1201 Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

[Antoine Doinel]

Guillermo Del Toro to executive produce a stop-animation version of Pinocchio.

[stroszeck]

Guillermo Del Toro to executive produce a stop-animation version of Pinocchio.

hasn't the story of Pinocchio been beaten to death enough times already? I thought the suffering would end with Roberto Benigni's horrible take...

[Grand Illusion]

hasn't the story of Pinocchio been beaten to death enough times already?

If the "New Films in Production" thread has taught me anything, it's that nothing can be adapted, remade, or beaten to death enough times. The only thing beaten to death and not resurrected is the idea that the original screenplay can be an artform.

[mfunk9786]

Next in a long line of films described as Guillermo del Toro's "lifetime passion project" in one form or another will be a stop motion Pinocchio musical for Netflix, co-directed by Mark Gustafson, who most notably was the animation director on Fantastic Mr. Fox. The Burton-ication of del Toro continues! Doesn't seem to have any association with the one that Robert Downey, Jr. had hired Paul Thomas Anderson to work on for a little while.

No art form has influenced my life and my work more than animation and no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio. In our story, Pinocchio is an innocent soul with an uncaring father who gets lost in a world he cannot comprehend. He embarks on an extraordinary journey that leaves him with a deep understanding of his father and the real world. I’ve wanted to make this movie for as long as I can remember. After the incredible experience we have had on Trollhunters, I am grateful that the talented team at Netflix is giving me the opportunity of a lifetime to introduce audiences everywhere to my version of this strange puppet-turned-real-boy.

Doesn't he say some version of this every time he signs onto a project? No single character has had as deep a connection to you as... Pinocchio? Really?

[Big Ben]

I imagine it has to do with the themes of self actualization and so forth. I'm not aware of what his living conditions were in Mexico so I'm not entirely sure what he was able to watch given that his Grandmother had a tendency to beat him for liking things like Frankenstein. My own experience with Pinocchio comes entirely from a stage play I once saw and the Disney version and I remember being horrified by both of them as a child. The original source store is worse though. It's downright ghastly. But somehow, for some reason the horrific adaptations don't stop there. Yet even more horrifying is the adult themed version of the tale. It's not his nose that grows states the poster that Imdb has up for it.

Pinocchio is a downright unpleasant thing I cannot fathom why he would want to adapt it in ANY form.

[domino harvey]

Everyone has their childhood favorites that stuck with them, I don't see why his choice is all that inexplicable. I'm sitting here trying to think of a fairy tale that did it for me, but I think I was way more impacted by the folklore and urban legends of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books than anything else

[mfunk9786]

Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but del Toro just lays it on ultra-thick every time a project is announced. If he were adapting Frankenstein or any number of other things I'm sure that quote would read very similarly, that's all

[domino harvey]

I think he has a lot of passion about the things he likes, and he likes a lot of things. I'll take this over detached coolness any day. I just hope one day he makes a film I like!

[knives]

That's probably true, but also it seems genuine in any case. He's just encountered a ton of stuff that he loves. Waxing poetical about Pinnoch or Frankenstein or Swamp Thing is just his version of Davies swooning over a million studio romances.

[Persona]

PINOCCHIO

The Guillermo Del Toro one, not the pointless Disney Zemeckis one...

Legitimately one of the best things to have GDT's name attached to it and possibly the best stop motion film I've seen?

A lot of depth, entertainment, great storytelling, and artistic craft on display.

But yeah as far as GDT projects go this is right up there in the Pan's Labyrinth and Devil's Backbone tier.

[beamish14]

PINOCCHIO

The Guillermo Del Toro one, not the pointless Disney Zemeckis one...

Legitimately one of the best things to have GDT's name attached to it and possibly the best stop motion film I've seen?

A lot of depth, entertainment, great storytelling, and artistic craft on display.

But yeah as far as GDT projects go this is right up there in the Pan's Labyrinth and Devil's Backbone tier.

