Fellini's 'Pinocchio' and Other Unfilmed Fairy Tales

                 
In the wake of the update on Disney's live-action Pinocchio getting a new director (see HERE for the quick news post), we thought it about time we finish this archived draft and give you some more Pinocchio news you might not have been aware of.

Did you know Roberto Benigni, who went from wowing the world with his film, Life is Beautiful to freaking everyone out with his Pinocchio, originally talked with Fellini about making Pinocchio, with himself (Benigni) as the lead?
   
While the Benigni Pinocchio film flopped, it did return the Italian sense of comedy to the story and there is a strong sense - or at least, various homages - to Fellini throughout. Perhaps it flopped partly because it didn't translate well to English (and the actual dubbing into English certainly did much more harm than good!) but in putting Pinocchio on film, Benigni did little more than try to remain faithful to Collodi (many would say "too faithful") and never brought a fresh filmic sensibility to the story, so that it would work in the different medium (ie. film, as opposed to the original, which was a serialized story). Fellini, though, had quite different plans for his version, which unfortunately never came to be.

Would it have been better, as in better received and a better-made film? Who's to say. The trouble with making Pinocchio 'a real boy', literally, is that the character, and his journey and stories, easily become the stuff of nightmares. the very least that can be assumed is that it would have been 'Fellini-esque' and therefore a very, very different result.
       
Here's an extract from the book I, Fellini by Federico Fellini, Charlotte Chandler (1994*), describing his love for Collodi's Pinocchio, a little of what he had hoped to do with the story (but never did) and how he felt about fairy tales in general:

A film I have always wanted to make is Collodi's Pinocchio. it would be different from the Disney version. in my Pinocchio, every time the marionette said something untrue to a woman, it would not be his nose that grew. 

When I was little, a book seemed to be something to throw at your brother... When I was eight or nine years old, I had my first happy meeting with a book that became a good friend to me throughout my life - Pinocchio. It's not just a wonderful book, but it's one of the great books. I feel that it has had an enormous influence on me. It was the beautiful pictures which first caught my attention. It was the way I wished I could draw. 

Through Pinocchio, I learned I could love a book, that a book could offer a magical experience, and this was, as it turned out, not just a book for childhood, but one that could be read forever, I have read it several times in my life since my early childhood discovery.
The end of the book is the poorest part because Carlo Collodi, as a nineteenth-century man, moralizes when the puppet becomes a boy. It is sad because, losing his marionettehood, Pinocchio loses his childhood, the marvelous life of knowing animals and magic, in return for becoming a good, conforming idiot. 

                       

Pinocchio was born in Romagna, just like me. I wanted to make the story as Collodi intended it, with live actors, but in the spirit of the great Chiostri illustrations. When I was young, I used to practice drawing by trying to copy those drawings, but I could never achieve what Chiostri did. I had many ideas for showing Pinocchio in the Country of Toys in the film I would make. 

Fellini's self-portrait/caricature
with Ginger and Fred

I did not identify with Pinocchio, but with Gepetto. Creating Pinocchio was like making a film. I could see the relationship between Gepetto's carving out Pinocchio and my carving out a film. Gepetto was making the marionette from a piece of wood, but little did he know that soon he would not be in control. With every chip he carved away, Pinocchio was becoming more. It is exactly the way I feel when I am directing a film, as the film starts to direct me. Gepetto though he was the one in charge, but the more he carved, the further he got away from it. 

Pinocchio was one of my favorite friends. If I could have made the film, with live people as I wanted to do, I would like to have played the part of Gepetto, and there was only one perfect actor to play Pinocchio - Giulietta**. 

I have always been fascinated by the fairy tales of Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Andersen. Imagine - "Rapunzel." "The Princess and the Pea," "The Littel Mermaid"! I would love to bring those fairy tales to the screen. I have this vision of the princess there in her nightdress, so uncomfortable and unable to sleep, on top of a mountain of mattresses, not realizing that it is a pea under the bottom of the first mattress that is the cause of her distress. The scene is so developed in my mind that sometimes I feel I have already made the film. Poor romantic little mermaid who gives all for love, yet we understand, because each of us searches throughout life for love. "The Emperor's New Clothes" is such a profound concept. Fairy tales are one of the greatest expressions of man by men. Another reason I was attracted to Jung was his revealing interpretation of fairy tales as part of our subconscious history. 

