumas embedded in thetransition between innocence and adulthood: the sharp contrast between thepervasive, apparently threatening, presence of ghosts and the predatory urge ofother human beings around gradually transforms the former into allies in one’squest for self-assertion. On the other, in relation to viewer experience, the filmreplicates the function developed by these supernatural beings from beyondby uttering a well-measured warning against the danger of appearances andthe blind pursuit of one’s dreams. Likewise, within the dynamics of identificationand differentiation between Edith Cushing and Thomas Sharpe’s ill-fatedwives, we may perceive a clear reflection of the film’s eclectic construction and negotiation of meaning with the tradition anticipating it. Therefore, our studypinpoints and analyses the integration of literary and film referents –firmlyrooted in the gothic tradition– into Guillermo del Toro’s proposal, which isseen as a lively exercise of appropriation and resignification clearly withdrawnfrom soulless repetition. The film succeeds in the attempt of redefining theidentity of the leading protagonist, the role of the audience with regard to thefilm, and its own construction: it ultimately brings forward a fruitful dialoguebetween fiction, reality, tradition and modernity.