There are two feature-length, big-name Pinocchio films slated for release this year, which is at least one more than any reasonable person might have expected. The version to hand, Robert Zemeckis’s live-action-slash-CGI creation, comes straight from Disney’s magic castle conglomerate, and will be countered by Netflix with a stop-motion fable from Guillermo del Toro (coming to a device near you in December).
That’s not to mention Matteo Garrone’s 2019 Italian-language Pinocchio, featuring Roberto Benigni – who had previously played the titular character in the 2002 film version he himself directed – as the kindly woodcarver Geppetto, father to the little wooden boy.
The people’s appetite for Carlo Collodi’s magical puppet, whose serialised escapades were first published in book form in 1883, is yet to be determined. Even still, maybe this rush of Pinocchios speaks to a fake-news-addled, post-ironic society’s wish – “star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,” to quote Geppetto – for a return to the kind of truth that’s as plain as the nose on your face.
