Beyond the Fairy Tale of The Shape of Water. Reimagining the Creature
Abstract
Guillermo del Toro’s “Shape of Water” (2017) has gained praise both from critics and audiences for its themes and storyline. In particular, a lot of creative and thematic weight is carried by the creature in the film – the Amphibian Man. As a character, it fits into the recent trend of morally positive and emotionally impactful monster representations, helping, among other things, to address the themes of acceptance and embracing of otherness. The aim of this paper is to explore the construction and portrayal of the Amphibian Man, and to take a closer look at the director’s approach towards reimagination of the creature in today’s landscape of cinema. The paper delves into del Toro’s work to define him as auteur, reflects on the traditions and changes in creature cinema, and examines the portrayal of the creature in terms of language, sound, and image.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Adji, Alberta Natasia. 2019. "Falling for the Amphibian Man: Fantasy, Otherness, and Auteurism in del Toro's The Shape of Water". IAFOR Journal of Media, Communication & Film 6 (1): 51-64.
https://doi.org/10.22492/ijmcf.6.1.03
Bane, Theresa. 2016. Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore. Jefferson (NC): McFarland & Company.
Bassil-Morozow, Helena. 2010. Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd: A Post-Jungian Perspective. London: Routledge.
Bernardi, Verena, and Frank Jacob, eds. 2019. All Around Monstrous: Monster Media in Their Historical Contexts. Wilmington (DE): Vernon Press.
Bloom, Abigail Burnham. 2010. The Literary Monster on Film: Five Nine-teenth Century British Novels and Their Cinematic Adaptations. Jefferson (NC): McFarland & Company.
Chimera Lighting. N.D. "Dan Lausten - ASC, Shape of Water". https://chimeralighting.com/shape-of-water/
Creature from the Black Lagoon. 1954. Directed by Jack Arnold. Universal International Pictures (UI).
Davies, Ann, Deborah Shaw, and Dolores Tierney, eds. 2014. Introduction to The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro, 1-8. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137407849_1
del Toro, Guillermo, and Marc Scott Zicree. 2013. Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions. New York: Harper Collins.
del Toro, Guillermo, and Vanessa Taylor. 2016. The Shape of Water. Screenplay: For Your Consideration. https://screenplayed.com/scriptlibrary/the-shape-of-water-2017.
Grant, Barry Keith. 2018. Monster Cinema. New Brunswick: Rutgers Uni-versity Press.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvqhsvw
Grobar, Matt. 2017. "'The Shape of Water' Composer Alexandre Desplat on the Sounds of Love and Water". Last modified December 30. https://deadline.com/2017/12/the-shape-of-water-alexandre-desplat-oscars-interview-1202220056/
Grobar, Matt. 2018. "'The Shape of Water' Production Designer on Crafting Satisfying Visual Experience for Ultimate Visual Storyteller". Last modified April 11. https://deadline.com/2018/01/the-shape-of-water-paul-d-austerberry-production-designer-interview-news-1202230180/
Internet Movie Database. N.D. "The Shape of Water (2017)". https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580390/
James, Daron. 2017. "Colors Play a Key Role in Production Design of Guillermo del Toro's 'Shape of Water'". Last modified December 8. https://variety.com/2017/artisans/production/guillermo-del-toro-shape-of-water-1202633301/
Jenkins, David. 2018. "Guillermo del Toro: 'Perversity is Always in the Eye of the Beholder'". Last modified February 14. https://lwlies.com/interviews/guillermo-del-toro-the-shape-of-water/
Martinelli, Dario. 2014. Lights, Camera, Bark. Kaunas: Technologija.
Martinelli, Dario. 2020. What You See Is What You Hear: Creativity and Comunication in Audiovisual Texts. Cham: Springer.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32594-7
Misek, Richard. 2010. Chromatic Cinema: A History of Screen Color. Malden (MA): Wiley-Blackwell.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444320077
Punday, Daniel. 2002. "Narrative Performance in the Contemporary Mon-ster Story". The Modern Language Review 97 (4): 803-820. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3738613
https://doi.org/10.2307/3738613
Ruiz, Elvin E., and Carmel Vip C. Derasin. 2019. "Dili Ingun Natu as Wardens of Nature". International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research 5 (3): 58-62.
Sallisbury, Joyce E. (1994) 2011. The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages. New York: Routledge.
Staples, Donald E. 1966. "The Auteur Theory Reexamined". Cinema Jour-nal 6: 1-7.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1225411
Stymeist, David. 2009. "Myth and the Monster in Cinema". Anthropologica 51 (2): 395-406. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25605494
The Shape of Water. 2017. Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Double Dare You (DDY), Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Wade, Joseph. 2018. "The Shape of Water (2017/18) Review". Last modi-fied January 12. https://www.thefilmagazine.com/shape-of-water-review/
Walden, Jennifer. 2018. "Behind the Shape of Water's Retro-Futuristic Fairytale Sound". Last modified February 20. https://www.asoundeffect.com/the-shape-of-water-sound/
Ward, Glenn. 2014. "'There Is No Such Thing': del Toro's Metafictional Monster Rally". In The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro, edited by Ann Davies, Deborah Shaw, and Dolores Tierney. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137407849_2
Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew. 2012. "Invisible Monsters: Vision, Horror, and Contemporary Culture". In The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, edited by Asa S. Mittman and Peter Dendle, 275-289. Farnham (Surrey): Ashgate.
Whitley-Berry, Victoria. 2017. "Guillermo del Toro Says 'Shape of Water' is an Antidote for Today's Cynicism". Last modified December 1. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/01/567265511/guillermo-del-toro-says-shape-of-water-is-an-antidote-for-today-s-cynicism?t=1612730428623
Wood, Juliette. (2014) 2016. "Mermaid/Merman". In Ashgate Encyclope-dia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters, edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock. Farnham (Surrey): Ashgate.
Zahed, Ramen. 2018. "Strong Color Palette Brings a Long-Held Vision of Shape of Water to Life". Last modified January 25. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-en-mn-crafts-shape-water-design-20180125-story.html
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7358/rela-2021-0102-lank
Copyright (©) 2022 Viktorija Lankauskaitė – Editorial format and Graphical layout: copyright (©) LED Edizioni Universitarie

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism
Registered by Tribunale di Milano (04/05/2012 n. 211)
Online ISSN 2280-9643 - Print ISSN 2283-3196
Executive Editor: Francesco Allegri
Associate Editor: Matteo Andreozzi
Review Editors: Sofia Bonicalzi - Eleonora Adorni
Editorial Board: Ralph R. Acampora - Carol J. Adams - Vilma Baricalla - Luisella Battaglia - Rod Bennison - Matthew R. Calarco - Piergiorgio Donatelli - William Grove-Fanning - Serenella Iovino - Luigi Lombardi Vallauri - Christoph Lumer - Joel MacClellan - Dario Martinelli - Roberto Marchesini - Alma Massaro - Serpil Oppermann - Simone Pollo - Paola Sobbrio - Kim Stallwood - Sabrina Tonutti - Jessica Ullrich - Federico Zuolo
Referee List
© 2001 LED Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto