Pinocchio

Not only are the strangely vivid creatures of the stop-motion animated film a far cry from what fans of the Disney classic might expect, but the movie's ...

Geppetto is the one that changes, and David could give me all of that. This is not the saintly Geppetto; the good and kind Geppetto of other versions. [I'm a Game of Thrones](https://screenrant.com/game-of-thrones-memes-sum-up-walder-frey/) and Doctor Who person, but David Bradley is not the first person I would think of for Geppetto. And yet he was so perfect for this version, and this complicated relationship between Geppetto and Pinocchio. I know his versatility, and I love his voice. [Guillermo del Toro co-directed his version of ](https://screenrant.com/guillermo-del-toro-pinocchio-jiminy-cricket-sebastian/) [Pinocchio](https://screenrant.com/guillermo-del-toro-pinocchio-jiminy-cricket-sebastian/) alongside Mark Gustafson, with a plot more directly lifted from the 1883 novel by Carlo Collodi than previous interpretations.

Guillermo del Toro's tale goes beyond a puppet with a nose that grows when he lies, looking at parenting, fascism, and mortality in Pinocchio instead.

Del Toro doesn’t offer a firm determination either way; perhaps Pinocchio is able to spread cheer and joy in the 20th century, but perhaps he will live to see countless other wars and massacres. Ironically, it’s a story of a puppet that is more human than anything. Another theme that del Toro tackles in his study of parentage are whether bringing a child into an evil world is justified. Of course, Pinocchio is too innocent to suspect his malicious intentions, and he signs a deal with the deceptive ringmaster. This youthful ignorance that Pinocchio is given is easily taken advantage of when he ventures out into the Italian villa. Pan’s Labyrinth explores loss, war, and imperialism through the eyes of a child, and even Hellboy opens with a flashback to the titular character during his youth.

Through this adaptation, Guillermo del Torro tips his hat to dissidents who find the courage to stand tall in the face of fascism, and choose to extend ...

Each character has its own ticks, quirks and distinct body language, and Gustafson does a remarkable job of breathing life into inanimate stop-motion figures advancing the critique of the film. From questioning the blind allegiance of people, to a wooden statue of Jesus Christ, to intellectualising the emotions he shares with his father, Pinocchio — through his slightly disfigured body strewn with nails — investigates life endearingly in a time when war comes knocking at the door. Geppetto — like Victor Frankenstein — is initially terrified of his own creation, but he soon makes acquaintance with Pinocchio and they ease into comfortably playing the parts of a father and a son.

Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro (“Pan's Labyrinth” and “The Shape of Water”) is known for exploring humanity in monster stories.

And I think the melancholy of that movie is tremendous. The other thing that is terrible is we live in a world in order to be accepted you have to simulate, change who you are and go with the flow in many ways. How important is that for the film? The return of fascism and the idea that obedience is good scarily comes in cycles. That and the show business aspect of it in which there’s a pageantry to it. I wanted to make a Pinocchio that was counter to most Pinocchios in the sense that we actually say disobedience, rather than obedience, is a virtue. It’s a father figure, a strongman figure that attracts all of the orphan souls of the world. The journey that you go through is both insignificant on a cosmic level but is very significant in terms of the lives you affect. It was very confusing, it was really full of danger, fraught with turmoil and darkness.’ And then shortly thereafter I was exposed to “Astro Boy” -- the tale of the artificial boy created by a father who then sends him out into the world to figure out for himself what is right, what is wrong. Therefore, I was trying to think about a story in which a puppet acts freely while all of the characters act like puppets. It’s very interesting for me to think the only wisdom in life is to accept that death makes it worth living. The Disney “Pinocchio” was the second or third film I saw with my mother.

Funko has revealed new images of their figures for Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, which is out on Netflix now.

The images can be viewed down below, and you can find more information on Funko’s new Pinocchio line on [Pinocchio](https://collider.com/tag/pinocchio/) story over the decades. Now with the film’s Netflix debut, [Funko](https://collider.com/tag/funko-pop/) has unveiled their Pop line for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.

Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Gregory Mann and Tilda Swinton voice the main characters in Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro's retelling of the classic tale of ...

