Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio


Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is a 2022 animated musical dark fantasy film directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson, from a story by Matthew Robbins and del Toro, and a screenplay by del Toro and Patrick McHale. It is loosely based on Carlo Collodi's 1883 Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, with the title character's design strongly influenced by illustrator Gris Grimly's work. Set in Fascist Italy during the interwar period, the story follows Pinocchio, a wooden puppet who comes to life as the son of his carver, Geppetto. The film stars the voice of Gregory Mann as Pinocchio and David Bradley as Geppetto, alongside Ewan McGregor, Burn Gorman, Ron Perlman, John Turturro, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, Tim Blake Nelson, Christoph Waltz, and Tilda Swinton. Pinocchio was the final film credited to Gustafson before his death in 2024.
A longtime passion project for del Toro, who considers that no other character ever "had as deep of a personal connection to " as Pinocchio, the film is dedicated to the memories of his parents. It was originally announced in 2008 with a release in 2013 or 2014. However, it went into development hell. In January 2017, McHale was announced to co-write the screenplay, but production was suspended in November 2017 as no studios were willing to provide financing. It was revived the following year after being acquired by Netflix.
Pinocchio premiered at the 66th BFI London Film Festival on October 15, 2022. It was released in select theaters on November 9, and began streaming on Netflix on December 9. The film received widespread critical acclaim for its direction, writing, voice performances, animation, production design, musical numbers, and faithfulness in retaining the darkness of the source material. Among its numerous accolades, Pinocchio won Best Animated Feature category at the Academy Awards, BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Critic's Choice Awards and PGA Awards.

Plot

In Italy, woodcarver Geppetto loses his son Carlo to an aerial bombardment by Austro-Hungarian forces during World War I. Twenty years later, he uses the pine wood planted in Carlo's grave to create a puppet in drunken despair. The Wood Sprite appears in the middle of the night and brings it to life, christening him Pinocchio due to the puppet being made of pine, and assigns Sebastian J. Cricket, who formerly lived inside the pine wood, to guide him morally, promising him a wish in exchange. Geppetto wakes up and is frightened by Pinocchio exploring and destroying his home. He becomes fed up with Pinocchio's antics due to his newborn lack of self-control, and he decides to send the boy to school. He gifts Pinocchio a schoolbook that used to belong to Carlo.
On his way, Pinocchio is intercepted by showman Count Volpe and his monkey Spazzatura, who bring Pinocchio to their circus to perform. Geppetto arrives to take him back, resulting in a confrontation that causes them to fight over him and ends with Pinocchio being fatally hit by the Podestà's truck. In the afterlife, he meets the Wood Sprite's sister, Death, who explains that he is immortal and revives when an hourglass empties, cautioning that each time he dies, he will spend longer in the afterlife before returning to life.
After Pinocchio comes back to life, an army officer hears about him and meets up with Geppetto. The officer tells Geppetto that Pinocchio may be a distraction by others and should be sent to military youth camp by law. Geppetto is conflicted over sending Pinocchio to youth camp or sending him to perform in the circus. Seeing Geppetto upset, Pinocchio decides to earn money for him by performing in the circus, and to avoid being conscripted into the Army by the Podestà, who thinks his immortality makes him the ideal soldier. A jealous Spazzatura, the former star, reveals to Pinocchio that Volpe has been lying to him about sending half their profits to Geppetto. Hearing this, Volpe viciously beats Spazzatura as a result, upsetting Pinocchio, who performs a song ridiculing Benito Mussolini while he is in attendance. Mussolini has Pinocchio executed and the circus burned down.
Once revived, Pinocchio is taken by the Podestà to military recruit training, where other boys are trained for war. He befriends the Podestà's mistreated son, Candlewick. At a training game, Pinocchio and Candlewick win in a tie; the Podestà orders Candlewick to shoot Pinocchio, but he refuses and finally stands up to his father. The training camp is then bombed by Allied aircraft, killing the Podestà, while the boys flee. Pinocchio is captured by Volpe, who tries to burn him to death as revenge for ruining his career. Spazzatura saves Pinocchio and attacks Volpe, resulting in all three falling off a seaside cliff, which kills Volpe.
Lost at sea, Pinocchio and Spazzatura are swallowed by the Terrible Dogfish. Inside its belly, Pinocchio and Spazzatura find Geppetto and Sebastian, who were also swallowed during their search for Pinocchio. Sebastian realizes they can escape the dogfish by climbing out of its blowhole. Pinocchio lies to make his nose grow into a large branch, forming a bridge leading out of the monster's blowhole. As the dogfish attempts to eat them again, Pinocchio sacrifices himself by detonating a naval mine inside the dogfish, killing them both. Upon meeting Death again, Pinocchio demands to be sent back early to save Geppetto from drowning. Aware that it will make him mortal, Pinocchio breaks the hourglass to return and dies saving his father. The Wood Sprite reappears to a mourning Geppetto and Sebastian, who uses his wish to make her revive Pinocchio.
Pinocchio, Geppetto, Sebastian, and Spazzatura return home to live together as a family. After outliving all of them, Pinocchio decides to travel the world and find his own place in life.

