The Shape of Water → (diving) water (alien) shape (person) object (aphasia).
"Time is nothing but a river that carries the past."
After the mute girl Eliza completed a series of daily actions before going out, she tore off the calendar and printed this sentence on the back. Her history is repeating and stacking day after day. Until this day, she will meet the same kind fatally, and then fall in love with them, embarking on a journey of "miracles" in ordinary life.
"The Shape of Water" Water City won the Golden Lion and Oscar the best, but the audience did not seem to buy it. Criticisms of its political correctness and hypocrisy are rampant, and there are no shortage of clichés and superficial themes that directly refer to its terrible love, love, and loneliness. Before watching the movie, I was told by spoilers that the protagonist is a dumb girl, and the murloc is a selling point. Coupled with the red shoes that fell from the poster, I guessed that the heroine might be the mermaid princess who used her voice to switch her legs to land, but the shoes are. Corresponding to the description in "Mermaid", "every step she takes is like stepping on the tip of a knife" (blood-stained shoes). When I saw the whole film, I found that the whole story opened with an old neighbor’s fairytale narration ("the lost princess"). The heroine's settings such as oviparous suggestion, picking up by the water, and changing cheeks from scars have all been verified to a certain extent. Previous thoughts. Therefore, "The Shape of Water" is not the traditional dualistic opposition of the "beauty and the beast" story, but more like two true like- minded people who love each other in different body shapes- "I am destined to love you" + "Love and The tide will surround you and me . "
When I watched the movie for the second time, I focused on the symbolic treatment of the new and the old, the past and the future in the film. The nostalgia created by the spinning top is recognizable at a glance. For example, the background of the story is set in the cold war period of the 1960s and the fascinating complex of old movies can be seen everywhere. But after careful consideration, you will find that it is not simple: the melancholy of the times is not lightly over the story like a veil, but as a dark thread running through. Taking the present presented in the film as the time coordinate, the choices made by the characters and the fate they endure depend on whether they can make their own past and uncomfortable. The fascination feelings that include the tribute to the old films and the disputes between the film and television are also the knot of time. important parts of.
"Sequel": A tribute to "Black Lake Demon"
Let's start with the overall tribute object of "The Shape of Water"-the 1954 monster horror film "Black Lake Monster". The latter tells the story of a team of scientists who were attacked by fish monsters when they went to the Amazon basin to investigate, and shot and wounded fish monsters to escape after losing many people. The Black Lake Fish Monster is extremely lethal, but its persistent love/desire for the beauty scientific expedition team members is anti-beastly.
In the "Seven Year Itch", Monroe went to the theater to watch the film with the hero: "Although it looks terrible, but the heart is not bad. As long as someone loves it, it feels like being loved and needed. ......" The words are followed by the classic sexy scenes of Monroe Fengshen's subway skirt fluttering.
This post-viewing feeling can simply be used as the emotional core of "The Shape of Water", and the top is also when I saw the scene of the beauty and the beast swimming underwater in "Black Lake Monster" when I was a child, I felt love. Only then developed his later romantic complex with Murloc.
The murloc in "The Shape of Water" was brought back to the United States by the villain from the mud and sand of South America (there are also hints of Amazon expedition in the TV show), so this film might as well be regarded as "Black Lake Monster" sequel. In addition to the main line of cross-species love, the continuation of "The Shape of Water" in "Black Lake" is also in the different attitudes of the scientific expedition team towards fish monsters and the emotional relationship between them.
The scientists in "Black Lake Monster" have both pros and cons. The positive representatives are the sustainable ecological school who believes that "getting photos for research is enough and should not harm the fish monsters", and is also the lover of the heroine; On the other side, he made his own arrows and crossbows, and killed the fish monsters like a hunter. He was the boss of the heroine, and his jealous eyes showed his feelings for her. In the end, the positive couple survived, and the latter was killed by the fish monster.
Corresponding to "Shape of Water" are Soviet scientist Dimitri and military officer Strickland: the latter's desire, brutal methods and tragic end to the heroine are no different from the bad scientists of "Black Lake"; the former is good The scientist has no line of affection with the heroine, and the reason for not being able to die is that as a spy, he committed the crime of betrayal and was a tripartite betrayal (the end of the film confessed to a dumb woman and a black friend). The biblical story told by the villain twice seemed to threaten black female workers, but it actually corresponds to the fate of the Soviets.
In "Black Lake" and "The Shape of Water", both research on fish monsters and space exploration appeared side by side. "Black Lake" was just a casual mention, but two years later, the science fiction film "Forbidden Planet" was exactly the same as the poster. Completed the coincidence link between the past and the future.