Netflix is really doing stellar work with the stop motion films they’re producing. The House (one of the most slept-on films they’ve ever made, sadly) and Wendell & Wild are excellent, too. Excited to see Pinocchio in 35mm this week

[hearthesilence]

It really is amazing to look at, and it's worth visiting the exhibit at MoMA just to see the physical pieces that went into the film. (There's even a good exhibit on the score by Alexandre Desplat too.) However, the narrative felt a bit too all over the place, and what was added or what was done to expand the original plot often didn't work or seemed a bit crude to me, especially compared to Pan's Labyrinth where all the story elements seemed to work gloriously and miraculously together.

(Also, has Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett ever appeared together or at least played characters that appeared together before in the same scene? I know they were in Benjamin Button as well, but on some level, I'm kind of surprised they hadn't been given any scenes together in any film after all these years. I guess it's only a matter of time before we see them as full-blown co-stars just as it was with Pacino and DeNiro.)

[brundlefly]

It really is amazing to look at, and it's worth visiting the exhibit at MoMA just to see the physical pieces that went into the film. (There's even a good exhibit on the score by Alexandre Desplat too.) However, the narrative felt a bit too all over the place, and what was added or what was done to expand the original plot often didn't work or seemed a bit crude to me, especially compared to Pan's Labyrinth where all the story elements seemed to work gloriously and miraculously together.

Unfortunately fell on the same side about Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. Absolutely worth the gawk, and there’s passing fun to be had, but it works so hard to reconcile a weird fit of story and message that it ultimately feels leaden with meaning. The cricket throws out so many different themes and aphorisms it becomes a running gag – and the movie’s aware that no one likes the cricket – but by the time the feature has settled on acceptance and peters out with, "What happens, happens, and then we are gone,” the bug has gone from being its narrator to its avatar.

del Toro’s sympathies lie so strongly with the wayward puppet that his most renowned flaws are celebrated –

SpoilerShow

He saves everyone by lying! (“Just this once,” Geppetto encourages.) He doesn’t earn the right to be a “real boy,” he impatiently chooses mortality. “Break the rules!” Death tells him.

– and he is no longer a character that needs to grow and change. Instead of sticking to the tried and tired path of going to school, getting a job, supporting your elders, his good heart and capricious spirit are judged to be enough. (The bent of the character design reinforces this; even if Pinocchio doesn’t look human, all the human characters are also made to look carved from wood. Except perhaps Candlewick, who unfortunately looks a little Rankin/Bass. No one is conspicuously “real.”) Even his sacrifices are impulsive.

It is Geppetto who needs to learn to shake his wearying perfectionism and move past mourning his idealized dead son so he can love the magical thing he half-finished and half-made. I’ve never read the Collodi and am all for mucking with original sources anyway, but this never stops feeling an achingly awkward redress, especially as Geppetto (as with other adaptations) disappears for half the story. In the interim, Pinocchio encourages other children (Spazzatura ,Candlewick) to reject their abusive father figures (a fallen aristocrat-turned-huckster, a fascist). Pretty simple to root for rule-breakers when your authority figures are authoritarian. Even when Mussolini is voiced by the same actor as SpongeBob. But the way Count Volpe and Podestà are used also makes the story seem small; instead of a sprawling episodic journey, we get a recurrent, pursuant two-step. There’s a lot of repetition and back-and-forth. I think we see the sea monster swallow some main character three times. And when you’re talking about a process as painstaking as stop-motion animation, I’d think you’d whittle away at redundancy.

But I do love the character designs and the animation is lovely without being obnoxiously showy.

