New Photos and Details Shared for Guillermo del Toro’s PINOCCHIO
Netflix has released several photos from Guillermo del Toro’s stop motion animated film Pinocchio, offering a new look at what the filmmaker has been developing.
The stop-motion musical adventure follows the extraordinary journey of a wooden boy magically brought to life by a father’s wish. Set in the 1930s during the rise of Fascism in Mussolini’s Italy, del Toro’s Pinocchio is a story of love and disobedience as Pinocchio struggles to live up to his father’s expectations.
The photos come from Vanity Fair, and during an interview with them, the director opened up about movie and the direction that he wanted to take the story. He compared it to Frankenstein:
“I’ve always been very intrigued by the links between Pinocchio and Frankenstein. They are both about a child that is thrown into the world. They are both created by a father who then expects them to figure out what’s good, what’s bad, the ethics, the morals, love, life, and essentials, on their own. I think that was, for me, childhood. You had to figure it out with your very limited experience.”
As you know, Del Toro has always wanted ted to make a Frankenstein movie, and it looks like that’s what he’s doing with Pinocchio. He went on to explain that this film is for both kids and adults saying:
“These are times that demand from kids a complexity that is tremendous. Far more daunting, I think, than when I was a child. Kids need answers and reassurances.… For me, this is for both children and adults that talk to each other. It tackles very deep ideas about what makes us human.
“To me, it’s essential to counter the idea that you have to change into a flesh-and-blood child to be a real human. All you need to be human is to really behave like one, you know? I have never believed that transformation [should] be demanded to gain love.”
When talking about one of the things he finds interesting about the story of Pinocchio, Del Toro said:
“Many times the fable has seemed, to me, in favor of obedience and domestication of the soul. Blind obedience is not a virtue. The virtue Pinocchio has is to disobey. At a time when everybody else behaves as a puppet—he doesn’t. Those are the interesting things, for me. I don’t want to retell the same story. I want to tell it my way and in the way I understand the world.”
The design of the film is based on the art of Gris Grimly, and when talking about incorporating that design into his film, Del Toro said:,“The basic design of Gris Grimly’s, which I think was brilliant, was to make him look like wood that was never finished, you know?”
As for this new version of Pinocchio, in this retelling, it’s revealed that he’s carved from “a tree that grew over the grave of Geppetto’s son, Carlo, whose life was cut agonizingly short years before.”Geppetto is hartbroken and he’s “too blinded by grief to realize that his wish has come true.” The director said:
“He begs for another chance at being a father, but he doesn’t recognize that the essence of his own child comes back in the form of this indomitable boy. The main conflict within Geppetto and Pinocchio is that Geppetto wanted Carlo, who was a very well-behaved, very docile kid, and he doesn’t quite get Pinocchio, who is rowdy and wild and exuberant.”
But, you know who does get his heart? Sebastian J. Cricket, who aspires to be a conscience for the boy. When talking about this character, Del Toro says: “In the beginning of the story, the cricket is full of self-importance. And towards the end, he’s movingly humbled and he understands that it’s not about teaching Pinocchio how to behave, but about himself learning how to behave.”
Del Toro also explains that there is no Pleasure Island in his version of the story. Pinocchio will not be transformed into a donkey and living it up, instead, “Pinocchio is targeted by the government officials who hear tell of the boy made of wood and believe he might have other applications. He is recruited into the village military camp, because the fascist official in town thinks if this puppet cannot die, it would make the perfect soldier.”
There are a lot of other details revealed about the film in the interview, but these are a few that I wanted to bring to highlight here. While this is going to be a different story for Pinocchio than what we know, it sounds like it’s going to be a great film.
Del Toro teamed up with Jim Henson Company and ShadowMachine to bring this film to life, which is based on Carlo Collodi's novel. In addition to McGregor as Cricket, the voice cast also includes Gregory Mann as Pinocchio, David Bradley (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones) as Geppetto, Tilda Swinton (Doctor Strange), Christoph Waltz (Alita: Battle Angel), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things), Cate Blanchett (Thor: Raganrok), John Turturro (The Batman), Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Tim Blake Nelson (Watchmen), and Burn Gorman (Enola Holmes).
Del Toro directed the film alongside Mark Gustafson (Fantastic Mr. Fox) and co-wrote it with Patrick McHale. The song lyrics come from del Toro and Katz, with music by Alexandre Desplat who will also write the score. Artist Gris Grimly created the original design for the Pinocchio character in the film and the puppets are being built by Mackinnon and Saunders (Corpse Bride).
Pinocchio will be released sometime in 2022 on Netflix.