"Shape of Water" clearly spreads out the purpose: Murlocs are an important scientific research object in the US-Soviet arms race. They need to unlock biochemical technologies from primitive organisms that can be used in aerospace, that is, to squeeze the "past" and develop the "future". ". And "The Shape of Water" itself is just such a film based on the old film to absorb nutrients, so that it will reproduce its glory in the "future".
Nostalgia: Comfortable and Anxious
To say that the "marginal figures" in "The Shape of Water" are nostalgic, we can find a lot of evidence from the film. Although they have some doubts about their past and future, they still have a self-consistent sense of security. However, those laboratory personnel such as Soviet scientists and military villains, although they are moving forward in their work and life, they are still anxious and vaguely nostalgic. They walked cautiously on the wire rope connecting the past and the future, but turned their heads frequently. If they were not careful, they would fall, and in the end they did lose both.
[Mute Eliza]
If you have never encountered a murloc, the dumb girl Eliza can perfectly interpret "how you live a day, you live a life" , which can be perceived from a series of quick montages. There is no boundary between her past and future, and some are just the eternal present, like a routine, and like a compressed cookie. "There is something to do, someone loves, and there is hope." She can meet the most basic needs of doing things. Some talk about the joy of masturbation, but also feel empty and lonely, but fortunately, she can always live on.
[Neighbor Giles]
The neighbor painter Giles is an unemployed bald old man. He feels about his past. When he was young, he may not be completely beautiful, but time can always screen out unpleasant memories. In the film, he directly expressed two times of nostalgia, as well as the fear of aging and death: one is the advice given to himself if he returns to his youth-"protect the teeth and make love", and the other is the muttering to himself in the face of the murloc -"I am getting too old, I only recognize my own eyes."
In the process of his active fight for work, the most important color symbol of the whole film appeared: the red color used in the advertising painting of jelly is out of date, and [green] is the color that represents [future] . In this regard, the boss declined his excuses. In fact, the advertising industry is transforming into "art works of the age of mechanical reproduction", and Giles' hand-painted paintings have been replaced by photographs and photography. At first, he wanted to revise and try to catch up with the trend, but in the end he gave up with the backbone and dignity, and returned to the familiar traditional field and his past. Later, the portrait painted for the Murloc was a more basic pencil carbon. Stick painting.
On the other hand, the pie shop he often visits also has a kink of "green" in the future and "red" in the past. At the beginning we saw the store decoration and cold light are all green, Giles fixed point is also green lime pie, plus his favorite ordering brother, these all point to the future possibility. There are details in the film: When the villain is sent home, the car broadcast is exactly the advertisement of It's a great pie- "The future is here" .
However, after Giles and the younger brother showed their failure, the camera scanned the cleaning ladies in the background. They were wearing red uniforms and the seats were also red. In a panic, the younger brother rejected the black men and women who wanted to sit down, and then asked Giles to leave-"This is a family restaurant."
The green of the open future and the conservative red of nostalgia are irreconcilable due to discrimination, which prompted Giles to awaken and help rescue the murloc, and as early as he opened the refrigerator to show a dish of leftover green limes. At the time of the pie, it had already foreshadowed that he would not be able to bear the "future".
Returning to the nostalgia of the heroine Eliza here, her dress changes and theme colors can reflect this. In the first half, her clothes, shoes and headband were basically green. After falling in love, she gradually changed her accessories to red. On the one hand, because red represents passion for love, on the other hand, it is also because the murlocs come from the past represented by red. And when she took the bus to work, the neon street lights were reflected on the glass beside her. This rare red light was the theme color after her choice.
[Soviet scientist Dimitri]
The trouble with the Soviet spy is that he is a patriot and a scientist. The former points to his past, mother tongue, real name, and purpose of performing the task; the latter is his present and expected future, which is his ambition. In a dilemma, he made a choice to follow his heart, just like a good scientist in "Black Lake Demon", letting go of the murloc.
When being thanked by the dumb woman, he spoke out his real name "Dimitri" to the Americans for the first time, and later returned to the Soviet Union despite the danger. It can be seen that he has a deeper sense of identity with his past, but in In the whirlpool of the Cold War era, he was destined to be annihilated.
[Villa Strickland]
Next, I will talk about the military villain Mr. Strickland. In my opinion, he is the most interesting character portrayed in the whole film (to express his interest in him is to write a biography). He appeared in film noir: a dark top hat and coat, hidden in the shadows. As the plot develops, it reveals various aspects of absurdity (the theory of peeing), violence (injury to murlocs with electric batons), and authoritarianism (attitudes towards subordinates). But he is actually a civil servant with a family and a boss, which is rare and ironic in the villains of film noir.
