NFR Project: 'Pinocchio' (1940)

 

NFR Project: ‘Pinocchio’

Dir: Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Norman Ferguson, Jack Kinney, Wilfred Jackson, T. Hee

Scr: Ted Sears, Otto Englander, Webb Smith, William Cottrell, Joseph Sabo, Erdman Penner, Aurelius Battaglia

Pho: N/A                                                             

Ed: N/A

Premiere: Feb. 23, 1940

88 min.

I hate Disney.

I was traumatized for life by the emotional manipulations exercised by Disney in the course of their classic films such as Dumbo, Bambi, and . . . Pinocchio. All of these, for me as a child, were Technicolor nightmare fuel. All of them mixed syrupy, over-the-top cuteness and jokes with a certain doomful certainty that all innocents can DIE, that an extremely prejudiced and exploitative world awaited them, and that a happy ending, indeed their survival, was conditional upon extraordinary behavior.

Think about those classic scenes. Dumbo’s mother goes to jail. Bambi’s mother DIES. That Wicked Witch in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. “Pink Elephants on Parade” reads like a passage from a Burroughs novel. I can’t help it. I’m damaged.

So keep this in mind.

Pinocchio traumatized me too. We all have a sneaking suspicion our parents somehow manufactured us, and that we must be in some fundamental and irrevocable way defective. We can become “real” if we fulfill a list of specifications, but are instantly deflected out of the path of righteousness by smooth-talking sociopaths. The physical and psychological tortures of Pinocchio seem far out of proportion to the sin implied in his native state, that is, one of complete innocence. He is helpless in the face of the world. It's the Rotoscoped Blue Fairy who saves him, again and again.

Pinocchio is brought to life with a gaggle of infectious songs and sure-fire gags. His creator, Geppetto, wishes he would be a real boy. The Blue Fairy comes down and animates the puppet, promising him that he can become real if he show himself full of virtue.

Pinocchio is deflected from going to school by a crafty fox and cat, who inveigle him into joining Stromboli’s puppet theater (Stromboli is an Italian stereotype). Stromboli locks Pinocchio up, but the Blue Fairy frees him.

He then gets tempted to go to Pleasure Island, where all the bad lazy boys go to have fun. One small problem – the misbehaving lads are turned into little donkeys. TERRIFYING! To this day. Pinocchio is partially transformed, escapes, goes to the bottom to find his father in the belly of a whale. He masterminds their escape, is seemingly killed, but then is resurrected as “real.” The End! And Jiminy Cricket is along as his “conscience” for comic relief (Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards voices Jiminy) and sings the hit, “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

This is not to say you won’t like it. It has the assured, precisely machined quality of all the Disney classics of the early years. Many hands make light work, and you can see by the credits that a large number of people worked hard to craft this out of the whole cloth (Collodi’s original is far more cynical). It’s a children’s tale, elegantly told. The animation demonstrates a huge step forward in technique.

But it’s scary. It gives me the willies. It’s not you, I’m sure it’s me.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Shop Around the Corner.