Life is a combination of magic and pasta, of fantasy and of reality. Films are the magic, and pasta is the reality, or is it the other way around? I have never been very good at distinguishing between what is real and what is not..."

         
And here is another extract from an interview with Rolling Stone, titled Fellini's Language Of Dreams (referencing his ENORMOUS sketch and notebook, some of which can be seen online):

RS: Aside from the circus and the artists Of Rimini, what else influenced you creatively as a child? 

Fellini: Fairy tales. My grandmother used to tell them to me. She was a farmer, a peasant, and her stories ‑ since she lived in the country and was surrounded by animals ‑ always concerned horses, cats, owls, bats. So we grew up to respect and be very curious about them. And still today, when I eat a chicken, I'm afraid that suddenly it will become a prince once it's inside me! [Laughing] I've always had ‑and still have‑ this feeling. 

       

Also, when I was eight or nine, Pinocchio: The Story of a Puppet was an enormous influence. It isn't just a wonderful book, for me it's one of the great books ‑ equal to Homer's Odyssey and Kafka's The Trial. And for my generation, it was our first happy encounter with a book. When you're small, a book is something very strange that belongs to the world of adults ‑ something that has to do with school, something that takes away your freedom ‑ unless there are beautiful pictures inside. And mostly it was something you could throw at your brother when you were fighting [laughing). But ultimately, it was something that didn't belong to you. The encounter with Pinocchio was like coming upon a magical object ‑ it was a big bridge between life and culture ‑ so it had a special meaning, almost exorcistic. 

                   

Now the author, Carlo Collodi, lived in the nineteenth century, so he had to conclude the book in a certain moralistic way. It ends with the transformation of the puppet into a boy. That, however, is the least interesting, and even the saddest part of the book. But, of course, it's true that we all lose the magical, childhood, Pinocchio part of our being ‑ being in touch with animals, with the night; with mystery ...in contact with life the way it should be. And with this loss, we become good idiots, good students, good husbands, good citizens. 

Pinocchio is a marvelous book because you can read it forever ‑ when you're a child, when you're young, when you're old. It has the simplicity of the Bible and lacks all presumptuous consciousness. And, indeed, it really is a work of magic. You can open it like a book of oracles, readjust one line, and it will help you. All your doubts and problems find an answer on those pages.

                                 
We think we will never quite be able to think about Pinocchio again, without remembering Fellini and his enthusiasm. It certainly will make us look at Fellini films a little differently too.

A little sidebar on the current 'Pinocchio' news to end: it should be noted, despite all this discussion of Collodi's serial story and the difficulties of translating the Italian sensibility of those stories for a non-European understanding (or affection), the live-action version of Pinocchio coming from Disney is not a remake of Collodi's book, but of the Disney classic animated film, so it will likely be even further removed from its origin in that sense. Not that, that is necessarily a bad thing. It just makes it different. That the film will be made in this era (2018 on), with the current social US American climate, in combination with the resurgence of interest in tale origins and research (such a the wonderful  #FolkloreThursday phenomenon), means this version-to-be still has many possibilities. Though intended, at pitch time, as a straight remake of the 1940 film, it's been the 'revisioning' of the classic stories (such as 'Maleficent' and Branagh's 'Cinderella' that have been most successful across the board - critically as well as in combination with popularity) that have made the most difference to how society is now viewing these tales. It will be an interesting case study either way.

NOTE: All illustrations, apart from Fellini's self-caricature, are by Fellini'/s favorite Pinocchio illustrator, Carlo Chiostri.

* Fellini was interviewed, with it also being tape recorded for his exact words, in 1980 and the book was originally published after his death (1993) in German as Ich, Fellini. Most of the book is written/related in Fellini's words.
**Giulietta was Fellini's wife.

Garrone's Live Action 'Pinocchio' Gets Harry Potter SFX Wizard

Pinocchio, which is currently being sold at Cannes, has signed one of the most sought after special effects folks in the business, Nick Dudman. We are guessing he is currently trying out a variety of noses for his new project...

We reported a while back on Italian Director Matteo Garrone (Tale of Tales) and his latest passion project, a live action, personal retelling of Pinocchio, which he is also writing. (You can find that earlier post HERE.)

