Warning: The following article gives away several spoilers for the new movie
Something that’s been in the works for years isGuillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. The film, currently playing in select theaters and available on Netflix starting on December 9th, marks the Oscar-winning director’s first foray into animated films. Assisting him in that task were co-director Mark Gustafson and co-writer Patrick McHale. Del Toro and McHale discussed what it was like working on the new movie withVanity Fair.
“I took the partnership seriously on every aspect with Mark and with Pat. And I would acquiesce, and I would actually listen occasionally. One of the rules that I said to Pat is that I will listen to everything, I just need to be right at the end. [Laughs] But I didn’t do that,” said del Toro.
One of the things that this new adaption changes aboutThe Adventures of Pinocchioby Carlo Collodi is the ending. Here, Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) doesn’t become a real boy at the very end. According to del Toro, that came from a Gris Grimly illustration of Pinocchio looking at a mirror. He was a boy in the reflection but not in reality.
“The three themes that were there from the beginning was the loss of a son and the reincarnation through the tree, which Pat and I argued a lot about; the Mussolini subject; and the ending being that the reward for being disobedient is you are loved for who you are. Those were the tenets of the fable that started from the very, very beginning.”
When talking with McHale about the challenges and goals of the film,del Torosaid he was going to keep the basic tenets of the story but wasn’t going to let him read them. “I can tell you what I like about the Collodi book, but I’d rather you find it. Because I’ll only get your opinion once.” SoMcHalewent into a deep dive on Collodi and the time period, which they then started talking about.
“Just reading a lot of books, learning a lot about the place and time, not to necessarily insert stuff constantly, historically, but to understand where the characters would be throughout the movie, and why they would be acting the way they are, and why they would believe the things they’re believing,” said McHale.
One of the early decisions was to follow Geppetto (David Bradley). They weren’t going to lose him for three-quarters of the movie, like in other versions. Because then, you would lose that weight, and he would become a symbolic father. There was also a time when del Toro was talking with Grimly about why the puppet looked the way it did, and the artist responded that Geppetto was drunk.
“That sounds like a funny, glib answer, but it gave us a portal into making Geppetto irascible, sort of intolerant, a little bit of a perfectionist or a curmudgeon at times. When we were talking about one of the hardest moments in the movie—where Geppetto says, ‘You are such a burden’—some members of the crew were saying, This is too much. And I said, ‘No, no, no, no, no. Keep it exactly as it is. We need the worst point in the relationship.’ Patrick and I believed in not making a perfect, saintly Geppetto. And a very annoying Pinocchio,” said del Toro.
“I think parents watching the film can relate with a lot of the moments. A lot of them are ripped out of personal moments. I have a son who is almost exactly Pinocchio’s age when we were making the movie. Little things about fidgeting and all that stuff—my real-life experience, and I’m sure real-life experience that most people have. As a father you also kind of relive being a child and having a father,” said McHale.
RELATED:Pinocchio Sings' Ciao Papa' in New Song from Guillermo del Toro’s Stop-Motion Fairytale
The Hardest Scene to Write
There are several father and son stories within this version ofPinocchio. Such as between Podestà (Ron Perlman), a government agent of Fascist Italy, and his son, Candlewick (Finn Wolfhard). Pinocchio and Candlewick get drafted into a youth training camp, where Candlewick starts out as a bully towards Pinocchio before becoming his friend.
“The camp sequence was a real tough one. Just everything about it, from the relationship with Candlewick to the relationship with the father to its message and tone and how to deal with the violence—I feel like we rewrote that one a million times to try to find it.”
According to del Toro, if you do your job right, then all transitions, such as from one tone or color to another, are seamless. If you’re out of balance about anything, the violence, the comedy, then it breaks the integrity and reality of the piece. For example, he brought up this bed scene in the camp, where they couldn’t have Pinocchio and Candlewick talk in big themes because that would make the scene artificial.
“The most difficult moment to animate, and to shoot, and to write, was where Podestà says, ‘Oh, you guys are friends now? Well, shoot him.’ And he pulls out the gun. That’s a very powerful moment. I instructed the animators to repeat a little gesture with the lip of the cup where Podesta is cleaning the cup that shows he’s not going to give in. He’s the same guy that we saw in the first 10 minutes of the film, and the tone of it needed to have real dread and real menace. That whole scene is the thing we rewrote the most. And where we had most of our arguments. [Laughs],” said del Toro
When it came to any sort of disagreement or debate between the two writers, it was from McHale saying something wasn’t right. “In general I can just be very just nitpicky and very opinionated, or I look for problems. I don’t look for solutions as much as I look for problems.” Of course, del Toro welcomed that up to a certain point and said that McHale also had beautiful idiosyncrasies.