I’m very remotely curious about the Zemeckis, only because the original Disney feature devoted so much time to Geppetto workshop gags. But if I could save only one Pinocchio from the fire it would be Garrone’s(*). A casually fantastic adventure that resists overbearing effects and overburdened readings. It knows exactly how much of everything to do; some characters are full-on creatures, but Fox and Cat are just a pair of ruddy hobos. The single trick Garrone leans hard on is the simplest and rightest one: He keeps cutting to extreme long shots, putting the silhouette of the tiny puppet against the big wide world. del Toro goes through all these contortions to make Geppetto a loving dad, and Benigni’s Geppetto just says to his son, "Do you like yourself? Do you like the way I made you? I'm delighted." How great is that?

(*) Unless you count this episode of The Tick. Then I’d save that one too.

Netflix is really doing stellar work with the stop motion films they’re producing. The House (one of the most slept-on films they’ve ever made, sadly) and Wendell & Wild are excellent, too. Excited to see Pinocchio in 35mm this week

I wonder how the underperformance of this year’s Disney/Pixar slate will affect the Oscar nominations. GdT’s Pinocchio should be a lock, and I guess there’s a push behind Marcel the Shell, but Netflix could steal an additional slot or two. The Selick seems possible, especially with Peele’s involvement. (I thought Wendell & Wild was well-meaning and overstuffed to a suffocating extent. But the style and morbid humor are always welcome, and it had a great soundtrack. RIP Terry Hall.)

I wanted to like The House more, but am at least happy the duo behind This Magnificent Cake! got to cash a check. Liked their segment best; I like their dedication to their physical material and how they use silence while rotating through their favorite moods - denial, cruelty, uncomfortable innocence. The other two segments fell flat for me. The second was obvious and yammery (“Jarvis Cocker, please shut up” is something I’d never thought to say before watching it) and its biggest set piece was a pale echo of Joe’s Apartment. The last segment was too Self-Help Book for me.

I always hope Linklater can get every nomination for which he’s eligible, but I’m not the biggest fan of Apollo 10½ and still have scars from when Waking Life had its slot stolen by Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Keeping hopes in check.

Cartoon Saloon features usually score a nod, but I wonder if Netflix produced so much high-profile animation this year they cost themselves a spot. My Father's Dragon has some weird problems for a quest narrative – lots of literal ups and downs and going in circles – but then it’s a movie about messy emotions and admitting a loss of control so perhaps the messy tones and structure are thematically appropriate. Typically lovely design work from the Saloon, though, and there’s good stuff about exchanging transactional relationships for supportive, interdependent ones.

Netflix also has The Sea Beast, which I guess could steal a Disney slot by dint of having ex-Disney people. It’s a hodge-podge with all sorts of inconsistencies (some of them technical – it can go from looking glorious to looking like some third-tier Disney sequel), but it is entertaining and sloppily pointed-ish.

[hearthesilence]

(*) Unless you count this episode of The Tick. Then I’d save that one too.

That was hilarious. Especially when we get to "I have a toothbrush."

[DarkImbecile]

I agree that this is overstuffed with ideas in a way that often leaves characters, concepts, and some of the mythos particular to previous iterations of this story underdeveloped, but it just looks so remarkable that I couldn't help but come out feeling more positive on it than others in this thread. I'm by no means an animation aficionado, but the detail and depth of the character designs, sets, and landscapes are just unlike anything else I've personally ever seen, which is more than enough to ignore some mediocre songwriting or choppy pacing in my book.

On the subject of del Toro's sometimes undercooked themes: perhaps because I went in knowing that the rise of Mussolini was an important undercurrent, I ended up a bit disappointed that the seemingly perfectly wedded metaphors of fascism and puppetry was less intensively explored than I might have liked. Still, there's enough there (and in some of the commentary on religion) to represent a significant addition the standard fairy tale version of this story, and I'll be curious to see what my kids take away from those elements.

del Toro’s sympathies lie so strongly with the wayward puppet that his most renowned flaws are celebrated –

SpoilerShow

He saves everyone by lying! (“Just this once,” Geppetto encourages.) He doesn’t earn the right to be a “real boy,” he impatiently chooses mortality. “Break the rules!” Death tells him.