Dudman told Variety that the new Italian-language “Pinocchio” will have a “flavor and look that’s quintessentially Italian” and will be different from what audiences are used to seeing in mainstream fantasy films. “It’s a very personal journey for Matteo,” Dudman said. “They are doing something very different from previous versions. It’s very dark.” 

“’Pinocchio’ is a dream of mine that goes back to when I was a child,” says Garrone. “On my desk I still have my own personal ‘Pinocchio’ story-board that I drew and colored in when I was a kid, and which is one of my most cherished mementos.” 

... Production is expected to begin in early 2018 in Sicily, Calabria and Tuscany. (Variety)

We're looking forward to see how this develops, if we can. Garrone was pretty strict with his closed sets on Tale of Tales, but this is, at last information, still supposed to be a family film and should be very different from everything Garrone has done to date. Either way - we won't have seen a Pinocchio like this one before.

In case you missed the note, it's been confirmed that unlike Tale of Tales, this film will be in Italian.

Art Film: A Post-Truth Pinocchio In Venice

That title. We can't decide if it's ironic or tautological, nevertheless, Pinocchio - known the world over for his lies and the biggest tell on the planet - is having a revival, of sorts.

While Pinocchio has been associated with (almost) every President in the US (in fact, someone could probably create a book of Pinocchio POTUS', there have been so many images made with the telling long nose), our current era is more concerned in associating Pinocchio with fake news, specifically, fake news originating from the office of the Presidency (whether POTUS himself or his staff and entourage). With all the 'alternative facts' and 'post-truths' still constantly barraging the news and media, Pinocchio is fast becoming the poster boy for US politics (no matter which 'side' you take) and he, President of Fake News Pinocchio is cropping up more and more in writing, cartoons and contemporary works of art and film.

One of the most recent appearances is in a festival film, titled "Spite Your Face: A Dark Venetian Fairytale", by artist and filmmaker Rachel Maclean, where alt-Pinocchio is essentially displayed in a de-consecrated church in Venice, for the 57th Venice Biennale, a unique contest, "like the Eurovision song contest for art. People represent their countries." 

Fittingly, the film was created in a large, portrait format -something unusual, even for art films, and the constant impression that you're looking at a portrait, reinforces the sense of Pinocchio's importance - to himself and to those watching.

We've assembled a partial synopsis by combining two sources (both cited after their extracts):

Spite Your Face, transforms the 19th century Italian tale of a wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy into a dark and disturbing satire of the era of celebrity, fake news and reality television... and Maclean plays all the characters herself, (aided by) costumes elaborate costumes and the help of prosthetic designer Kristyan Mallett, who has worked on the Harry Potter movie franchise.

The film tells the rags to riches story of an urchin called Pic. His life is transformed when he is catapulted into "The World Above", a consumer heaven where money equals power. (BBC News)

Pic (full name Pinocchio Gepetto) is a street kid in a grey, hopeless world. He makes a wish on an iPad in the Other World Offerings temple – a digital recreation of the Chiesa di Santa Caterina – and finds himself transported by the blessing of a fairy godmother / Virgin Mary figure to a golden heaven where (through the application of a perfume named Truth) he is able to become a gilded hero punting rubbish perfume (named Untruth) to the masses. 

Standing atop a golden plinth, Pic rants and raves to an adoring crowd. "Smell that? This place used to smell great. Now it stinks. The facts aren't known because the media don't report them." (TheSkinny - we recommend reading their whole article)

As the face of a perfume brand called Untruth, Pic becomes a rich and famous media personality, and a political demagogue, at the expense of his ethics and happiness. 

... "I was interested in how lies had played out in the Brexit campaign and the Trump campaign. Journalism exposed the lies but that didn't affect the outcome. I was interested in how democracy works. We are less rational than we like to think we are and driven by belief systems." (said Maclean - BBC News again) 

Venice is a city that still exudes luxury. Things glint and glitter, look expensive, of high status, and that adds to the setting of Pic, aka, alt-Pinocchio's journey. Perhaps the fact that it was written 'in situ' helped capture that.

