Pinocchio, that lying rascal, would seem a ready-made icon for an age of fake news and bots, of alternative facts and internet trolls, of doubts about the reliability of conventional media. Can it be a coincidence that two of the world's leading movie directors are at work on productions inspired by the famous puppet? Guillermo del Toro, who directed the Oscar-winning “The Shape of Water,” has chosen the Pinocchio tale for the subject of his first animated film, and Matteo Garrone, the director of the widely acclaimed “Gomorrah,” is also planning one about the marionette, to star another Oscar winner, the Italian comedian Roberto Benigni. (A third Pinocchio film, a live-action remake of Walt Disney's 1940 cartoon, is currently under discussion at Disney.)
What del Toro, who has spoken of a lifelong fascination with Pinocchio, doubtless recognizes, and what Garrone as a cultured Italian would not need to be told, is that the original story is a work of considerable complexity, comparable to “Alice in Wonderland” or “Gulliver's Travels” and much darker than Disney's cheery fable about the price of youthful mendacity. First conjured into existence 138 years ago, in the pages of a newspaper for children, Pinocchio was the invention of the Italian writer Carlo Collodi, who published the puppet's escapades as “The Adventures of Pinocchio” two years later. The book's intended message has largely been lost under the coating of saccharine that Hollywood spread over it.
Carlo Collodi was the pen name of Carlo Lorenzini, a journalist and satirist who made ends meet as a government office worker. Born in Florence in 1826, he was a prolific contributor to political and cultural periodicals and a tireless critic of his country's leaders, frequently rebuking them for their indifference to the poor and socially disadvantaged. Why he began writing for children in the mid-1870s is unclear. His motives could probably have been deduced from his correspondence, but his brother Paolo burned his letters after discovering, in the words of a nephew, that some “could have compromised ladies who were still alive and very well-known.”
One theory is that political satire had become incompatible with Lorenzini's regular job as a civil servant. But that cannot be the whole explanation since he continued, on occasion, to use his pen to lampoon the authorities. It seems more likely that he had a specific objective in mind.
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