Just Today, First the Simpsons, now Pinocchio????
Makes one yearn for Filiopietism!!!! *
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IN PINOCCHIO, A NATIONAL CHARACTER

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 7, 2002; Page A13 ROME --

Italy is reclaiming Pinocchio from the belly of Disney's cinematic whale this week, and the rebirth of the wooden puppet who would be a real boy provided a chance for Italians to engage in two national sports: self-regard and politics.

Roberto Benigni, the comic actor and director of the Oscar-winning movie "Life Is Beautiful," fashioned the new Pinocchio from a $40 million budget, making the movie the most expensive in Italian history. It is being released Friday in 800 theaters -- a third of the country's available screens, also a record. Even before the film's debut for critics the other day, Pinocchio's hold on the country's collective psyche was evident. It was hard to find a commentary that did not include a phrase like, "We all have a little Pinocchio in us."

"Pinocchio is us, our national character, in the sense that he is a petty thief and foolish, a liar and betrayer, but is able to strip away every handicap, find in himself the good child, after crying bitter tears of remorse," wrote Giuliano Ferrara in Panorama magazine.

A brief reminder to those who think Hollywood invented Pinocchio and his nose: The story was written in 1883 by Carlo Lorenzini, after having been serialized in a magazine. Lorenzini went by the name Carlo Collodi, after a village in Tuscany. Disney's animated 1940s Wish-Upon-a-Star version took several liberties with the text. In Collodi's tale, for instance, a shark, not a whale, devoured Pinocchio's puppet-carver dad, and the father-son team was saved by a tuna, not by rowing ashore.

Disney was far from the only one to revise a story that has been reprinted in dozens of languages. Alexei Tolstoy wrote a Russian version in which Pinocchio becomes a puppet impresario. On Tunisian television recently, Pinocchio redeemed himself by turning not to the Blue Fairy, but to Allah. Umberto Eco, an Italian novelist, styled a version in which all nouns began with the letter "p." An early silent film ended with Pinocchio on the moon. In Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence," a little android tries to acquire the feelings of a real boy.

"It's the mystical character of the Pinocchio affair that permits a translation into all cultures," said Paolo Fabbri, a language expert at Bologna University. For instance, Fabbri pointed out that in the story, Pinocchio risks descending into the animal world: He is tied up like a dog, almost fried like a fish and transformed into a donkey, yet eventually succeeds in becoming human. "The passage from animal to man is a potent myth anywhere," Fabbri said.

In any case, Pinocchio's relevance to Italians seems eternal. Commentators related the mystical relationship between Pinocchio and the fairy to mammismo, the legendary bond between Italian mothers and their sons. One writer likened Pinocchio's persecution at the hands of uncaring authority to present-day Italy, where the police and courts "always prosecute the wrong person."

No Italian event, be it a soccer championship or beauty contest, is complete without some political controversy, and the new Pinocchio movie is no exception. Most moviemakers in Italy are divided between the political left and right, and Benigni is known for his left-wing leanings. On election eve in 2000, Benigni gave an interview on television in which he devoted a monologue to the laughable prospect, in his view, of an Italy led by media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, who then proceeded to win the prime ministership. An arm of Berlusconi's empire is distributing Benigni's film, an irony for which the comic offered no apologies. "Berlusconi is an extraordinary businessman," Benigni said at a news conference. "We have taken the best side of Berlusconi."

Benigni was asked why he hadn't taken part in any of the anti-Berlusconi demonstrations mounted periodically by another actor-director, Nanni Moretti. Benigni replied that he was grateful to those who demonstrate for what is right, but "going in person is another matter."

Benigni resisted linking the film to contemporary Italy. Are the deceiving Cat and Fox really Berlusconi and his deputy prime minister, Gianfranco Fini? "You can't bring a myth up to date," Benigni demurred. "If we had brought it up to date, it would be dated."

The making of Pinocchio was shrouded in secrecy -- a marketing ploy, critics contended. Benigni refused to give interviews until his appearance at the news conference Friday. He restricted the media debut to Italians -- foreigners were barred. And he endowed the production with a kind of cinematic saintliness by reporting that the idea for him to play Pinocchio came from Federico Fellini, the late director who was arguably the greatest Italian filmmaker of the 20th century.

Some Italians took offense that on the posters for Pinocchio, Benigni's name is prominent, but Collodi's is nowhere to be seen. Benigni dismissed the criticism by saying that the Bible needs no introduction of its author.

God, however, got better reviews. Several critics said the movie was boring; one said he fell asleep during the showing.

In Pinocchio, a National Character (washingtonpost.com) 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51717-2002Oct6.html

*Filiopietism= of or pertaining to reverence of forebearers or tradition.