Reviews of Pinocchio (1940) and related work
- Same source material: Pinocchio (2022)
Pinocchio (1940
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Disney animator Art Babbitt claimed that Walt himself attended meetings of the German-American Bund. Have a look at Matt Roth’s 1996 essay, “The Lion King: A short history of Disney-fascism”. In it, he makes a pretty good case for why Pinocchio could have “served as a Hitler Youth training film”.
moving picture Disney animation fiction
‣ Pinocchio (2022)
Seen in 2023.
The character design and mixed-media animation are very good. The skeletal bunnies and angels are also very good, but the darker tone doesn’t stick. The story remains silly. This version is a whimsical musical with an intact lighthouse in the whale, which is a further negative development from the fabulist flood scene in the director’s The Shape of Water (2017).