Sunday 25 February 2018

The Shape of Water and the politics of cinema



Guillermo del Toro, quoted in Playback: Guillermo del Toro on ‘The Shape of Water’ and Taking a Political Stance in Art, by Kristopher Tapley, Variety 
We told a story not through the agents and the scientists, but through the janitors, the cleaning women who had to wipe the toilets, emptying the trash bins, and from that moment, you are already taking a political stance.


Guillermo del Toro, quoted in Guillermo del Toro Explains How The Shape of Water Is About ‘The Beauty of the Other’, by Scott Huver, Vulture 
[The amphibious creature] represents ‘the other.’ We’re living in a time where we demonize the Other. We are told we’ve got to fear. [We’re being told] everywhere, constantly, why we have to divide the world between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ whether race, religion, government [,] sexual preference, gender — anything that creates this fake division between us and them, and there’s only us.  [...]
The movie tries to embody the beauty of the Other [...] What makes us different is what makes us great. It’s sort of Beauty and the Beast in a way that shows you that Beauty doesn’t have to be the perfect princess, she doesn’t have to look like a perfume-commercial model … and the Beast doesn’t have to be transformed to be loved, and he doesn’t have to turn into a boring fucking prince and renounce the essence of who he is. [...] Because, to me, love is not transformation. [...] Love is acceptance and understanding.


Excerpt from Guillermo del Toro's speech at the 2018 Golden Globes 
Since childhood, I’ve been faithful to monsters. I have been saved and absolved by them, because monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing.


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