The Shape of Water Essay Questions

What Hollywood tropes does Guillermo del Toro explore in The Shape of Water and what is their significance?

This film is a really exciting genre pastiche and there's no shortage of nods to classical Hollywood. You could consider the influence of Universal horror movies like The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) on the character design and plot of the film, or Gene Kelly musicals on the moments of tap dancing and that big musical number towards the end. You can also engage del Toro's direction that Sally Hawkes consider the silent comedy of Laurel & Hardy when portraying Elisa, or the influence that the director himself owes to Hitchcock in his construction of suspense.

How does the setting of the Cold War influence the characters and narrative in the film?

Here, you can explore the characters of Dr. Hoffstetler and Strickland. Hoffstetler is a Soviet spy, but is portrayed as being mostly interested in his scientific research. So even though he's an operative of the communists, he's a sympathetic character. Strickland, on the other hand, is a proud American military and family man, yet is the ultimate monster in the film. Everything he represents seems to be corrupt. You can also explore the strange conceit that the creature was captured as part of the U.S.'s role in the space race.

How does the presence of films and television play into The Shape of Water?

Elisa and Giles live in apartments above a movie theater, and indeed their lives seem to be flush with cinema. They tap dance around together and undertake a crazy heist. We also see them watching television often, often Bette Davis movies. At once point, Giles commands Elisa to change the station when footage of race riots play. You can also discuss the closed-circuit television in the laboratory facility, and the role that surveillance plays in the development of the thriller aspects of the film.

What role do misfits play in The Shape of Water and Del Toro's other films?

Misfits appear regularly in del Toro's films, and he has stated in interviews that he's interested in sympathetic and complex portrayals of otherness. In The Shape of Water, our heroes are a disabled woman, a gay man, a sea monster, and a Soviet spy. They seem to live a richer, more emotionally exciting life than our villain, Strickland. The main character in Pan's Labyrinth (2006) disappears into a fantasy world because she doesn't fit in "the real world," and the Hellboy films (2004 and 2008) and Blade II are comic book adaptations about ragtag bands of freaks and monsters. These characters are portrayed alternately as heroes or ironic villains in their films as well.

Discuss the use of the color blue throughout the film, identifying scenes and set pieces that it appears in and how the story develops in conjunction with it.

This is a great opportunity to discuss del Toro's filmmaking style. In interviews, del Toro has noted his use of visual rhymes, and his use of blue throughout The Shape of Water is indeed a poetic one. We see it in imagery as diverse as the monster's skin and Strickland's car. Of course, blue is also the color of water, and many of the most beautiful and surreal scenes in the movies are bathed in the color. Much of the metaphorical and narrative threads in the film can be understood simply by tracing the use of the color throughout the film.