Voice cast

  • Gregory Mann as:
  • * Pinocchio, an exuberant and rowdy living wooden puppet.
  • * Carlo, Geppetto's deceased son who was killed in a bombing raid. He is named after Carlo Collodi, author of the original book. Alfie Tempest is also credited as portraying Carlo.
  • Ewan McGregor as Sebastian J. Cricket, a traveling cricket and the narrator of the story, who lives inside Pinocchio as his guide and conscience.
  • David Bradley as Geppetto, Pinocchio's father, a heartbroken Italian woodcarver grieving his deceased son Carlo.
  • Christoph Waltz as Count Volpe, a conniving, evil and cruel former aristocrat-turned-puppet master, con artist, and ringmaster living in destitution. His name means "fox" in Italian and he is a composite character of the Fox, Mangiafuoco, and the Ringmaster from the original Pinocchio story.
  • Tilda Swinton as:
  • * The Wood Sprite, a wise magical spirit who gives Pinocchio life. Her appearance is a humanoid with two main pairs of wings that have eyes on them, a feathered snake-like tail, and a human-like face that resembles a mask; her appearance is reminiscent of the biblical angels called seraphim.
  • * Death, the Wood Sprite's sister who oversees the afterlife. Her appearance is similar to that of a Chimera, with a human-like face that resembles a mask, the horns of a cape buffalo with eyes on them, the lower horns of a Jacob sheep, the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle with eyes on them, and a two-headed snake-like tail.
  • Cate Blanchett as Spazzatura, Count Volpe's mistreated monkey assistant. His name means "trash" or "garbage" in Italian, and he is the film's counterpart of the Cat from the original Pinocchio story. Spazzatura can only speak through the puppets he operates.
  • Ron Perlman as the Podestà, a strict fascist government official who wants to turn Pinocchio into a soldier after seeing his revival. He is the film's counterpart of the Coachman from the original story.
  • Finn Wolfhard as Candlewick, the Podestà's son who bullies Pinocchio before befriending him.
  • Burn Gorman as the Priest, a Roman Catholic priest at Geppetto's village who's also his former client.
  • John Turturro as the Dottore, a doctor at Geppetto's village who examines Pinocchio after his first death.
  • Tim Blake Nelson as the Black Rabbits, a flock of black rabbits with skeletal bodies who work for Death. They are based on the Undertaker Rabbits from the original story.
  • Tom Kenny as:
  • * Benito Mussolini, the leader of Fascist Italy.
  • * Benito Mussolini's right-hand man
  • * A sea captain with a hook for a hand and a peg leg who explains to Geppetto and Sebastian about the Dogfish.

