In 1940 Walt Disney Productions released their second feature-length animated film: Pinocchio. Inspired by the Italian children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) by Carlo Collodi, this musical-fantasy feature animation was praised as “gay and clever and delightful a fantasy as any well-behaved youngster or jaded oldster could hope to see” (Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times).
Despite doing poorly at the box-office – falling below Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) returns and the studio’s expectations – it won the Academy Awards for Best Original Song and Best Original Score, and has since become a widely loved and critically-acclaimed classic. Film critic Leonard claimed that with Pinocchio, “Disney reached not only the height of his powers but the apex of what many critics consider to be the realm of the animated cartoon.”
Fast forward to March 2020. In keeping with Disney’s latest trajectory, a live-action adaptation has officially entered development with Back to the Future Trilogy (1985 – 1990), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and The Polar Express (2004) director Robert Zemeckis at the helm.
Will Disney Maintain the Darkness of the Original, or Choose a Lighter Path?
Their most recent live-action remakes/reimaginings, including Maleficent (2014), Cinderella (2015), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Aladdin (2019) and The Lion King (2019), whilst slightly more adult in both tone and cinematography, have managed to maintain the trademark Disney playfulness and fairy tale sensibility.
The live-action remakes have mostly stuck to the original stories from their animated origins, adding more detail where necessary to increase runtime to the industry standard minimum of 90 minutes. Pinocchio is unique in that it is significantly darker than those that have been remade so far.
An Italian adaptation released in December 2019, starring Roberto Benigni (famous for his tragi-comic approach to the Holocaust in the 1997 film Life is Beautiful), has a magical-realism aesthetic akin to Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and The Shape of Water (2017). Disney are most likely aware of this adaptation, so it will be interesting to see if they take a similar magical-realism approach or if they will stick to what they know and go with a more dark fairy tale, fantasy-esq style.
A Didactic Morality Tale About The Benefits of Hard Work and Conventional values, an American ideal!
In Collodi’s tale, Pinocchio was a cold, ungrateful, malicious mischief-maker. Collodi’s tale is arguably a product of its environment, the Victorian belief that “children were uncivilised and must have the devil forced out of them” being prevalent throughout the novel. Disney, however, did not think such an inhuman-like character would elicit sympathy from the audience, so they transformed him into an innocent and naïve boy with a wonderous curiosity about the world around him.
Anyone who experienced Disney’s Pinocchio as a child no doubt remembers some of the more frightening aspects of the story: the villains, and the infamous Pleasure Island sequence. Pinocchio is unique in the Disney mythos in that not only are the major are villains undeniably human (in character, they’re not literal monsters) but that they go unpunished. Disney’s villains are usually justly punished, either by nature, implying a Christian balance of good and evil, or by their own hand.
This is what makes Pinocchio uniquely frightening when compared to other Disney animated features and their subsequent live-action remakes. Stromboli, the director and puppet-master of the Great Marionette Theatre.
Stromboli: A Monstrous, Manipulatative Figure Whose Sadly Still Relevant to Society Today!
The money Stromboli earns from Pinocchio’s performances brings out a cruel, vicious and brutal side of him. Honest John, a literal sly fox, and his sidekick Gideon trick unsuspecting and naïve children: they sell poor Pinocchio into what could have been a life of servitude in the theatre where he would have been pushed to his limit, and after Pinocchio escapes Stromboli’s clutches, convinces the innocent child that the only cure for his sadness is to go to Pleasure Island. It is implied that Honest John knows exactly what he is selling Pinocchio into which is terrifying.
The Coachman is a horrifying, monstrous figure with exaggerated green eyes and massive teeth. He is the sinister embodiment of Stranger Danger, who lures “stupid little boys” to Pleasure Island, where they are transformed into donkeys and sold on the black market. The literal statement that “they never return as boys” also has a sexual implication, for the boys’ innocence is corrupted; whilst any perverted goings-on are never shown on screen, the implication is obvious and with the continuing slave-trade in the contemporary world, it is horribly relevant.
Pleasure Island: An Amusement Park Without the Presence of Figures of Authority!
Pleasure Island is a place where boys are encouraged to indulge themselves with adult vices such as cigar smoking, drinking, and gambling. Violent behaviour is also encouraged. The more the boys indulge in this immoral behaviour, the closer they get to, literally, making jackasses out of themselves.
The transformation of Pinocchio’s friend Lampwick, although done cleverly through shadow, is horrifying! It gave me nightmares as a child, instilling the fear into me that if I misbehaved, I might somehow be transformed. Depending on how Disney chooses to approach this live-action remake, this sequence could either be terrifying or more akin to a funny cartoon.
Whether you believe Disney is projecting messages through their films or not, this dark aspect of the film certainly has to potential to frighten younger viewers. Acknowledging that, however, what frightens some will not frighten others so neither should Disney feel like they must censor more frightening content from their young audience.
Whatever way you look at it, Disney’s version of Pinocchio may be less Victorian, but it is no less scary. The aesthetic and tone with which they choose to approach the live-action version will make or break the film. I do have faith in Robert Zemeckis, whose playful and quirky approach to filmmaking may infuse this film with a more light-heartedness than its 80-year-old processor, but we will have to wait and see.
Written by Victoria
Brown