Let’s talk about Pinocchio and its many adaptations.
Which is your favourite movie adaptation of the book you’ve never read? Is it Disney Classic? Disney Cashgrab? Or cinema auteur?
We have a number of the Disney Classic animated films. Without fail, the movies are ruined by a scene that casually drops in enough racism, sexism, or other general dickishness to have you fumbling for the remote. “Well, you see kids, back then people thought it was okay to mock people based on their skin colour or nationality. How is that different from today? Oh… Well, that’s a good question.”
Ironically, Pinocchio is relatively free of this problem but didn’t interest our kids as much as the ones starring animals. Which also means we weren’t forced to watch the Disney Cashgrab version, unlike the Lion King. Apparently, the soulless modernisation that was the Lion King was something of a high point in Disney Cashgrabs compared to their Pinocchio.
The adaptation that did interest me was Guillermo Del Toro’s effort. For starters, it isn’t a Disney thing – Yay public domain! The other was the idea of doing stop-motion animation for the storytelling suggested a level of care and commitment to the storytelling that has been lacking in many new adaptations of classics.
I suppose at some stage I’ll finish watching it. Potentially when the kids stop interrupting my movie-watching to get me to make snacks.
Tyson Adams 