Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar win for Pinocchio marks a win for animation overall
Guillermo del Toro continues to beat the drum and advance the conversation on animation as an art
Film Features Pinocchio
At last night’s Academy Awards, Guillermo del Toro took home the first award of the evening for his stop-motion animation adaptation of Pinocchio. The director has been a leader in the conversation around the role of animation in Hollywood over the last year, and his win marks a major win for the medium seeking to step out of the confines of genre.
“Animation is cinema, animation is not a genre, and animation is ready to be taken to the next step,” del Toro said in his acceptance speech. “Keep animation in the conversation.”
“It’s good to know that this art form that we love so much, stop-motion, is very much alive and well,” added Pinocchio co-director Mark Gustafson.
If this sounds like a familiar refrain, it is. Last night was far from the first time del Toro has defined animation as cinema, looking to defy expectations as a medium for young audiences and lack of prestige among its filmmaking peers.
“This is an art form that has kept being kneecapped commercially and industrially and [kept at] the kid’s table for so long,” del Toro told The Hollywood Reporter backstage. “And it really is a mature, expressive, beautiful, complex, art form. So a win helps, but it is about going forward as a community.”
He added that he plans on taking the conversation on animation to the Guilds and the Academy. He told THR he will “push this message” at the upcoming Annecy International Animation Festival.
“It’s important that we keep this alive as an industry and an art form,” del Toro said. “I have right now two scholarships active for filmmakers, and it is my desire and my commitment now to finance a stop-motion class [in Mexico].”
He continues, “It will help us give more movies in the community in Mexico and in Latin America, to keep pushing for stop motion, which is one of the most democratic forms of animation. All the other forms of animation are too difficult or too expensive. But a kid can put a camera on the wall in their room, they can do animation in stop motion.”
Over the last year, animators across the industry have assessed the state of animation, pushing back on the infantilization of the art form, as well as its lack of consideration by the Academy for categories such as Best Picture. In recent interviews with Vulture, prominent animators discuss how the Academy reinforces the divide between animation and live-action film.
“The word that me and a lot of my colleagues use is ghettoization,” says Kirk Wise, director of Beauty And The Beast (1991). “There were those in the awards broadcast who had to be snarky and pooh-poohed the notion of a ‘cartoon’ being included with ‘real movies.’”
Animators have decried Disney’s chokehold on the form and domination of the Best Animated Feature category, as well as its general exploitation for capitalistic gains and presentation of the medium as predominantly for children.
“Your only question is, ‘Am I going to get to lose to Disney this year?’” adds Craig Staggs, co-founder of indie studio Minnow Mountain. “Disney wins, and nobody pays attention to your film. And Disney was going to get the attention anyway.”
Del Toro’s Pinocchio managed to beat out Disney in the Best Animated Feature category, becoming the second non-Disney film to win in the last decade, and the second stop-motion film to win after 2005's Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. Its win is a triumph in numerous ways, as del Toro’s work on this film highlights the skill, attention to detail, and hours and hours needed to craft a work of this caliber. Although Pinocchio was del Toro’s first animated endeavor, hopefully, it will not be his last and he continues to propel the conversation around animation.
15 Comments
“Animation is not just for children!”, said Guillermo, as he accepted his award for making an animated movie about Pinnochio.
Personally, I didn’t like del Toro’s Pinocchio. I thought it was a tiresome, unfunny slog and the animation, while beautiful, wasn’t as impressive as all the Laika movies that the Oscars have been ignoring for a long time now. I agree that animation isn’t just for kids but this Pinnochio is just a children’s story told in a way that most modern children would find boring. It won the Oscar and the acclaim because del Toro’s name is on it, that’s it.
Imo. LAIKA animation is simiply a different style. It’s a matter of taste. del Toro’s brand of stop-motion seemed intengrel to the theme. Geppetto is a wood carver who created a wooden boy. LAIKA has a more high tech feel -luxuriant, slick, meticulous. del Toro’s stop motion style may seem less stylish, but it has a realism that mirrors the narrative.
If purely for the feat in animation, I think the movie is somewhat deserving. I enjoyed it for that alone, but to the article’s point, maybe this paves the way for Laika movies (funny, I randomly just watched both Kubo and Pinocchio’s making of featurettes last week, lol) and the like to get some future shine. If it has to be by del Toro’s name, so be it. He’s still a champion for the art form.
I wasn’t that keen on it either… but I also think it was better than Henry Selick’s Wendell & Wild (I know, not Laika, but the closest thing this year). He should stick to adaptations.
Really, Kubo should have won in its year. Sure, I haven’t seen Zootopia, but I don’t think it at all likely I’d change my mind if I did.
That year was such a superb lineup. Moana would have been my next choice.
I still can’t believe Kubo and the Two Strings lost to Zootopia. And The Wind Rises lost to f***in Frozen!
It might. Zootopia’s a lot of fun!
Maybe it is… for furries.
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On was robbed, I tell ya.
Exactly. It’s no different from when they hand the award to a Pixar movie just because it has the Pixar name on it. Historically, this is the Oscar category dictated most by a popularity contest. And it was the same this year. I don’t think Pinocchio’s win changes anything.
I’m always for a boost for animation as an artform, but not such a fan of the accompanying “Movies for kids can’t be real art” argument.
That’s what you took from what he said? No, dude.
I liked aspects of del Toro’s Pinocchio and don’t have an issue with it winning, but if Phil Tippet’s Mad God had been nominated I’d have been over the moon if it had won, as it’s an insanely bizarre creation which is filled with jaw dropping moments.
Now make In the Mouth of Madness in stop-motion. Please.