Pinocchio, who by the end of the film becomes mortal, lays to rest all the people that he loves, and yet continues to have a happy, fulfilled life. Pinocchio has to spend a specific amount of time with Death (Wood Sprite's sister, also voiced by Tilda Swinton) in a different realm before he can be sent back to the living world; Pinocchio can’t die since he has a borrowed spirit. While the original story of Pinocchio is about being truthful, this one doesn’t harp on too much about Pinocchio and his growing nose. One gets to see some real, flawed father-son relationships through Geppetto and Pinocchio, and Podesta (Ron Perlman), a government agent, and his son Candlewick (Finn Wolfhard), who is constantly trying to win his father’s approval and acceptance. Pinocchio loves Geppetto and everything in his world from the word go, but Geppetto takes his time to accept Pinocchio, for he is constantly trying to find Carlo in him. The living, breathing and talking puppet, Pinocchio (also Gregory Mann), goes through several adventures in his tryst to find acceptance for who he is, in a world where he is constantly being told to obey and to conform to fundamentalists ideas.

Using stop-motion animation, the director of Pan's Labyrinth delivers a visually dazzling -- and decidedly grownup -- take on the wooden puppet come to ...

Del Toro, who charmed the packed theater as he accepted SFFilm Honors for his innovation in filmmaking, said Pinocchio is a labor of love. And if you're given an opportunity to make a movie, there's no reason why you shouldn't say I'm going to make it as beautiful as I can, as perfect as I can," he said to applause. But it is my even better hope that at some point, you will only be moved by a group of actors on the screen." "Stop motion is the almost religious contact between the animator and the puppet," he said. For me at least, del Toro got his wish – even when Pinocchio becomes a "real boy" but (spoiler!) retains his wooden body rather than turning into flesh and blood. [The Shape of Water](/culture/entertainment/how-guillermo-del-toros-shape-of-water-mixes-cg-and-monster-movie-makeup/) decided to pitch a new version of the story. Even when he adjusts to the fact that his puppet has a life of its own, Geppetto expresses frustration and disappointment rather than love and acceptance. The innovation, though, isn't it in the story, but in how del Toro presents it. Credit is due to the young actor Gregory Mann, who voices Carlo and Pinocchio and also In this version of the story, Pinocchio's arrival is far from the happily-ever-after wish granted to Geppetto. "I said, 'That's how it feels to be a kid.'" He found the story compelling because of the frightening situations the wooden puppet, who comes to life but yearns to be a real boy, gets caught up in.

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with award-winning director, Guillermo del Toro, about his new stop-motion animated film Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.

So, you know, I have learned that not making the movie for the right reason is almost as satisfying as making it for the right reasons. DEL TORO: You know, I have learned in 30 years of filmmaking that the natural state of a movie is to not get made. MARTIN: You just mentioned something that I had forgotten about is what a long journey it was for you to get this film made. And I do believe that if you hold steady to who you are and you follow the things you have learned through experience and spirit and listening and watching with love, you are rewarded by being a real boy, as the fable would have it, a real person, a real human being. And I believe that the only lie Pinocchio should never embrace is to lie about who you are. And in this one, you know, Pinocchio doesn't transform, and it's Geppetto that learns to be a real father. MARTIN: I mean, the film is lovely and funny, but there are points in it that are so deeply sad. In the traditional story, "Pinocchio" learns to be a real boy and transforms. There is Disney's "Pinocchio," which is a masterpiece that reflects the time it was made in. It is a movie that really talks about disobedience as a virtue, disobedience with a conscience as a virtue, and the fact that you can actually be loved the way you are. And all he really wants is to be a real boy and to make his father proud. As you've mentioned, there have been a lot of adaptations of "Pinocchio," maybe the most famous in the U.S.

Directors Guillermo del Toro & Mark Gustafson discuss the making of their Netflix original feature Pinocchio, and what's next for the filmmakers.