The villain has a nuclear family that is standard in the 1950s and 1960s: warm and lovely, with both children, and he is in it with an image that has been certified by the audience as an evil, like Robert Mitchum ("Hunter's Night"" "Cape Terror") accidentally enters Douglas Syk's family melodrama as out of place. Regarding the surname "Strickland", isn't this the surname of the male protagonist who abandoned his wife and son in "The Moon and Sixpence"! Dissatisfaction and unfreedom bound by the family do not know whether it is a hidden stalk.
There is also a subtle echo in the film: The jelly advertising picture that Giles drew corresponds to the villain's family of four. When asked to draw this family happier, he retorted: "Father is happy enough. It seems to have mastered the posture of a missionary.” The deleted sex scene called “rape” confirmed Giles’ words, and later his wife served the green jelly in the advertisement—worthy of the middle class, the family is keenly Keep up with fashion trends, and green still symbolizes the future .
The relationship between Mr. Strickland and the "future" has appeared twice through dialogue: one is the exchange between him and his son after returning home: can the future technology reach a certain height? This is America, everything is possible.
The other is that when he went to buy a car, the salesperson called him the "son of the future." The Cadillac, a must-have car for successful people, was the best choice. He gave the impression of "struggling forward", full of national strength and personal self-confidence, towards a bright future. Everything is under control, at least the current situation gives him such a feeling.
The slack shot that followed: he was driving, and the convertible next to him was driving. The young man waved at him. He hesitated and waved his hand in greeting, showing his first and last smile. This is an emotional breath and a turning point in the narrative. What happened afterwards was a sharp turn for the villain- he gradually ran out of the "future" quota, frustrated and helpless.
The props that the villain does not leave their hands/mouths are electric batons and green hard candies. The electric batons have been introduced in the toilet as early as (man), and the sugar cubes are not explained until the end (boy). That is the bargain he has "loved since he was a child", and it depends on the mood. This is a very humane setting: the dwarf also grew up, the killer also has elementary school classmates, and the villain also has his own childhood memories.
Here I have a bold conjecture: Mr. Strickland may have come from an ordinary or even a poor family. From snacks to cheap sweets, that is his worry-free childhood memory, so he still retains this habit as an adult. To connect with the past.
In the film, the book he read is "The Power of Positive Thinking". When he defended himself in front of the general, he repeatedly emphasized "decency". This set of middle-class success studies and career experience seemed to imply that it was not easy for him to climb to the current level.
Especially after the general must complete the mission with life threatening, the scene where he rushed into the toilet and shouted to the mirror with a command tone was very shocking. From his standpoint, it is really a critical moment that puts his own life and the whole family at one point. Once he misses, all his past struggles will be in vain. For this man who thinks that his current residence is far away from the city and still thinks about moving his family to live in a big city, the future that flashed in his mind must be a snowflake without signal at this moment.
The green color of hard candy has a special meaning. As mentioned earlier, green is the color of the future. Green lime pie and jelly have already appeared as a symbol. And hard candy is the villain from snacks to big ones. Does that mean that he looks at his future self on the time coordinate of his childhood? Are you satisfied with your current self? This soul torture has a detail in the film that seems to be able to confirm: the son told him that a time capsule was buried in the school. Green hard candy is equivalent to an open time capsule that has never been buried. To a certain extent, the tragedy of the villain is also caused by his inability to make the past and the future harmonious.
Fanying: Film and television competition and singing and dancing fanatics
At first glance, the fascination complex of "The Shape of Water" seems loose and inexplicable. The intertextuality between the old film and its own is more obscure and difficult to clarify than other movies that use fascination as a selling point. What we can directly perceive is: the hostess Eliza lives upstairs in the cinema with her neighbor Giles. Her room is always in the sound waves of the cinema’s dialogue, and her aphasia is compensated for, otherwise the house should have What a silence. The two like to watch musicals on TV together. Even if they were given tickets, they would not go to the cinema downstairs, but the murlocs were found in the cinema when they got into trouble and ran out of the house. The villain’s leisure activities are also centered on television, but Strickland’s ending echoes the "blasphemy" of the opening theater...