    Production

Development

In 2008, Guillermo del Toro announced that his next project, a darker adaptation of the Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, was in development. He has called Pinocchio his "passion project", stating: "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", and "I've wanted to make this movie for as long as I can remember". When he was a child, del Toro saw and liked Walt Disney's 1940 animated film adaptation in Guadalajara, Mexico, partially because he felt it was like a "horror movie" in its own way due to a few intense moments it included. Since his teen years, he had longed to make his own version of the story. In 2003, del Toro discovered Gris Grimly's illustrations for the 2002 edition of Carlo Collodi's book, portraying Pinocchio as a puppet with a long, pointed nose and spindly limbs, with gestures that del Toro felt captured the energy of an unruly but otherwise goodhearted puppet. He concluded that Grimly's illustrations reflected the setting he had in mind for his own, more somber version of Collodi's tale. When del Toro asked Grimly why Pinocchio looked the way he did, Grimly said it was because Geppetto was drunk when he made him. This thought evolved into an important part of Geppetto's backstory.
On February 17, 2011, it was announced that Grimly and Mark Gustafson would co-direct a stop-motion animated Pinocchio film written by del Toro and his long-time collaborator Matthew Robbins, and that it would be visually based on Grimly's designs. Del Toro would produce the film along with The Jim Henson Company and Pathé. Grimly devised Pinocchio's look for the film, depicting him as unfinished wood. Though Grimly was initially set to direct the film and del Toro was set to produce it, on May 17, 2012, del Toro took over as director. He then teamed up with Gustafson, a stop-motion veteran who had experience in similar stop-motion features like Fantastic Mr. Fox, to assist him in achieving his ambitious vision for the project. In February 2012, del Toro released some concept art of Pinocchio, Geppetto, the Talking Cricket, Mangiafuoco and the Fox and the Cat. On July 30, 2012, it was announced that the film would be produced and animated by ShadowMachine. It was originally scheduled to be released in 2013 or 2014, but went into development hell, with no further information forthcoming about it for years.
On January 23, 2017, Patrick McHale was announced to co-write the script with del Toro. On August 31, 2017, del Toro told IndieWire at the 74th Venice International Film Festival that the film would need a budget increase of $35 million or it would be cancelled. On November 8, 2017, he reported that the project was not happening because no studios were willing to finance it. At one point, Matthew Robbins considered making a 2D-animated version of the film with French artist Joann Sfar to bring the costs down, but del Toro decided that it had to be stop-motion, even if the higher budget made it harder to get it greenlit. On October 22, 2018, it was announced that the film had been revived, with Netflix acquiring it, and Pathé no longer involved.
Almost all the years of development were spent by del Toro and Gustafson defining the designs for the principal characters, basing them on either Grimly's designs or letting del Toro's frequent collaborator Guy Davis, who joined the project as co-production designer with art director Curt Enderle, to design them. They then gave the animation models to England's Mackinnon & Saunders stop-motion puppet firm, which is considered by del Toro to be the "best in the world", and they fabricated the designs of Pinocchio, Geppetto, Sebastian J. Cricket, Count Volpe, and Spazzatura the Monkey. Most of the key characters have mechanical heads to create facial expressions, but for Pinocchio, a metal 3-D printed puppet, 3000 replacement faces were used.
The antagonist Count Volpe is a combination of Mangiafuoco and the Fox from the original story. Mangiafuoco was originally supposed to appear in the movie as an antagonist, but he was removed halfway through production as del Toro disliked the character and thought he was a cliché; as a character model had already been made for Mangiafuoco, to not waste the model, Mangiafuoco's original design was used as a background character for Volpe's circus as a strongman. The Cat, who was shown in a concept art, was replaced by Spazzatura, while the Land of Toys was replaced with an Italian kids training camp. At first, the fairy with blue hair was a dead girl from the same cemetery where Carlo was buried. This was changed into two angel-like beings, which ended up as the two sisters of life and death, and Carlo was no longer buried in a cemetery; their design as supernatural winged beings with multiple eyes harkens back to the biblical seraphim as well as to the Angel of Death from Hellboy II: The Golden Army.