Lisa and I went to see The Shape of Water earlier this week. It’s a nice film, intriguingly presented as an early 60s, comic booky, SF, Spy, fairy tale that hits all my buttons just right.
It also has a mechanical element that I always find interesting as a person who creates stories—an element that I’ll say right now I’m going to talk about a bit, but is a tiny spoiler…though you probably already know, but still I’ll make you scroll down to read further.
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I really hate spoilers. I mean, I hate them.
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I hate them so much I get to the point where I get pissed off watching previews in the theater because they go on and on and never stop even after I’ve decided I’m interested. And they show things that are going to happen, which removes the joy I know I would have gotten if they would just have let me found them in the moment of the film…which them makes me not want to go to the film.
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Seriously, I wish trailers were limited to 15 seconds.
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30 max.
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I hate spoilers so much that even though you probably know what I’m going to say, I’m making you scroll like this to make sure I don’t mess with anyone who doesn’t want to be messed with. Only you can prevent forest fires, after all.
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All right, here we go.
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The element I find interesting is the use of a lead character who is mute. It, of course, changes the dynamic of storytelling because it requires the use of dialog to be completely different—in this case, you get Sally Hawkins’s characters words through translation of her signing at times, but in those cases you get the words–which move the story along–but you don’t get tone. You don’t get inflection. You don’t get characterization in those words. Instead, you get her part of the story through physicality and action. We know how she feels by what she does.
I occasionally do a little 60 minute presentation in which I use Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice to diagram how storytelling works. I like using that as a source because there is zero dialog in that piece, but of course you know exactly what each character is feeling at all times. In other words, the words themselves aren’t necessary. Or, taking it almost a step too far on purpose, the specific words you only matter to the extent that they convey the full import of the story.
In fact, if you get dialog wrong for the character, adding words hurts the story.
So, at the end of the day, I suggest you go see the movie because it’s a great story, but I also think you should watch Hawkins act because she’s outstanding at playing a part in which she isn’t allowed to use her voice. and on top of that, if you’re a writer I suggest you watch it for the mechanics of how you don’t really need your character to say anything at all in order to do amazing work.