
ANALYSIS
By GLENN WHIPP Los Angeles Times
How did The Shape of Water, a movie about a mute cleaning woman falling truly, madly, deeply in love with a fish-man, wind up winning the Oscar for best picture?
It starts with the power of love, the films Oscar-winning director, Guillermo del Toro, says.
Love is much stronger than hatred and its much more powerful than fear, Del Toro told The Times in a November interview. Love is the antidote to what were living through today.
That timely resonance helped The Shape of Water become the first sci-fi film to win best picture, with Del Toro pulling off a feat that eluded the likes of Steven Spielberg (E.T.), George Lucas (Star Wars), James Cameron (Avatar), Christopher Nolan (Inception) and fellow Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuar?Gravity). (Were classifying The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King as a fantasy film, as director Peter Jackson did when he accepted the Oscar.)
Director Guillermo del Toro explains that The Shape of Water is set in 1962 for a reason. Because its about today. And about the other . I wanted to talk about things now.
Shapes favor with the academy - it earned a leading 13 nominations, winning four - was also undoubtedly helped by the way it explored societal fears of the Other.
Its set in 1962, but, for me, this is today, the Mexican-born Del Toro said. Pointing to the movies Cold War era, he added: When people say, Lets make America great again, theyre dreaming of that time. Everything was great if you were white Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. If you were anything else, you were 1/8screwed]. So its a false memory of that time.
The films across-the-board support in the industry - it won top prizes from the Producers Guild and Directors Guild as well - was also probably aided by its baked-in love for cinema. Its main characters live above a beautiful movie theater, and the sound from the venues showings bleeds into the action, making cinema a constant presence as it is in Del Toros life.
Del Toro shot Shape like a musical, constantly moving the camera on cranes and dollies, aiming for the illusion that the characters might break into song at any moment. He also included a dream dance sequence that would have made Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers proud.
I wanted to make it feel like a love letter to movies, Del Toro said in that earlier interview. Its passionate about movies because Im passionate about movies. Movies gave me life. Movies saved my life.
Del Toro used a great many B-movie tropes in Shape but took the film to surprising places as well. Its beauty-and-the-beast tale is a love story about understanding, not transformation. The lovers passion is reciprocal and almost immediate. The roadblocks come from outside forces. And, perhaps the best curveball of all: Sally Hawkins janitor drives the action. Shes the one who needs to save the day.
And, unlike most creature flicks, the love story is not only consummated but has the kind of upbeat ending that Del Toro wanted to see when he first caught Creature from the Black Lagoon on television at age 7.
I fell in love with them in love, Del Toro said. I remember thinking, I hope they end up together. They should end up together. They didnt. So Ive been trying to get them back together ever since.
The Shape of Water premiered in August at the Venice Film Festival, winning the events prestigious Golden Lion award. From there, the film screened at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals, gaining more critical acclaim along the way.
Its path to best picture wasnt without its hiccups, however. Shape didnt earn a Screen Actors Guild ensemble nod, a category that has long been viewed as a vital awards season precursor. (Shape is the only movie since Braveheart to win the best picture Oscar without that SAG ensemble nomination.)
The movie also faced two accusations of plagiarism, both of which Del Toro strongly denied.
Though he had only one prior Oscar nomination, for writing the Pans Labyrinth original screenplay, the gregarious Del Toro is extremely well-liked in the industry as a filmmaker with an abounding enthusiasm for the medium.
I felt incredibly honored, Hawkins says of her collaboration with Del Toro. That he would trust me with this role of a woman who possesses a strength she doesnt know she has, and then she discovers it and it just explodes her heart open and it allows her to literally break through walls. Who else could write that? Who else would write that?
Hawkins added that she thought her character resonated in this #MeToo year in which women spoke out forcefully against sexual harassment and gender inequity in the industry.
We need to see more women like her driving movies, Hawkins told The Times.
The films lavish craftsmanship - it won Oscars for production design and score, along with nominations for its cinematography, sound and editing - were all the more remarkable given its $19.5-million budget.
You make the movie for that price and then youre free from interference, producer J. Miles Dale told The Times in February. The film shot in Toronto on stages from Dales FX television series The Strain, using much of the shows crew.
We definitely had our moments of frustration, lots of long days, but I dont think anyones complaining now, Dale said.
Del Toro has lived in Toronto the last few years, but as he made clear from the stage Sunday, he considers the sets of his films his spiritual home. With The Shape of Water, he created a place of community that, judging from the Oscars on Sunday, extended well beyond those that worked on the film.
I think that the greatest thing our art does and our industry does is to erase the lines in the sand, Del Toro said, accepting his Oscar for directing. We should continue doing that when the world tells us to make them deeper.
TNS