In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Nude Scene, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sexscenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around it, and their legacy. This week, Guillermo del Toro works out his kinks through Sally Hawkins and an amphibious man-creature in Best Picture winner The Shape of Water!
From the very beginning of his career, it was clear that Guillermo del Toro marched to the beat of a different drum. Hisfascination withdifferent—often darker—sides of horror, love of practical effects, and bone deep genre nerd credentials made him an instant cult figure. While 2004's Hellboy certainly introduced del Toro to a wider audience, it was 2006's Pan's Labyrinth that garnered him attention as a "serious filmmaker." That was the magical year whenGuillermo and his fellow Mexican filmmakers—Alejandro GonzálezIñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón—dominated the Oscars with Pan's, Babel, and Children of Men, respectively.
While both of those men went on to win Best Director Oscars—two consecutively for Iñarritu in 2014 and 15, and one for Cuarón in 2013 and again in 2018—del Toro seemed to be the unsung member of the group in major awards circles.To be fair, hewas the most eccentric by far and the stories that seemed to tickle his fancies rarely lined up with what critics and awards voters championed come the end of the year. His fans always knew in the backs of their minds, however, that del Toro would one day manage to produce something that just might align with their sensibilities without compromising an inch of his strangeness.
Speaking of strange, it's undeniably just that when it comes to his 2017 film The Shape of Water. Coming on the heels of his gothic romance ghost story Crimson Peak, it didn't seem that his love story between amute woman and a Creature from the Black Lagoon-esque amphibious man-creature was going to be the one to seal the deal for Academy voters. And boy, do things get off to quite a start, particularly if you're coming into The Shape of Water cold back in 2017. Sure, the trailers for the film looked gorgeous and the monster makeup effects were superb, but nothing could've prepared you for the frank sexual content to follow.
The film opens with a tour of a flooded house, foreshadowing the film's climax, before introducing us to Elsie (Sally Hawkins) part way through the opening credits. As he did with the introduction of his Jaeger mechs inPacific Rim, del Toro establishesElsie's morning routine so thoroughly, he doesn't have to come back to it again except in bits and pieces. He is a master of exposition in this way and film students would be wise to study his films for his use of visual exposition.
We follow Elsie through her morning routine, first establishing that she is not deaf by an alarm clock waking her up.We see her going about her morning, boiling eggs for her lunch, and del Toro also establishes that she lives above an old movie house—well, the film is set in the 50s, so just a movie house. Part ofher routine is running herself a bath,then settingan egg timer to know when her bath is over, and here we get a glimpse into a key part of her morning, pleasuring herself in the tub...
I love that del Toro does the old Hays Code pan over to something innocuous—in this case, the egg timer—just as things are heating up, but then reminds us that it's 2017 and continues the pan around so Hawkins is now in the background of the shot. It's clear that this is going to be a sexual film and reading interviews with del Toro,hearing him speak, and seeing his films, it's not surprising that he'd be interested in the sex life of an amphibious man-creature. It just seems to fit with his whole aesthetic, and that is in no way meant to be an insult.
The thing about del Toro as a filmmaker is that he's willing to go that extra mile that other storytellers couldn't or wouldn't go, and it's nice when those impulses line up with the cultural zeitgeist.Gone were the chaste and sexless monsters of Twilight, Edward Scissorhands, and even the classic Universal Monsters, replaced by a lizard man who bones babes. Now, to be fair, he's not some party animal—though I would love to see a monster like the one from Shape of Water in a college boob comedy—and Elsie's character is eventually revealed to be amphibious herself, likely accounting for her inability to speak.
It's interesting to note del Toro's use of sex as a way of establishing a character's inner life. Elsie feels most comfortable expressing her sexuality surrounded by water, while Michael Shannon's villainous Colonel Strickland is shown to have some pretty interesting sexual behaviors of his own. When we follow him home around the thirty minute mark, we're introduced to his wife (Lauren Lee Smith), who plays the role of compliant and yielding Cold War-erasuburban housewife by whipping out her breast for him at the kitchen table. We follow them into the bedroom where they have borderline aggressive missionary sex where he shows little regard for her sexual satisfaction.
Using sex to establish character is a novel approach and one that you might not expect to find in a del Toro flick as his previous work was mostly asexual. Perhaps it was co-writer Vanessa Taylor who helpednudge del Toro in this direction, she was the first female co-writer he had ever worked with, but little is known about the extent of their collaboration, nor how it pertains to the sex. Either way, it was a bold move on del Toro's part to make such a sexually liberated film.
That it caught on with critics, audiences, and the Academy is a small miracle in and of itself, but del Toro finally joined his compatriots with a Best Director Oscar win, as well as another for producing the film. It's not only nice to see him finally lauded alongside his equally talented friends and peers, it's nice that he didn't compromise an ounce of his vision to get there. The last time a Best Picture winner opened with the main character masturbating, it was American Beauty. I think we're all just better as a cultural societysome twenty years on, and will happily replace that film with The Shape of Water in any future academic discussions on the topic.
Catch up withour most recent editions ofAnatomy of a Nude Scene
—Jennifer Jason Leigh Gets the Drop on Bridget Fonda in Single White Female
—Monique Gabrielle EnsuresBachelor Partyis an Affair to Remember
—An Entire Generation of Men Saw Bare Breasts for the First Time inCaddyshack
—Maggie Gyllenhaal Holds Nothing Back inSecretary
—Demi Moore Took a Record Paycheck to HeadlineStriptease
—That Time We All Fell in Love with Kelly Preston inMischief
—What Happened with Marisa Tomei's Nude Scene fromUntamed Heart
—Cybill Shepherd is Uncomfortably Relatable inThe Last Picture Show
—Penelope Cruz Does Very Different Nude Scenes Playing the Same Role inOpen Your EyesandVanilla Sky
—Joyce Hyser Becomes an 80s Icon inJust One of the Guys
—Charlize Theron Lands on the Map with2 Days in the Valley
—SirensMay be Plural, But All Eyes Were on Elle MacPherson
—Eva Green's Star is Born in Bertolucci'sThe Dreamers
—Phoebe Cates Takes a Dip and Becomes a Legend inFast Times at Ridgemont High
—Kim Basinger Gets All Wet for Mickey Rourke in9½ Weeks
**Click Here to Read All Past Editions of Anatomy of a Nude Scene/Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy**
