Pinocchio - The best Disney movie ever?

Cafe Society
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Inspired by the Disney Animated Feature showdown (there Pinocchio is losing to Fantasia) and some conversation around that subject.

I propose that Pinocchio, the Disney animated feature, is without question the highest pinnacle that Disney ever reached in terms of Animation as art. Nothing against any of the other films they made many of which are fine films, but no other film reached the level of pure artistry that Pinocchio did. Many weren’t trying to and were made with a different goal in mind*(and that’s fine too) but of all the Disney films, I would have to say Pinocchio is the best example of what animation can do as art.

Look at what is done in the donkey scene here. Look at the shadows, physical characterizations. Look at all the backgrounds painted by hand, and the way they draw the light to help create a mood. Look at how shadows are used, not just in silhouettes, but behind characters to help emphasis the action of the scene. Look at the number of characters that are being handled in the opening scene, or the water at the end of the scene, pay attention to the use of music and sound effects. Or how they use the same techniques for a totally different effect at the beginning of the movie here. In that clip look at the physics as Jiminy plays around the shop. This stuff is amazing. The walking on the violin string, the bouncing on the saw. They had been playing with this kind of stuff for years in the shorts, but this is the first time it ever really all came together.

Compare it to Snow White, for example, and Snow White seems positively lifeless. There are scenes, or moments in other animated films that may pass Pinocchio’s peaks (Pink Elephants from Dumbo, the ice skating sequence in Bambi) but none of them are as consistently amazing. Or, compare it to the last fully hand animated movie Disney made, The Little Mermaid which had amazing storytelling, and a killer soundtrack, (both arguably better than Pinocchio) but the animation itself was just not up to snuff in comparison to the older stuff.

So that is the crux of my argument, and I am just dealing with the animation itself. I haven’t even gotten into the multilayered storyline with several believable villains and characters that have emotional depth and resonance, even when they are portraying archetypes; or the songs which are not only memorable, but actually serve to move the plot forward. Pinocchio was totally revolutionary, and broke all kinds of new ground for animation as an art form and a way of telling a story with visual images. It is the Citizen Kane of the animation world.

So now I am opening the floor up for debate. What does everyone else think? I know there was some discussion of it over in the showdown thread, so I am hopping that it will move over here and some other animation fans will pop in and add their two cents.

*In fact after Fantasia was released Disney really stopped trying to make animated art films (although some of them are fine examples of the art of animation) so it is almost unfair to make the comparison with anything after Bambi (the last film in production at the time of Fantasia’s critical and commercial failure).

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Pretty good overall, but the music in Jungle Book trumps em all.

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I agree with you. It was my offhand comment about *Pinnochio * that started the discussion in the other thread.

With *Pinocchio *the Disney animators had learned how make a feature length animated film, but they hadn’t learned how to cut corners. The whole movie has this incredible hand-tooled feel that later films lack. Things that could be in-betweened are drawn as straight-ahead animation. The watercolor backgrounds are works of art in their own right. A crazy amount of labor went into making it, and it shows.

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:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:

I swear I really know how to spell it.

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To begin with, that other thread isn’t asking for the most important animated film, or the most ground-breaking. Just for favorites, and that’s how I’ve played it. So, a poor plot, or poor animation might be balanced out by an attitude I prefer, or characters I like, or even sympathy to the theme of the work. So that’s possibly a point of divergence between us and how we’re seeing these threads. I don’t deny the influence and importance of Pinocchio. There are just many other animated films I find more enjoyable.

Some other points:

Animation styles have changed, a lot. With computer aided animation there’s room for a lot more movement in shots that there was when everything had to be hand-drawn. This isn’t meant to be a criticism of the artistry of completely hand-drawn animation. In many ways it is stunning.

But to imply that computer aided animation is less because it’s not all hand-drawn I think ignores the power that using good computer aided animation can give to a scene. Here’s this scene taken from Spirited Away, which deals with similar themes to the donkey transformation - the alienation, the loss of the familiar, and the realization of hazard, and confusion, and panic all come through. In a large part because the animation is free to mix the familiar with the outre in ways that it wouldn’t have been economical do in Pinocchio’s day. (The voice acting, OTOH… <shuddering>)

Another thing I’ll point out is that a lot of how I judge a film is going to be based on how well the whole works for me. And, to that degree, Pinocchio has always left me a little cold - it’s a morality play, and one that (the one time I watched the whole film) struck me as about as subtle as a two-by-four across a mule’s forehead. You talk about believable characters and villains, but for me the best stories are those without villains. Not because I doubt the existence of villains in the real world, but because I think that most people don’t encounter them.