The Herald (Scotland) got a preview of the film, and additional comments by Maclean are so very relevant, we had to include an excerpt to give readers a better idea of why this film has caught so many people's attention:

The Herald had a preview of the film - which also features song, satire, special effects and parody - and afterwards Ms Maclean said of the disturbing assault scene: "I've been disturbed and troubled by the recent rise and confidence in misogyny, the rise in anti-feminism, and reactionary attitudes to feminism, and that coupled with a feeling that we are immune, as a culture, to violence against women in images and the exploitation of women, images of women's bodies used to sell perfume or cars, and it is so ingrained we are not shocked by it anymore. I wanted the film to feel jarring, to make it uncomfortable and difficult to watch, and didn't want it so sit at that level of immunity." 

The film does not directly make reference to either Trump or Brexit, but the artist said: "I was processing a lot of the sense of how these lazy lies that were used through the Brexit campaign and the Trump campaign, and that didn't effect the result. 

"I got interested in how difficult it is to penetrate a narrative that has gained political currency, and how easy it is to use lies to substantiate ideas that already have currency. 

"The rags-to-riches tale is so much in our culture, you see it in things such as Britain's Got Talent...I was inspired by how compassion-less those [rags to riches] narratives are, and generate a lack of compassion for other people's suffering."

And so Pinocchio meets Cinderella - and neither look good because of it.

We became even more interested in how this film came to be, knowing it had its genesis well before Trump campaigned or before Brexit rose its head. We found that fairy tales were always a part of her exploration but things evolved quite differently when finishing writing it at the end of 2017.

From TheArtNewspaper:

...Maclean anticipated (the film) might be an extension of her earlier films and photographs exploring fantastical, fairy-tale and clichéd images of Scottish identity, The Lion and the Unicorn and I ♥ Scotland. Presciently, the latter, made in 2013, included a Donald Trump-like figure. Back then he was merely symbolic of corporate greed—a golf-club wielding, saltire-faced, frightwig-sporting ogre, enacted, like all the figures in her work, by Maclean herself.  

But in early December, Maclean visited Venice and her ideas shifted: Spite Your Face (2017), her film for the Biennale, has a wider political target. “Because I went to Venice for about a week or so to write a script for it, and it was shortly after Brexit and shortly after the American election, I was quite interested in this political landscape and the rise of nationalism and the ‘alt-right’ and something that was larger than specifically Scottish nationalism,” she says.  

...Does her Trump-like character reappear? “It’s more allusive,” she replies. “You can pick up on certain things or certain tropes in political characters, but I didn’t want there to be somebody who, for example, directly referenced Trump or directly referenced a recognisable political figure. I wanted the characters to feel a little bit more like an amalgam of different characters and different ideas.

And so they do. But they can't help but mirror the most obvious public examples either, and the images - both the public one of Trump and, in the film, Pic, are such strong ones, it takes a while to see the other characters woven in, characters like Cinderella, Jack and the Ugly Duckling and perhaps a Midas who has yet to learn his lesson.

The show will be on display in Venice from 13 May-26 November then will be shown at Talbot Rice Gallery at the University of Edinburgh from March 2018 and at Chapter, Cardiff from Oct 2018.

#RRR

'Pupa', An Irish Pinocchio Inspired Tale with a Relevant Difference

We didn't get to promote this in time for its run, which ended on Saturday March 25th, but wanted to quickly highlight it anyway to put it on your radar for the future.

Created by Limerick puppeteer Emma Fisher, who also writes and designs, as well as performs with the puppets, this show is definitely a more adult inclined take on Pinocchio, which sounds like it has parallels with The Girl Without Hands as well. (Emma's previous show, 'Spun', considered 'notable' and 'impressive', was kid and family friendly.) Shown at the Lime Tree Theater, by Beyond the Bark, in Ireland this past week., we hope there will be future opportunities for folks to catch this one.

From the press kit:

Pupa 

The freakish metamorphic tale of us. 

A puppet girl struggling with her disabled part splits herself in two, casts off her disabled part and banishes it to the room of forgotten limbs. A puppet boy falls from normality, breaking and reforming. They both go on separate quests to find a sense of wholeness. As they navigate a dark world they encounter many characters on their way- a wise bug, fragmented and broken bodies, singing mouths in jars, and silence. 

Pupa is inspired by the fairy-tale Pinocchio. Transforming and metamorphosing from abled to disabled, such as when he burns his legs of at the fire, along the way Pinocchio is helped by many characters who share their stories with him and make him who he is. 

