How ‘Shape of Water’ won best picture Oscar
LOS ANGELES—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 film’s Oscar-winning director, Guillermo del Toro, says.
“Love is much stronger than hatred, and it’s much more powerful than fear,” del Toro told the Los Angeles Times in November. “Love is the antidote to what we’re 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 Cuaron (“Gravity”). (We’re classifying “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” as a fantasy film, as director Peter Jackson did when he accepted the Oscar.)
“Shape’s” 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.
“It’s set in 1962, but, for me, this is today,” the Mexican-born del Toro said. Pointing to the movie’s Cold War era, he added: “When people say, ‘Let’s make America great again,’ they’re dreaming of that time. Everything was great if you were white Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. If you were anything else, you were (screwed). So it’s a false memory of that time.”
The film’s 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 venue’s showings bleeds into the action, making cinema a constant presence as it is in del Toro’s 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. “It’s passionate about movies because I’m 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. Roadblocks come from outside forces. And perhaps the best curveball of all: Sally Hawkins’ janitor drives the action. She’s 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 didn’t. So I’ve been trying to get them back together ever since.”
“The Shape of Water” premiered in August at the Venice Film Festival, winning the event’s 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 wasn’t without its hiccups, however. “Shape” didn’t 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.)