As a viewer, watching the Oscar-winning animated feature “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” is an absorbing experience, as the characters of Geppetto, his wooden creation, an opinionated cricket, and other vivid characters come to life as if by magic.
But as the exhibition, “Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio,” makes abundantly clear, that magic was actually the result of years of painstaking, meticulous work by hundreds of gifted animators, artists and craftspeople. The 8,000 square-foot exhibit, which is on display at the Portland Art Museum through Sept. 17, gives visitors a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the lovingly detailed creative efforts that made “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” one of the most exquisite examples of stop-motion animation in recent memory, and an awards magnet that won the best animated feature Oscar, among many other honors.
Though the “Crafting Pinocchio” exhibit was organized by the Museum of Modern Art, where it debuted in late 2022, the Portland Art Museum is offering an expanded presentation, curated by Amy Dotson, curator of film and new media and director of PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow.
It’s only fitting that the “Crafting Pinocchio” exhibit come to Portland, since “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” which is streaming on Netflix, was largely made here, at ShadowMachine, the animation studio and production house that has locations in Portland and in Los Angeles.
Walking through the exhibit while it was still being installed at the Portland Art Museum, Dotson talked about how this inside look puts an extra emphasis on the work that was done in Portland.
While “we love the final product,” Dotson said of “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” “we wanted to tell the story” of how it came to be.
The entry area to the exhibit at the Portland Art Museum features an audio element, with a moody soundscape, and posters of some of del Toro’s other films, including “Nightmare Alley,” “Hellboy,” “Blade II,” and “Pacific Rim.” Video screens mounted high on a wall show images from such del Toro works as “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Shape of Water,” which won an Oscar as best picture and also earned del Toro an Oscar as best director.
A large-scale sculpture of Pinocchio himself is suspended high above the passageway to the main parts of the exhibit, which begin with the history of Pinocchio, the title character in 19th-century Italian author Carlo Collodi’s tale. The most familiar version of the story may be the 1940 animated feature from Walt Disney Productions, in which the lovable woodcarver Geppetto carved a wooden puppet he named Pinocchio.
Unlike the Disney version, del Toro’s “Pinocchio” is often dark and moody, and spins the story in a different direction. Set in dictator Benito Mussolini’s Italy, this film finds Geppetto grief-stricken and bitter about the loss of his son. His carved Pinocchio is “disobedient,” as del Toro has said. “I knew I didn’t want Pinocchio to transform into a flesh-and-blood boy,” the director wrote in “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio: A Timeless Tale Told Anew,” a book about the film’s production.“”I just wanted him to teach the world to see him as one.”
“This is a story about nonconformity,” Dotson said. “The ending is about, ‘I am who I am, accept it,’ as opposed to, ‘I’m going to follow the rules, and play the game, and maybe someday you’ll love me. It’s a very powerful message.”
Stop-motion animation is a labor-intensive process that can sometimes seem to be a daunting blend of art, sculpture, engineering, and technology. The process requires animators to manipulate physical objects, one frame at a time, so that when the images are shown together, it creates the illusion of movement.
Portland has earned a reputation over the years as a center of stop-motion animation artistry. It’s a tradition that goes back to the late Will Vinton’s studio and the Claymation works created there. Vinton’s company ultimately became Laika, the Hillsboro animation studio owned by Nike co-founder Will Knight, which has produced such Oscar-nominated features as “Coraline,” “ParaNorman” and “Kubo and the Two Strings.”
Mark Gustafson, a Portland-based Vinton veteran who co-directed “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” attended a press preview for the Portland Art Museum exhibit, along with ShadowMachine co-founder Alex Bulkley, who lives in Portland.
Both men expressed gratitude and appreciation for the team that worked in Portland to create “Pinocchio.”
“This is just a proud moment for ShadowMachine,” Bulkley said. “It’s a proud moment for this Portland crew.” He added, “I say if often, but I don’t say it lightly. ‘Pinocchio’ enjoyed the best stop-motion crew ever assembled on Earth.”
Gustafson said being at the Portland Art Museum with this exhibit was “kind of a dream come true,” and that “this project was the most fun, and the hardest work that I’ve ever had in my entire life.”
And “Pinocchio” appears to have been just the start of Portland-based creative collaborations. It’s been announced that ShadowMachine will re-team with del Toro on another stop-motion animated feature, “The Buried Giant,” from a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. And ShadowMachine will again partner with Gustafson for a stop-motion animated TV mystery series. Both projects are expected to be made in Portland.
More of our coverage:
‘Pinocchio’ Oscar casts spotlight on Portland filmmaker, and stop-motion animation
Portland’s Mark Gustafson on Oscar buzz for ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’: ‘I would love for us to win’
Portland filmmakers scramble to shoot movies, TV and commercials during pandemic
Inside the Portland studio behind the highly anticipated reimagining of ‘Pinocchio’
— Kristi Turnquist
503-221-8227; [email protected]; @Kristiturnquist
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