Pupa derives from the Latin for puppet meaning girl or doll, and is also used to describe the middle stage of an insect’s metamorphosis before it re-emergens as a new creature. This is a metaphor for the transition from able to disabled within the play. 

By mixing puppetry, mask, ceramics, song and film, we will tell the freakish metamorphic tale of us. Audiences will be lead through a multi-sensory, interactive, Kafkaesque, telling of Pinocchio as never seen before.
In a land where we are all different, we question what normal even means, looking at how people with disabilities think society sees them. We are telling stories of coming out/identifying as disabled and navigating the grey area between disabled and abled.

A cool tie-in to note, Beyond the Bark hosted a special puppet-making workshop during the preparation for this show with world renowned puppet and prosthetic hand maker, Ivan Owen, along with creator and Artistic Director Emma Fisher.

A little more about the names behind the creation of the puppets for the show:

IVAN OWEN:Makerspace Lab Manager at the University of Washington, Bothell & an interdisciplinary artist exploring a wide range of topics. Co-inventor of the first open-source 3D printable hand prosthesis & a volunteer for the e-NABLE open prosthetics community. His past work has included musical composition, metal casting, jewelry, recreations of medieval armor and costume and prop making for stage and screen including Modern Family and Outrageous Acts of Science. His most recent project has been working with Emma Fischer to create a functional, wearable mechanical artistic creation & with her exploring ways in which digital fabrication can be utilized in puppetry.
Examples of some of his past & current work can be seen here:

• youtu.be/SHX2DIpQr6I - large wooden mechanical puppet hands

• youtube.com/channel/UCd8D_QoTmynRkAd_hGTkgBQ - youtube channel

EMMA FISHER:Artistic director of Beyond the Bark inclusive puppet and installation theatre, puppeteer/puppet maker, writer and set designer. She is an Irish Times theatre award nominated designer. She has taught puppetry at The London School of Puppetry, Mary Immaculate College and schools, hospitals and community centers across Ireland and the UK. She is constantly pursuing new techniques in puppetry and is delighted to be working with and learning from Ivan Owens on a Travel and Training funded by the Arts Council. www.beyondthebark.ie and http://emmacfisher.wixsite.com/emmafisherdesign

Keep an eye out for these folks and their work! We have a feeling we'll see more adapted fairy tales in the future from these people.

Breaking News: 'Tale of Tales' director Matteo Garrone To Reimagine Pinocchio, First Casting Announced

This is pretty exciting news hitting the newsroom this morning! Just an hour(ish) ago, Deadline announced that Matteo Garrone, who is set to do his personal reimagining of the Italian fairy tale classic, Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi, has cast his first actor. Toni Servillo (The Great Beauty) will return to work with Garrone as Gepetto, Pinocchio's father.

Pinocchio and the pigeon fly to the seashore. - Chiostri 1911

While aware that Tale of Tales isn't a film for everyone, we thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it translated the difficult text of the tale extremely well from book to film. (Review coming soon.) As a result, we're now very (very!) curious as to how Garrone sees Pinocchio. We expect wonderful, artful, and yes, magical, things.

From Deadline:

Garrone’s live-action version will take an “artisanal approach, blending prosthetics, special makeup and CGI.” 

Garrone’s Archimede Productions, Jeremy Thomas’ Recorded Picture Company and Jean Labadie’s Le Pacte will produce the adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s bestselling classic. Garrone will direct from his own screenplay. 

“Pinocchio is a dream of mine that goes back in time to when I was a child,” Garrone said in the statement. “With this movie I will complete my journey through the fairy-tale world that I started with Tale of Tales.” 

The film is expected to begin shooting in the spring in Italy.

Geppetto brings Pinocchio to life, as Carlo Chiostri's illustrations bring Collodi's story to life. From: Le avventure di Pinocchio: Storia di un burattino; by Carlo Collodi, with illustrations by Carlo Chiostri; 1911, Firenze, R. Bemporad & Figlio Editori

Italian news outlet, badtaste.it, quotes Garrone as saying:

The director, according to initial statements, " will create a fantastic world of mystery and wonder, with a story full of touching moments, fun and lively. It will carry animals and fantastic creatures of Pinocchio world using a very practical approach, blending makeup, prosthetics and CGI . "

Complete his journey? I wonder how that will be reflected in the film.

