Could Plagiarism Allegations Against 'The Shape Of Water' Hurt Its Oscar Hopes?
"The Shape of Water," Guillermo del Toro's latest critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated film, certainly seems original. It's about a mute janitor named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) who falls in love with a mysterious fish-man hybrid (Doug Jones) being studied at the government lab where she works and then endeavors to rescue him from an authoritarian government agent (Michael Shannon). You certainly wouldn't confuse the plot with that of any other feature released in the last few years.
But "The Shape of Water" has been accused of stealing its plot and ideas from not just one but two previous works — a 1969 play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Zindel and a 2015 short film by a Dutch student filmmaker named Marc S. Nollkaemper. Here's what's going on.
The 1969 Play 'Let Me Hear You Whisper' Is Like 'The Shape Of Water' With A Dolphin Instead Of A Fish-Man
Zindel's play, "Let Me Hear You Whisper," is about a cleaning lady who falls in love with a dolphin captured at the lab where she works. Here's the synopsis from Zindel's website:
The action is set in the laboratory of the American Biological Association Development for the Advancement of Brain Analysis, where curious experiments involving various mammals are taking place. Helen, a newly engaged cleaning lady, is particularly drawn to a dolphin and is shocked when she learns that, having failed to "talk" as hoped for, it is slated for brain dissection. She makes a desperate attempt to rescue the dolphin from the scientists, incurring first their indignation and then, when the dolphin does indeed "talk" for Helen, their futile pleas that she change her mind about leaving and stay on to help them in their experiments. But the gentle Helen has had enough — both of "Custodial Engineering" and of schemes to change man's relationship to the other creatures with whom the world must be shared.
There Are Both Major And Minor Similarities Between The Play And Del Toro's Movie
The site Hollywood Nerd compiled a list of similarities between the play and the film. (It's full of spoilers for "The Shape of Water," obviously.)
The main character is a quiet, introverted female custodian who works the graveyard shift in a laboratory.
Set in the 1960s during the Cold War, at a laboratory where experiments for military use are taking place
The custodian discovers a tank with an aquatic creature who is being experimented on
The custodian and the aquatic creature fall in love, a transformative love which enables both of them to be heard
She wins his trust by sneaking food into the lab and feeding him.
She dances to music on a record with her mop while the creature looks on and their bond grows deeper
She is treated in a dehumanizing way by her superiors at the laboratory.
She discovers that the scientists who run the lab want to use the creature as a military weapon if they can get him to cooperate but if not, he is to be vivisected for research purposes.
She decides to rescue the creature and release him to the sea by sneaking him out of the facility in a laundry cart.
Zindel's Family Thinks 'The Shape Of Water' Is 'Obviously Derived' From His Play
Zindel's son, David, told the Guardian that he was "shocked" by the similarities between del Toro's film and his late father's play:
"We are shocked that a major studio could make a film so obviously derived from my late father's work without anyone recognizing it and coming to us for the rights," Zindel, who runs his father's estate, said in an email to the Guardian…
"A lot of people are telling us they are struck by the substantial similarities," David Zindel said in an email. "We are very grateful to Paul Zindel's fans for bringing this to our attention."
Fox Searchlight Insists That Del Toro Hasn't Read 'Let Me Hear You Whisper'
There are differences between "Let Me Hear You Whisper" and "The Shape of Water," too: The protagonist of the play is not mute, the movie has a side plot involving Elisa's gay neighbor (Richard Jenkins) that has no analogue in the play and the endings of the two works are dissimilar. Fox Searchlight, which distributed "The Shape of Water," issued the following statement denying the plagiarism charges:
Guillermo del Toro has never read nor seen Mr Zindel's play in any form. Mr. del Toro has had a 25-year career during which he has made 10 feature films and has always been very open about acknowledging his influences. If the Zindel family has questions about this original work we welcome a conversation with them.
[via Vanity Fair]
The 2015 Short Film 'The Space Between Us' Is Even More Superficially Similar To 'The Shape Of Water'
The second work that "The Shape of Water" has been accused of ripping off is a short 2015 Dutch film called "The Space Between Us." Here's a synopsis from the film's YouTube account:
Juliette, the last remaining cleaner from the Beacon Gill Research Centre, meets Adam at night. He is a merman with the most suitable gills to save humanity. Adam enchants Juliette with his singing. She faces a dilemma: does Adam have to die for the sins of humanity?
You can watch the film here:
Despite The Similarities, The Short's Producers Think The Two Movies 'Have Their Own Very Different Identities'
Although many online commenters noticed similarities between the two movies, the Netherlands Film Academy — which produced "The Space Between Us" — talked to del Toro about it and decided that the similarities are a coincidence.
After recently screening "The Shape of Water" and following conversations that took place in a very constructive and friendly atmosphere, The Netherlands Film Academy believes that both "The Shape of Water" and our short, "The Space Between Us," have their own very different identities. They have separate timelines of development and are not in any conceivable way interlinked or related. The students and "The Space Between Us" team were very excited and grateful to have the opportunity to actively discuss the creative inspirations of both films in a personal conversation with Mr. del Toro. We cordially discussed our films and our common roots in mythology and the fantastic (and some themes which Mr. del Toro has previously dwelled on Hellboy I and II). We have learned a lot from the contact with an extremely gifted and creative filmmaker and wish "The Shape of Water" continued success.
[via IndieWire]
'The Shape Of Water' Was Supposedly First Conceived Of In The Early '90s
The idea for "The Shape of Water," which is credited to novelist Daniel Kraus, supposedly predates "The Space Between Us," if not "Let Me Hear You Whisper."
The idea for Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water was born on a tennis court in Iowa. That's where author Daniel Kraus, at the age of 15, vividly remembers coming up with the seed of a story about a creature locked in a lab and a janitor that tries to break it out.
Kraus carried that idea around with him for years, regularly toying with it but never finishing it, until then he had breakfast with Guillermo del Toro in Toronto, Canada. Kraus, by then a successful author, had been tapped to write a book called Trollhunters with the Pan's Labyrinth director—and during one meeting about it, Kraus' idea began its journey to become The Shape of Water in two forms: A movie and an unconventional novel.
[io9]
Lonely Fish-Men Are Actually A Pretty Common Film Trope
Of course, all of these works draw on previous movies, too, especially Creature From the Black Lagoon, the 1954 horror flick about an aquatic creature who falls in love with and abducts a human woman. And del Toro has pointed out that imprisoned fish men are a motif in his own past work:
"What is funny is that I have two movies, Hellboy ('04) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army ('08), with an aquatic creature inside a super-secret tank in a large laboratory….so that [general concept] is not exactly in the province of exclusivity.' He's referring, of course, to Abe Sapien, an aquatic fellow who actually encounters a love interest in the second Hellboy film.