Whisper of the Heart is, I believe, the best animated feature film ever made. I don’t know how many people will share my judgment there - at simplest level it’s a romance and a coming-of-age story. But while the themes are simple, the marriage between animation, voice, soundtrack, and plot is seamless. The way that the flights of fancy merge with the everyday world of Tokyo, the anguish of the teen trying something hugely important to her, and failing, at least in her own mind, all comes through perfectly.

And by making such a story, which might have been done with live action (for much less expense and time) the point of wonder in the real world that is made by the film is even more emphatically made.

It’s not that I disagree whether Pinocchio is an important animated film. Perhaps it is as influential as you say. But, for my taste, it’s not the best animated film ever.

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Gonna snip a lot, sorry, it’s a good post.

Me too actually. It’s why I voted for Sword in the Stone over Cinderella. I happen to actually like Pinocchio. YMMV.

It wasn’t my intention to imply that computer animation was somehow lesser. It’s just different, and it feels unfair to either form to compair computer assisted animation with hand drawn animation or three dimentional animation. If you really want to get pickey, I probably wouldn’t compair xerox lined animation with hand inked animation either. The visual style of, for example One Hundred and One Dalmations, would be nearly impossible to achive with hand inking. That doesn’t make hand inking worse, just different. They serve different functions artisticlly, even if the choice to use one over the other was more economic than anything.

That’s why I was careful in this thread to only talk about Disney movies. I can open it up to all American animation even, but when it comes to animation from other countries I just don’t know enogh to consider my opinion well informed. I have seen a handfull of animated films from Briton, France, Italy, and Japan but that is about it. So I am not touching that. I can say that my opinion on Ameircan animation is well informed, though. I grew up with animators and fans of animation, and worked for 12 years in an animation art gallery, and got a bit of formal education on the subject in college. So that’s where I am coming from.

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Limiting yourself to Disney’s works, it’s possibly the best animation-wise though that depends on whether you rank down CGI-based cheats, which you seem to do.

Personally, I was rather impressed by Mulan (except at the end with the really bad animation of the column being used as a ram–if I recall correctly), where the animators seemed to have spent a lot of time to add Chinese influences on the styling of everything. Most noticable was the way that they made puffs of smoke or clouds curl up into a spiral.

If you want to include non-Disney stuff, Macross Plus has some amazing hand drawn action sequences between fighterjet-mecha where the camera is moving, changing zoom level/focus/angle, and the mecha are turning as though perfectly 3D while interacting with one another. (The director came into my animation class in Japan and let me help out in his presentation, as the one white kid in a room of Japanese people, handily sitting in the front row. :slight_smile: )

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I don’t really. I do tend to rank up for doing something difficult and hand drawn that would be easy with computer assist. Craftsmanship impresses me.

Like I said in my last post, the only reason I listed visual comparisons from only hand drawn movies is because the art style is different and so visually it is hard to compair.

I loved Mulan up until the last 20 minutes or so where I feel it fell apart badly, both in terms of animation and in terms of storytelling.

I am fine with including non disney stuff. Don’t let my OP restrict the conversation. I just don’t know enough about stuff made outside of America to talk about it critically.

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In terms of storytelling, I agree with you. But many other films are better animated. Even some TV shows – FLCL, for example.

However, I will echo **NAF1138 ** … within the realm of DISNEY features *Pinocchio * is the best. I’d also put 101 Dalmatians and the Jungle Book right up near the top also. There are moments in all three movies where it’s hard to believe you’re just looking at lines on an animation cell.

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The animation in Pinocchio is great. I suppose it is the best. But I just don’t like the story. I didn’t like the book and I don’t like the movie. I wish I could like it, but it creeps me out. So I’ll just sit over here by myself and wallow in irrationality.

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I wasn’t sure whether you were claiming an imprimatur for hand-drawn animation, or not, so I spoke up. We seem to be on the same page, after all, and I agree completely that it is different. And, honestly, something we’re not likely to see again. Certainly not to the same extent.