It's been confirmed that this film will be in Italian, with Italian actors and, once again, shot in Italy.

If he's making the movie for his childhood self, there's a good chance this might be more of a family film - though likely a 'Euro family version' - than Tale of Tales (which was less horrific and lusty than we had been led to believe - most things were implied, not shown). 

Pinocchio is sentenced to four months in prison! Also from the 1911 Italian edition of the book.

Either way, we expect a much better film than Roberto Benigni's more-disturbing-than-charming effort of 2002, and look forward to seeing more casting, specifically of Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy, the latter of which may turn out to be a perfect strong female role for some lucky woman.

We found an interesting assessment of the difficulties in remaking Pinocchio by Italian media outlet ilfattoquotidiano.it, which we had to share, because it's a very distilled image of just why so many directors fail when they try to reinterpret the classics on film. We've put the main quote bold:

The puppet master Mangiafuoco, Carlo Chiostri 1911

It is what some call the effect Don Quixote: that in many, too many directors / screenwriters cinema approach a literary myth and their wings will melt. 

In short, the Collodi's fairy tale with its police, its circus and his coin buried under a tree by the Cat and the Fox and subsequently become a swag of gold coins - unintentional metaphor for the current speculative bubble that is scary - awaits the Garrone version. We hope to one of the most important Italian filmmakers in the world to get to the masterpiece. History shows that the transposition of the famous puppet does not allow half measures.

Hollywood is certainly having difficulty with its many versions. There is Guillermo del Toro's stop motion, which looked extremely promising, yet has been stalled for quite some time; Robert Downey Jr's version, which also stalled for a while until Ron Howard came on board to direct not long ago, and, of course, Disney have their own live action version of their animated film, waiting in the development wings (!) too. It seems Garrone's film is already further ahead than any of these.

Garrone's Pinocchio is expected to be released in 2018.

WB's (aka Robert Downey Jr's) Pinocchio Gets Paul Thomas Anderson as Writer (& Possibly as Director) & Production Ramps Up

It would appear that the WB's live action Pinocchio (in development with Robert Downey Jr for some time now) has been put on the fast track.

First of all, the movie now has a new script writer that everyone is very pumped about: Oscar nominated writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson. You may know his work from such films as There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights.

The news as first released by The Hollywood Reporter on July 1st:

Cover of Pinocchio from 1911

Warner Bros. and Team Downey are moving forward with their live-action take on Pinocchio and have enlisted Paul Thomas Anderson to write a draft with an eye toward directing. 

Though the film would seem far outside of Anderson's wheelhouse, the move shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. ... Downey and Anderson are good friends and have been looking to work together for some time. 

The Giver writer Michael Mitnick penned the latest draft of Pinocchio, and Downey has been quietly tweaking the script for the past six months. Downey has been developing Pinocchio for years, but the project has found new urgency in the wake of a string of live-action hits based on kids' classics, most recently Disney'sCinderella. 

Downey is onboard to play Geppetto in the tale about a wooden puppet who wants to become a human boy.Bryan Fuller and Jane Goldman wrote previous drafts of the story that is based on a novel by Carlo Collodi. Downey... will produce Pinocchio alongside Team Downey partner Susan Downey as well as Dan Jinks (Milk).

A few more details from Christian Post:

Downey is also cast to play Geppetto in the remake. According to the report, it will be a "traditional adaptation of the story" which is based on the 1883 novel by Carlo Collodi titled "The Adventures of Pinocchio." Disney's version of the tale was an animated movie that came out in 1940. 

Disney, on the other hand, is developing its own live-action version of the movie, with Peter Hedges writing the script. The Disney version is said to be based on the 1940 animated movie, according to a report in Variety. 

Some additional notes on how Anderson may influence the movie, via The Verge:

Anderson's script won't be entirely original. Several other writers, including Bryan Fuller and Jane Goldman, have made earlier drafts, and even Downey is said to have put some work into it. Now production on the film is apparently kicking into high gear over at Warner Bros. after seeing how successful live action films based classic kids' stories can be.  