I thought Cabinet of Curiosities was so well done, and I think it did well on Netflix, but I don't know. DEL TORO: We got the thing I published on Twitter about a billion views, or whatever that is. DEL TORO: I will say this, if you allow it, anybody that lives in the New York area can actually come, and for a few hours be in front of the sets at MOMA on the exhibit of the Art of Pinocchio. To me, the best for me, right now today, is going to be the talk in the church between Geppetto and Pinocchio. Once you have the tools, you want to push them right up to the limit. He spent two years in that bedroom, and I think the beauty of that, not for him perhaps, but for the audience, is that he was really able to just sink completely into that scene. GUSTAFSON: It helped the animators. It's the whole sequence in the bedroom where Geppetto puts Pinocchio to bed, and before that he puts Carlo to bed. It's so tender, and I think it reads so true, and all that stuff was done by one animator. They also discuss how stop-animation has evolved over the years, how their collaboration worked on Pinocchio, whether we’ll be seeing another team-up in the coming years, and if del Toro is returning with a second season of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities for Netflix. [Guillermo del Toro](https://collider.com/tag/guillermo-del-toro/) and Mark Gustafson are finally able to present the world with their stop-motion masterpiece, [Pinocchio](https://collider.com/tag/pinocchio/). On top of the stop-motion animation, Pinocchio is backed by an ensemble cast of vocal talent including Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Tilda Swinton, Cate Blanchett, Christoph Waltz and many more.

He and co-director Mark Gustafson took the Carlo Collodi creation Pinocchio but made a version unrecognizable compared to the 1940 Disney classic. In the stop- ...

“I was going to shoot a movie called Omnivore before I did Cronos, and we created all the puppets and sets we needed. That is one of the earlier images I had, going in. I thought, Gepetto is drunk because he is in grief. I asked him, why does it look like that and he said, because he has the nails and the wood. Carlo Collodi had the faint echo of Jesus in Pinocchio, and I thought, this is a great opportunity to use the nails, and the wood to make him a messiah that resurrects. I thought, why is he drunk?

For an animated family movie, Disney's Pinocchio has some pretty terrifying moments, with the film featuring human trafficking, sea monsters eating people, and ...

In this version, the fun games of Toyland are replaced with drills and paintball, making the transition into the kids being actual killers so much more effective. In del Toro's Pinocchio, instead of turning into donkeys at Toyland, the kids are turned into child soldiers at an Italian training camp - which is more realistic and therefore scarier. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio removes some of these elements, and although it takes out the scariest scene from the Disney version, this decision actually makes del Toro's movie far worse.

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with award-winning director, Guillermo del Toro, about his new stop-motion animated film Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.

So, you know, I have learned that not making the movie for the right reason is almost as satisfying as making it for the right reasons. DEL TORO: You know, I have learned in 30 years of filmmaking that the natural state of a movie is to not get made. MARTIN: You just mentioned something that I had forgotten about is what a long journey it was for you to get this film made. And I do believe that if you hold steady to who you are and you follow the things you have learned through experience and spirit and listening and watching with love, you are rewarded by being a real boy, as the fable would have it, a real person, a real human being. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. And I believe that the only lie Pinocchio should never embrace is to lie about who you are. And in this one, you know, Pinocchio doesn't transform, and it's Geppetto that learns to be a real father. MARTIN: I mean, the film is lovely and funny, but there are points in it that are so deeply sad. In the traditional story, "Pinocchio" learns to be a real boy and transforms. There is Disney's "Pinocchio," which is a masterpiece that reflects the time it was made in. It is a movie that really talks about disobedience as a virtue, disobedience with a conscience as a virtue, and the fact that you can actually be loved the way you are. And all he really wants is to be a real boy and to make his father proud.

The director's stop-motion movie Pinocchio, now on Netflix, is the consummation of a lifelong love of animation. But his first attempt to make an animated ...

And you have to explain the emotional state of the puppet, and the physical state of the puppet, and where you are in the story. “The first idea I had when I was a kid was to do it in stop-motion, because I thought that way, the humans and [Pinocchio] exist in the same world,” he says. It never happens when you want it, but it happens when it has to happen.” The end result is “a massive operation that ends up covering a thousand days of shoot,” but the buildup is slow. While he was shooting Nightmare Alley, del Toro could start and end the day with detailed instructions for the creation of just a handful of frames of animation, which he found focused and refreshed him. “The thing to understand is, you don’t start with all the units on animation. And one night, we went to dinner and to a movie. Once finally underway, the film took almost a full three years to make: Production started in early 2020, simultaneously with del Toro’s previous movie, the noir drama I taught stop-motion, and I was preparing a stop-motion movie before Cronos.” “If you know Pacific Rim, you’ve seen 45 minutes of animation directed by me,” he points out. I started the stop-motion movement in my city. “I started on animation,” del Toro tells Polygon.