Your education and love for the art form is pretty clear. I may disagree with a conclusion, here or there, but I’m not about to suggest that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

One of the reasons I’m such a booster for anime, in particular, was that while I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, there really wasn’t much (any?) great animation coming from US studios. And during that same time there were some really great animated stories coming out of Japan.

I can’t really argue that. As much as it may pain me to admit it. :wink:

You’re not alone.

On to a new point.

Would people say that Pinocchio, in particular, had a lot to do with cementing this country’s attitude that animation was for children - by succeeding so well with a simple story focused for children? This isn’t to say that there are no aspects that were aimed for the adult audience, but the impression I have is that they were highlights, not really part of the meat of the film.

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I wouldn’t put Pinocchio in Disney’s top ten. Snow White was considerably better, as was Dumbo, Cinderella, The Rescuers, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan and even The Emperor’s New Groove.

Its main flaw is its long and meandering story (which, to be fair, was part of the source material). Only Jiminy Cricket is interesting as a character; Pinocchio himself is bland and ultimately very dull.

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I would say the failure of *Fantasia * was more responsible. Walt intended it to appeal to adult audiences. When it flopped he never tried for the adult market again.

The thing is, I think he could have succeeded in cracking the adult market with a different movie. *Fantasia * committed the cardinal crime of being MIDDLEBROW. It was too artsy for the typical mass market movie-goer and too pop culture for the sophisticates. So it wound up being rejected by both.

If Disney had done a more conventional movie aimed at the adult market – a love story or an adventure story, for example – I bet the history of American animation would be very different.

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I never saw anything all that exceptional in the animation. The cat’s fur, in particular, was always moving of its own accord, much like King Kong’s hair. Drove me nuts. And I never could stand that damned cricket. But it’s certainly got some of the loveliest matte paintings to ever come out of Disney.

I’ve always thought, though, that “Alice in Wonderland” beats anything Disney ever did.

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For instance, 1001 Nights (done by Osamu Tezuka, the Japanese Walt Disney.)

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My favorite as well.

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Yea, I’d vote for Snow White in terms of sheer emotional intensity. Also, the animation is quite good.

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Can I sit here?

I don’t know dick about animation. If you say it’s very fine, I’m sure it is. I never liked Pinocchio because I don’t like the story or any of the characters. To me, those things are more important in choosing the “best” movie.

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You’re not alone. I can appreciate what an incredible work of art the movie is (and I’d probably agree it’s the best in that regard), but I don’t actually like it. I find the story boring, and I don’t like any of the characters. It’s also very difficult me to sit through old Disney cartoons in general, since the style of voice-acting drives me absolutely bonkers; Snow White’s voice in particular makes me want to put an ice pick through my ear.

That said, my favorite Disney movie is probably Cindarella, or possibly The Lion King. Cindarella is my favorite story of the lot, and the Lion King has my favorite music.

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I had a whole paragraph in my original OP about how the first 5 Disney movies (the ones in production before Fantasia flopped) were made for a different audience than the rest of them. I ended up taking it out before I posted since it didn’t have much to do with the rest of the post. Dumbo and Bambi I would say are both adult movies in many respects. It is only in the modern context that either of them are veiwed as childrens films. But they both deal with some seriously dark and complex emotional themes. Unfortunatly the war, particularly the draft and rationing kept either movie from being all it could be. Once Fantasia flopped Disney stopped trying to do anything that wasn’t obviously commercially viable. They didn’t even make another real feature length film for almost 10 years. They made things like Make Mine Music, and Melody Time, which are fine collections of some amazing shorts, but they had all but given up on making feature films until the mid 50’s. Which is a bit sad.

Personally I blame Hanna Barbera for making animation a children’s medium, but that is a different topic altogether.

As far as not liking the story of the characters, I guess I understand that. I do like them. I also liked the book. But from a perspective of the craft of movie making you have to admit that Pinocchio is top notch. Even if you don’t look at the animation. The characterization and flow of the storyline works very very well. It is a well told story.

Compare that to Alice, which I think doesn’t work as well from the perspective of it being a story told. It’s the same style of storytelling (episodic adventures that create a larger story arch) but Alice doesn’t hang together. It ends up being a very fragmented movie that isn’t particularly coheisive. None of the characters she encounters have the depth that they had in the Lewis Caroll novels. Or if you take Snow White, it’s really only about 25 minutes of actual movie. The rest is all filler material to make it feature length. They hadn’t figured out how to tell long stories yet.