The Allegedly Many Shapes of Water

The Shape of Water

The Shape of Water may have taken the coveted top prize at this year’s Academy Awards, but writer/director Guillermo del Toro’s celebrations may soon be hampered. Shortly before the awards ceremony, writers around the world spoke out against the film- one alleging a scene in the film is “strikingly similar” to a scene in his 1991 film, and two accusing del Toro and Associate Producer Daniel Kraus of outright plagiarizing their works.¹ Of the two more serious charges, one involved a Dutch short film titled The Space Between Us, about a cleaning woman who breaks a fish-man out of captivity in a research center.² However, the similarities between The Space Between Us and The Shape of Water end there; the short film takes place in what seems to be a dystopian future and centers around the main character’s sympathy for the creature, while The Shape of Water takes place in the Cold War-era, includes multiple subplots, and centers around the main character’s falling in love with the captive creature. Any lawsuits filed by the filmmakers behind the short film would likely be hindered by the classic idea/expression dichotomy: the two works’ general concepts are similar, but the multitude of differences and additions would surely constitute The Shape of Water as different expression. It’s possible the producers of the short film, the Netherlands Film Academy, agree, as they’ve dropped their complaint and stated that they believe the two films “have their own very different identities [. . .] and are not in any conceivable way interlinked or related.”³

The other allegation, however, involves a 1969 play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Zindel titled Let Me Hear You Whisper.⁴ Zindel’s estate has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, and lists some fairly damning similarities, such as: their settings in a Cold War-era military research facility, their non-speaking, female janitor protagonists, their scenes involving the protagonist feeding the creature and “dancing to records in front of it,” and their rescue mission scenes involving laundry hampers to prevent the creature’s killing.⁵ Del Toro denied ever hearing of the play, and stressed his historical transparency in disclosing his inspirations.⁶ Considering the works’ lengths and similarities are more analogous than is the case with the short film, this claim may be trickier to dispose of for del Toro.

However, The Shape of Water still has many differences from the play: the creature at hand is a river god instead of a dolphin, there’s an entire additional subplot involving the main character’s neighbor, and The Shape of Water has a “dramatically different” ending.⁷ The Zindel estate is not convinced though; the estate’s attorney explained “[i]f you look at what makes del Toro’s film great, it’s not the bad guy, it’s not the general, it’s not the cold war subplot, [. . .] it’s really this unlikely loving bond between an introverted janitorial cleaning lady, who is treated badly by her superiors, and forms, through communication and empathy, this deep, loving bond with this very intelligent creature, and that triumphs. And that’s all in the play.”⁸

Of course, del Toro has repeatedly mentioned the derivative core of the film- explaining it was his attempt to turn Creature From the Black Lagoon into a romance- but who could have imagined that a movie about falling in love with a fantastical, fish-creature would have so many alleged claimants?⁹ Then again, considering the differences between the works and the timing of the complaint, is this just another case of latching onto similarities at the peak of a runaway-hit’s success? Del Toro and the studio behind the film seem to think so, stating that the estate’s intentions behind the complaint to get the studio to quickly settle before the Academy Awards are “pretty transparent.”¹⁰ These cases do tend to settle out, but it would be very interesting to see how a court would decide such a close case. Until a court decides the merits of claims like the Zindel estate’s, what constitutes a rip-off versus parallel thinking will continue to be a matter of public opinion. Although litigation is rarely an enjoyable process, creators may be of the same viewpoint as del Toro, and find it to be “a relief to take something from the arena of opinion into the arena of fact and law.”¹¹