– and he is no longer a character that needs to grow and change. Instead of sticking to the tried and tired path of going to school, getting a job, supporting your elders, his good heart and capricious spirit are judged to be enough. (The bent of the character design reinforces this; even if Pinocchio doesn’t look human, all the human characters are also made to look carved from wood. Except perhaps Candlewick, who unfortunately looks a little Rankin/Bass. No one is conspicuously “real.”) Even his sacrifices are impulsive.

It is Geppetto who needs to learn to shake his wearying perfectionism and move past mourning his idealized dead son so he can love the magical thing he half-finished and half-made.

This was perhaps my favorite part of del Toro's tinkering with the more familiar versions of this story: Pinocchio isn't forced to prove himself worthy of real love by passing a series of tests of his ability to practice self-control or whatever, but is worthy of being treated like a child purely by virtue of being one. It's Geppetto who has to learn to accept this imperfect but fundamentally good person he's created, not on his terms but on those of his peculiar new child. Instead of a moralizing fable with finger-wagging directed at children, it's a story about learning to be a good parent; maybe because of where I am in my life, I find that substantially more rewarding than the classic version of this story (the Disney version of which I watched maybe more than any other before the age of six).

[knives]

Watched both Pinocchio’s from last year this weekend and this one is far and away the superior film. Both are fighting against what a Pinocchio story, but only del Toro is doing so with an alternative in mind. All the values of the original story are looked at as possibly wrong headed and specifically tools used by the fascists. Obedience to authority, Kantian dedication to truth, and simple moral rightness are all villains to the story while lies, disobedience, and an acknowledgment to no easy answers are shown to have moral value. This is perhaps del Toro’s most complete study on the monsters and men theme that has been his from the beginning.

There are two major drawbacks though. This first, insurmountable, flaw is that all the characters are annoying as hell. Pinocchio is obnoxious and voiced with this shrill tone. Geppetto is even worse off as his actor is constantly screaming. I wanted to mute this at several points and the film problems does play better silently. That leads to the second problem I had which is that del Toro seems to be so full of ideas for animation and overstuffs the film with every idea he could have detracting from his story.

Still, better than Zemeckis who doesn’t seem to know how to put his ideas on screen. I went into it wondering what could be the attraction for Zemeckis who also wrote the script and at least on that question matters are more clear. There’s a lot of technical fun to the movie, but more so it’s in conversation with the Disney film arguing that morality isn’t the point of interest of the story, in its latent possibilities, but rather the question of what is real and has meaning. This concept clearly has significance to an artist obsessed with making the real fake and the fake real.

There are a couple of points that handle this well. Characterizing Pinocchio as an artificial robotic personality who becomes a real boy not as a magic act, but through internalizing Cricket until Pinoc is unique being the best one. Unfortunately , this isn’t enough to carry the whole film which feels half formed and overly rushed.

[swo17]

Dec 12

[CSM126]

Guillermo del Toro’s Beaver

[davidhuxley]

Which Criterion staff producer is credited for the disc release?

[Black Hat]

Why is this person posting this question in 3 different threads?

[therewillbeblus]

Best guess would be to get a sense of a pattern of people working on releases with or without encoding/other issues reported, given the bloated range of complaints-to-praise towards Criterion these days, especially following the strategic move to UHD upgrades. Or the user could be a co-producer who wasn't given or doesn't have access to a copy trying to ensure they were credited properly. That would be a silly situation.

[Black Hat]

Bizarre, I was thinking it had to do with the layoffs which happened right around the time these discs were in the pipeline.

[therewillbeblus]

Well that seems like a fine hypothesis as well. Sounds like you had a rationale in mind before asking why someone would do this - Bizarre

[Black Hat]

ha! Of course, was wondering if anyone else had a theory.

I catch up with the board in one fell swoop so that's probably why something like this stands out more.

ps. I meant what the poster did was bizarre, not your ideas