PINOCCHIO
MORE THAN A
FAIRY TALE

The Adventures of
Pinocchio is a tale for children by the Italian author Carlo
Collodi (the pseudonym of
Carlo Lorenzini) who wrote something new and unique in the children literature even with biblical echoes, the most important of which is the same dramatic experience of Jonah within the dogfish belly and with the same final resurrection.

The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and
1883, and then later completed as a book for children in
1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio, an animated marionette, and Geppetto, his poor father, a woodcarver. It is considered a classic of children's literature and has spawned many derivative works of art, such as Disney's 1940 animated movie, and commonplace ideas such as liar's long nose.

The Adventures of Pinocchio is a story about an animated puppet, a talking cricket, a fox and a cat, boys who turn into donkeys and other fairy tale devices that would be familiar to a reader of Alice in Wonderland , but nobody has to forget that the Italian tale is prior to the English one.However, Pinocchio' s world is not in a traditional fairy-tale world, because it contains the hard realities of the need for food, shelter, and the basic measures of daily life in the recently united Italy. The setting of the story is in fact the very real Tuscan area of Italy as a background.
It was a unique literary melding of genres for its time. The story's Italian language is peppered with Florentine dialect features.
In the original, serialized version,
Pinocchio dies a gruesome death: he dies hanged at the end of Chapter 15.

But at the request of his editor, who received many letters from children and not only children, Collodi added chapters 16–36, in which the Fairy with Turquoise Hair (or "Blue Fairy", as the Disney version names her) rescues Pinocchio and eventually transforms him into a real boy, when he acquires a deeper understanding of himself, making the story suitable for the chronologically younger and for the spiritually younger.
As a matter of fact we can state that the fairy tale is for the children but the moral is for the adults who are
“puppets” inside and have neutralized their talking cricketconscience once and for all. For this reason Collodi’s work is a lifelong learning tale from childhood to adulthood: this can be the interpretation given by Roberto Benigni, since his film is the first with an adult actor playing Pinocchio.

Then Pinocchio discovers his identity and builds his own personality during his long and hard life journey, because it is difficult to grow up.
The story has been adapted into many forms of art, on stage, screen and musical stave, some keeping close to the original Collodi narrative while others treat the story more freely. There are at least fourteen English-language films based on the story, without mentioning the Italian, French, Russian,
German, Japanese, and many other versions for the big screen and for television, and several musical adaptations all over the world.
Among the television versions, the exceptional high quality TV series Le
Avventure di Pinocchio (in 1972) by the
Italian director Luigi Comencini, starring the nice Andrea Balestri as
Pinocchio, the great Nino Manfredi as
Geppetto and the fascinating Gina
Lollobrigida as the Fairy, remains the best all over the world.

Pinocchio has inspired several cinema directors in creating newer and newer versions of the original story. Among the most important derivative works, A.I.
Artificial Intelligence by Steven Spielberg, based on a Stanley Kubrick project that was cut short by Kubrick's death, recasts the Pinocchio theme: an android with emotions longs to become a real boy.

The first animation film based on Collodi’s story was a Walt Disney production in 1940; it was the second film in the Walt
Disney animated classics after the success of Snow
White and the Seven
Dwarfs.

All of us will watch the last animation film Pinocchio , an international production, from next December.

“I’m often asked what character in all of folklore is my favorite. Diplomacy urges me to say I love them all but the truth is my favorite character is Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi”
(Michael Buckley, author of The Sisters Grimm series and an important member of Disney, MTV Animation and Discovery staffs).