Shape Of Water Director Dedicates Best Picture Win To Young Filmmakers

This Oscars season, it seemed fairly likely that Sam Rockwell, Allison Janney, Gary Oldman, and Frances McDormand would nab their respective acting awards — and so they all did. What was far hard to notice was which film would just be taking the night's highest honor, Best Picture. Nevertheless at the end of the night — right after nearly four hours of televised awards and performances! — Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water, a dark fairy tale about two misunderstood creatures, came out on top.


once he reached the stage, del Toro, who also won Best Director, double-checked the winning envelope to make sure his film's victory right after 2017's notorious mix-up). The look of sheer glee on his face if he confirmed the win was fantastic. And his speech followed the same mood.


"A few weeks back, Steven Spielberg mentioned, 'If you find yourself there, in case you find yourself at the podium, remember that you are piece of a legacy, that you're segment of a global of filmmakers, and be delighted of it,'" del Toro mentioned, also name-dropping Spielberg's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial as an influence on him from a young age. "I'm very, very proud."


Del Toro continued and shared the award with young creatives just starting to pursue their own ambitions and chase their inspirations: "I aspire to dedicate this to every young filmmaker, the youth that is showing us how things are done, really they are, in each nation in the world."


He finished with a straight-up call to action. "I desire to tell you, each person that is dreaming of a parable of using genre fantasy to tell the stories about the things that are real in the world today, you could do it. This is a door. Kick it and come in."


The Shape of Water was nominated for 13 Oscars and won four tonight, including Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design. For Best Picture, it beat out Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk (which sadly means no Oscar celebration for Harry Styles), Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, and Three Billboards Outdoors Ebbing, Missouri.


In a show marked by activist flourishes, moments of both presenters and winners speaking truth to power, and also a string of rousing musical performances, its top award going to The Shape of Water — a throwback fable about a mute woman who finds love with an imprisoned aquatic man-like creature — seemed like an easy, clean way to wrap things up. Only in 2018 would a sentence like that make sense.


So, here's to at least several more weeks of good fish sex memes. (Oh, and shout out Michael Stuhlbarg. You did it!)