No lie – Roberto Benigni takes ‘Pinocchio’ to Berlin fest
BERLIN — Roberto!
Benigni!
Italy’s Oscar-winning actor, comedian, screenwriter and director wasn’t speaking at Sunday’s Berlin press conference for his new “Pinocchio,” he shouted. Each and every word! To a wonderfully comic effect.
Already a box-office smash in Italy, an international rollout is promised, presumably in English.
It’s a dramatic change of pace for co-writer/director Matteo Garrone (best known for his violently ontarget “Gomorrah” about the Naples Mafia). Benigni has a history with the tale of the wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy. In 2002, he directed and starred as Pinocchio; that film flopped.
For Garrone, Benigni, 67, is Gepetto, the poor 19th century Italian carpenter who carves Pinocchio.
“Roberto tackled this character in a very different way,” Garrone, speaking in Italian, began. “The change for us was always to try and narrate a story, one of the most famous stories in the world, but doing so with a surprise for the audience.”
This “Pinocchio” is a visual treat, with four-hour makeup and prosthetic sessions daily for the boy who plays the puppet.
“I wanted to give something they think they know,” Garrone said, “yet with twists and turns and make them feel displaced, unsettled.
“The whole point was to make a film today that would captivate the children with our cinematic language. It’s a film that came into being for all audiences — from the very young to the very old.”
I asked Benigni if he would do the English language “Pinocchio” and would he do another Hollywood movie.
“Of course!” he shouted. “I dubbed it already in English! In Hollywood of course they call me sometimes for some movies but now it’s a difficult question especially after ‘Life is Beautiful’ and the Oscars (for best actor, best foreign language film).
“Years ago, Francis Ford Coppola asked me to play Gepetto in his Pinocchio project. That was about 2000 and Robin Williams, I miss him very much, we were friends, had said, ‘Can you come have dinner in my house in San Francisco?’ And there was Francis Ford Coppola, one of the ‘friends.’
“Francis at the end of dinner asks, ‘What about you playing Gepetto?’ I say, ‘Francis I could play the world with you.’ We met many times in Rome and Los Angeles about this project and then it didn’t happen.”
“I’ve been lucky,” Garrone added, “because otherwise I couldn’t have made my ‘Pinocchio.’ ”