Pinocchio 1940
I never saw Pinocchio as a kid and it seemed kind of juvenile to watch it as an adult, but when I put together a list of Disney’s best animated feature movies by averaging several different rankings I found on the internet, Pinocchio topped the list ahead of Snow White and Beauty and the Beast. So when the movie was re-released from the Disney vault, I ordered the Blu-ray. I had also watched Snow White for the first time recently and had been kind of underwhelmed by the story even though the animation was pretty and sometimes impressive with so many characters on screen. Pinocchio, released only two years after Snow White is leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessor, right from the beginning with amazing layering and perspective as the camera enters the town. Gepetto’s workshop has all kinds of things going on, even showing Pinocchio distorted through a fish bowl. What was clear right away is that the animators were really showing off what they could do. Scenes aren’t always just shot from eye-level but from above with 3D perspective. There are a lot of different characters and set pieces including underwater scenes and one inside the whale. And while the plot itself is quite winding, it isn’t that intricate, true to its roots as a serial compiled into a book. Pinocchio doesn’t display a huge amount of character development, but he does at least become helpful and brave. I was surprised that his nose only grows in one scene given what a cultural icon that is. There are also some great songs, including “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which is still the Disney theme song today, over 75 years after the release of the movie. While some of the humor is kind of dated and there are still a lot of things that are more cute than funny (Gepetto’s fish and cat), and the blue fairy doesn’t fit in with the rest of the animation, and the voice work for Jiminy Cricket is annoying, I can now see why this movie tops the list, though I don’t know if it would be at the very top of mine.
Written: 02 Feb 2017
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital