Pinocchio (1940) 35mm

1940 / 86 min / G
Directors: Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Ben Sharpsteen

Cast: Dickie Jones, Christian Rub, Jack Bailey

Emotionally resonant, visually dazzling, imaginatively captivating, thematically rich, the most expressively animated, the least pretentious, the best balanced between horror and joy, adventure and comedy, Walt Disney’s Pinocchio may just be the greatest of all the early Disney masterpieces.

A magnificent entertainment, it is also a work of art that reflects a profound understanding of childhood experience.

And certainly, the medium has never seen animation more natural than that of ''Pinocchio.'' The gestures are so smoothly accurate, the volumes so fully rounded and convincingly weighted, the sense of spontaneity so complete, that one can forget for minutes at a time that one is watching a cartoon at all.

It’s the most believable, visually detailed world to be found in any Disney cartoon feature. In shots such as a stunning, unbroken glide that leads us through Pinocchio’s village, Disney’s ”multiplane” animation system - an innovation that proved too costly to use much in subsequent features - lets the camera travel down through layer upon layer of drawings, conjuring a thrillingly dimensional town.

And ''Pinocchio'' is a film to see in a movie theatre on 35mm film, rather than shrunken and lifeless on DVD. If your children are seeing it for the first time, you owe it to them; if you are seeing it for the tenth, you owe it to yourself.