Anderson still seems like an odd choice for Pinocchio, although he's very much not set as its director yet. As a writer, Anderson's help is hard to argue with. His scripts are consistently smart and compelling, and he does love to work with father–son relationships. It's not stated when Warner Bros. would like to have this film out in theaters, but it seems like the project now has the momentum to get there.

This is the edition my Dad gave me
from one of his trips when I was a child.
It's one of only a couple of items
he ever personally bought for me
and I greatly treasure it.

So, what are your thoughts? Do you think Pinocchio as a tale beloved by folk well beyond Italy and fairy tale realms will benefit from this take?

Pinocchio is a very dark serial story, though not without much humor of course, but I always worry when I hear about a live version of the traditional tale.

It's one thing to stylize a production so it doesn't come off as creepy (usually it becomes quite magical instead) but there are heavy issues and themes that a director/writer like Anderson could have a lot of fun with - and end up freaking out an entire generation with!

It's always hard to predict.

Artist and writers who have traditionally sunk their teeth into the darker side of things, not shying away from socially perturbing aspects in their work, tend to behave unexpectedly when it comes to properties that are considered family-fare, especially if they have kids of their own. While their take still tends to be 'fresh' (compared to traditional kid-friendly offerings), usually they want their own kids to see and enjoy the movie too which tends to bring out a conservative and protective vibe from otherwise in-your-face artists. This isn't necessarily a bad thing either - both for the film and for the artist.

"Traditional adaptation" tends to mean "once upon a time" or, at least, "a long, long time ago", complete with romanticized notions and representations of the past, especially for family films, but that doesn't mean we can't be surprised by an interpretation. If the film remains G or PG rated, for example, though we probably won't be seeing Pinocchio as an at-risk street kid, we may still see a street urchin vibe - think MGM golden age, just hopefully with a (needed) difference.

One challenge I see is that if Gepetto is the focus of the story, that's going to be a difficult thing to endear the retelling to a whole new generation of children. Adults, sure, but kids are harder. One of Inside Out's big criticisms (along with it leaving you feeling down and hopeless rather than 'up' and inspired) is that, despite being told well and looking amazing, it's a story that's really for adults reflecting on their own childhood, rather than for kids, so kids just aren't taking to it as expected. Not that kids don't understand it or the themes, they do, but just that kids don't relate in the same way that adults looking back do. Telling a deep - and classic/resonating story that children will relate to - right now - as well as adults, is no small task. (Which is why writing for children is much harder than it looks.) While Collodi did that, albeit in a culture-specific, and old-fashioned fashioned way that some people have trouble with, it's all there in the stories but it's easy to lose that balance.

If nothing else, this news certainly is interesting and brings a lot of potential to the story-retelling plate.

Next Up: Pinocchio Wants To Be Real Boy! (aka Disney's Next Film on the Convert-to-Live-Action List Announced)

Yes - this is the next one. Announced Wednesday through Deadline:

Yet another live-action version of a tried-and-true Disney fairy tale is wending its way to the big screen. Peter Hedges is penning a feature loosely based on the original Pinocchio story about a marionette carved from wood who dreams of becoming a real boy. Pinocchio gets his wish but is prone to stretching the truth, and each time he does, his nose grows longer. 

And the script writer hired to make the animated classic transition to live action is Peter Hedges, who wrote the screenplays for The Odd Life of Timothy Green and About A Boy. Both films have the theme "what it means to be human" and focus on a familial-like relationship to a boy... (The phrase "typecast" seems to fit well when you're talking about a writer in this context.)

And the key phrase above is"loosely based". OK then. So everyone who loves the classic is going to be disappointed, but really if it is a direct translation, everyone who loves the classic will also be disappointed. This is no-win situation here. Hopefully they've come up with a very different (dare I say "fresh"?) approach to make a new Pinocchio instead of mashing/rehashing the old one.

I cannot imagine them going back to Collodi's serial though. Can you imagine? The film would be Not Recommended For Children at best! They might, though, look back over Walt's original notes and try some of those ideas.. forgetting, of course, that Walt didn't do those ideas for good reason.

At least we can be fairly certain that it will be better than Disney's last live action Pinocchio, and I don't mean the Once Upon A Time version. (Remember that? Don't worry - most don't.)

-sigh- Time to brush up those puppetry skills.

Hm. I wonder if The Henson Company will be getting in on the act