April 14, 1940 [Pinocchio]
I found myself glancing down at my hands, watched them unclench while Lampwick's melted into hooves, the braying jackass lit like a death-row nightmare, glare and shadow and trembling retreat. Pinocchio has a conscience, all right, and Jiminy! it's unyielding. Time and again, the little wooden-head feels the "reiterated strokes" of retribution, the Blue Fairy—cute as Carole Lombard and ever-so-sweet—reminding him what happens to bad little boys. Disney has stirred up the cartoon like Monstro churning the sea, while the Cricket wise-cracks and Pinnoke plugs along, the stone tied to his tail, both ballast and burden.
I think it frightened my children; but it has a dark-hued beauty, from the first moments in the clock-and-toy shop to the devastated Pleasure Island, that I haven't seen since Murnau's Faust. And I know the songs are in there, sweet and lively, and the curious fish scatter like neon confetti, and all ends well—but along the way night falls, and all instead seems lost, even with a wishing-star. I'm not sure this one is for the kiddies.
Certainly nowadays it would be considered not for kiddies, in a world where the image of a roaring but clearly vegetarian shark on a Nemo computer game got my day care center bad inspection marks! And the exposure they get to images of danger tends to be stylized martial-arts Power Ranger stuff that touches them no more deeply than playground bumped knees. But I think Disney was on to something in presenting real fear and hurt to children, because the fears and dangers of childhood are very real and emotionally powerful. Am I safe? What happens if I do bad things? Will I always be me? Will the ones I love change? Leave? Stop loving me? Childhood is not always a fluffy kitty and chocolate candy.
ReplyDeleteSherry