FINAL WORDS ON PINOCCHIO

Pinocchio premiered February 7, 1940, at the Center Theatre in Rockefeller Center, New York City.

HR reported: “One of the greatest ovations ever accorded a motion picture was given Walt Disney‘s Pinocchio… At least ten times during the running of the picture the audience broke into applause, and the close was cheered for several minutes.”[1]

Nevertheless, its first release failed to recoup the film’s cost to the tune of approximately a million dollars, which red ink left Walt in a state of severe depression. Much of the deficit is attributed to the evaporation of the European market at the start of World War II the year before Pinocchio’s release when Hitler invaded Poland.

The events of Collodi’s story clearly take place in Italy, but where has Walt located them in his version? Stromboli seems to be the only definitively Italian character. Early sketches show his elaborate theater located permanently in the village on “Stromboli Plaza” though in the finished film he is an itinerant gypsy touring his puppet troupe and is “back in town” as the Fox puts it. Geppetto is vaguely German, the Coachman speaks with more than a hint of cockney, Lampwick uses Bowery-boy slang, many backgrounds and décor suggest Bavaria and Pinocchio’s costume calls to mind the Tyrolian Alps. During Stromboli’s “I’ve Got No Strings” puppetshow, marionette chanteuses represent France, the Netherlands and Russia. Was Disney attempting deliberate internationalism?

Whether or not, this diversity of nationalities in the film seems to have escaped Collodi’s nephew (or grandson? sources disagree!) Paolo Lorenzini who petitioned the Italian Ministry of Culture to sue Disney for “Americanizing” his uncle’s (or grandfather’s?) book: “Pinocchio’s adventures are an Italian work of art and must not be distorted to make it American.” Lorenzini wrote a peculiar sequel to his forebear’s novel in which the now-human Pinocchio is recruited to fight in the Great War, gets blown to bits and his limbs reconstructed out of wood. Geppetto petitions the Blue Fairy to re-convert him into a puppet and she obliges.[2]

Lorenzini’s lawsuit never materialized.[3] English and film studies professor Dr. David King makes a more salient and generalized objection:

The Disney version… does with Pinocchio what it does with all its fairy tale movies. It takes a source text from a particular cultural tradition, maintains the essence of the plot, filters the themes through an idealized set of American values and myths, and visualizes the characters according to the unique genius of the Disney style. In doing so, the Disney version overwhelms the original text, and much of the cultural attributes are lost.[4]

Well, after all Walt Disney is an American artist creating especially for an American public. And an animated version as magnificent as Pinocchio cannot help but “overwhelm the original text”. Nevertheless Disney’s work is understood, enjoyed, even applauded the whole world over. Apparently Walt like all great artists connects with something universal in the human condition. Author/illustrator of children’s literature Maurice Sendak suggests,

So far as I am concerned, Collodi’s book is of interest today chiefly as evidence of the superiority of Disney’s screenplay… Disney has deftly pulled the story together and made a tight dramatic structure out of the rambling sequence of events in the Collodi book.[5]

Little noted in any of my research is that Disney has condensed the timeframe of that “rambling sequence of events” into a tight eventful jam-packed mere three days beginning-to-end! Such unity of place and time is one of the primary goals of good playwrighting, if not all storytelling. (Two decades later Walt accomplishes the same with Charles Perrault’s hundred-year epic Sleeping Beauty – more later!)

As a very young child Sendak saw Pinocchio upon its first release. He reminisces that he has remained “forever happy” in that memory. His only misgiving is that viewing it nowadays highlights the deterioration of animation as an artform.

Watching Pinocchio now, I am inevitably struck by a sense of regret – of loss… The movie has the golden glamour of a lost era; it is a monument to an age of craft and quality in America… Over the past few decades, there has been a collapse of the sense of pride in craftsmanship, of the sense of excellence… Pinocchio is a shining reminder of what once was – of what could be again.

It is inconceivable to me that this film was in simultaneous production with Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi and was completed in a scant two years! And in addition, toward the end of those two years Disney Studios started the Herculean task of relocating piecemeal into its brand new facility in Burbank! Attempting to provide artistic perspective among these “Golden Age” cinematic achievements, Disney historian Adrian Bailey rates them thus:

While Fantasia may be remembered for its innovation and audacity, Snow White for its charm and whimsy, Pinocchio will remain in the years to come… the supreme example of the art of the animated cartoon.[6]

Readers of this chapter may notice that I have very frequently referenced the writings of J.B. Kaufman. For those who wish to delve further into the creation of this great animated masterpiece, I heartily recommend acquiring Kaufman’s superb 350-page coffee-table-quality tome, Pinocchio, The Making of the Disney Epic. His book is replete with beautiful illustrations of all sorts – not only photographs, but a healthy helping of the two million pieces of artwork made by many hands to bring this film to fruition. 300,000 of those artworks made it onto the screen. Kaufman’s book includes whole storyboards, character model sheets, inspirational sketches, background paintings (several in double-page spreads!), animation drawings, frames from the finished film and more. Kaufman’s writing is excellent and records more amazing detail than is comprehensible – even an appendix crediting every single bit of animation to its individual artist! Especially interesting is his recounting of the many, many story ideas that were discarded as Disney honed Collodi’s far-flung tale into a tight dramatic structure of great emotional and intellectual power and delight. Highly recommended! Kaufman’s final assessment:

“…from our later perspective, Pinocchio stands, not only as a tribute to the humanity of a generation, but as one of the towering cinematic achievements of the Twentieth Century…”[7]

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[1] From The American Film Institute’s Website. (“HR” is the newspaper Hollywood Reporter.)

[2] Kaufman, J.B.: op. cit., p. 307, footnote #105.

[3] From the American Film Institute’s website under “Pinocchio”.

[4] King, David: Pinocchio Illustrations of Mussino A Gift, georgiabulletin.org, March 21, 2019.

[5] Sendak, Maurice: “Walt Disney’s Triumph: The Art of ‘Pinocchio’”, July 10, 1988.

[6] Bailey, Adrian: Walt Disney’s World of Fantasy, Everest House Publishers, New York, 1982, p. 132.

[7] Kaufman, J.B.: op. cit., p.293.