Contacting the background of the times, we can decode more information: the story of the Cold War period, television has been popularized throughout the United States, golden Hollywood has declined, the film industry relied on making color wide-screen epics to compete with television to snatch the audience, but it still faces huge challenges. The loss of people is like an empty theater in a movie. Orpheum Theater is a chain brand with a long history in North America. It may have the meaning of the homophonic heroine orphan's life experience. The screening of "Ruth" (1960) can refer to the loss of "Cleopatra" (1963) (two films from The same company), the latter's box office fiasco almost dragged down Twentieth Century Fox. The academy is also contributing to the trend of Hollywood blockbusters, hoping to re-emerge from the decline, as evidenced by the fact that "Lawrence of Arabia" won seven Oscars in 1962.
Going back to the film itself, when Eliza went to work in the opening scene, the camera swept across the cinema downstairs. The plaque and porch were all red, as were the seats inside. Then the platform where she waited for the train was just in front of the TV store, and the windows full of TVs broadcasting news and TV neon signs were all green. This is another confrontation between red and green: movies are outdated, and television is the future.
But even so, the nostalgia between the heroine and neighbors came into play again: the two of them didn’t care about news that reflected the current world (racial parades, wars), and they watched music and dance films (old) in the form of television (new). , What this knot of old and new points to is still a look back at the warm past . The song and dance film loved by the old neighbors flourished during the economic depression and had the miraculous effect of "dancing" the hearts of the people. Although it has become a TV show and competes with the news for ratings, its enthusiasm, beauty, and completeness can still win the love of naive novices.
Regarding the affectionate dance in the black and white fantasy galaxy, it is not so much the "City of Philharmonic" that is the sense of sight, it is better to regard the two as a tribute to the golden partners of the musical film Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. . Insert another brain hole here: the whole movie can string a dark line in the history of the rise and fall of the thunder and lightning: the full name of Raiden China Film Company (RKO) is Radio Keith Orpheum (Orpheum is the theater that appeared in the film, the entire Orpheum theater line All acquired by Raiden Hua), one of the eight major film companies in Hollywood's golden age. Famous films produced in the 1930s and 1940s included a series of song and dance films by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The dance of the dumb girl and the murloc imitated the "Sea Love" starring them and produced by Raidenhua. Dance (1936). In 1951, Raidenhua withdrew from the movie circle and turned to the development of wireless and cable television. Later, it declined to the point where there was no such family. The film and television disputes and the enthusiasm for musicals in "The Shape of Water" have found their counterparts in reality.
"Shape of Water" won the highest awards in Venice and Oscars. Of course, the emotional power of "True Love First" has the greatest weight. What I want to believe is the worries of "borrowing the past and illuminating the present" at the level of the maze . In the Cold War era when the story took place, American society and politics were in a state of restlessness. Movies were being handed over between the old and the new Hollywood. Coupled with the strong insertion of television competition, the content and ways people watched through the media were changing.
Compared to today, American dramas are more sophisticated, film-like, and the length of time allows for ample stories. Movies need to rob audience resources and inject new vitality, just like the new Hollywood that emerged in the late 1960s. Mr. Bonjaman Bergeri of American AC Magazine looked forward to the trends and challenges of the film industry in 2018 and said: “In the era of blockbuster series and the era of declining audience attendance in the United States, the challenge for production companies is to produce more Original content brings people back to the theater .... American live-action movies are creating a formula-like global culture. The stories of many superheroes are very similar to each other." (please poke the original text)
The superhero blockbusters all over the land are essentially the same as the period epic films shown in the "Shape of Water" theater. Nowadays, like dumb girls and neighbors, who are dissatisfied with the movies shown in theaters, and still squatting on the TV/computer, the "old movie obsession" patients may be the ultimate representative of the spirit of fantasies . At the same time of nostalgia, they, that is, we, of course, still want to go to the theater to watch the kind of sincere conscience, the kind of film that makes people feel sincerely satisfied after the end . "The Shape of Water" is probably even a movie that can meet this standard, even if it doesn't, it's very close.
Bonus:
"Black Lake Monster" was criticized as "outdated bad film"? I'm not convinced! Only in recent years in the Great Smash Bros cartoons where many demons have gathered, the fish monsters have appeared many times with their faces, such as "Little Yellow Man", "Hotel Elf" and "The Paradise of the World". It is not easy to develop a classic horror icon, not to mention that he has such a long-lasting magic power that can be re-interpreted!
↑What am I talking about in the caption : [Take the source of miscellaneous talk | The villain has many green and purple colors, if you don’t have a picture, you say an eggplant]
The first issue of "Eye Reading", poke me in the original text , the official account of the brother, and sometimes give it to the feed. Welcome to pay attention, please do not reprint ヽ(￣▽￣)و
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