‘Pinocchio’ Whips Up Frenzy in Italy
ROME (Reuters) -- Anyone who tells you Italy is not eagerly awaiting a new film about the long-nosed puppet Pinocchio is lying. With Oscar-winning Roberto Benigni in the title role, the classic 19th-century fairy tale hits a record number of screens across Italy on Friday and anticipation and national pride have reached fever pitch. The combination of “Pinocchio,” the most widely read book in the country’s history, and Italian icon Benigni, last seen in the Oscar-winning Holocaust tragi-comedy “Life Is Beautiful,” is proving irresistible for young and old alike. The blockbuster about a wooden puppet whose nose grows whenever he tells a lie is Italy’s most expensive film to date. It will be screened in 860 cinemas — a record for any film in Italy, either home-grown or imported. One Neapolitan theater, which had been closed for 20 years, even contacted the distributors and offered to reopen if it could screen “Pinocchio.” Thousands of billboards emblazoned with a cone-hatted Benigni keep watch over Rome, and stores say sales of the book, written by Carlo Collodi, have skyrocketed. Benigni, who also directed the film, has been largely faithful to Collodi’s fable, which begins with the elderly Geppetto carving a puppet from wood. “It’s the world’s third most famous and most translated book after the Bible and the Koran. There’s nothing in the world as beautiful as Pinocchio,” Benigni gushed to Italian media. Foreign press have been shut out of Italian interviews, indicating that Miramax wishes to minimize exposure until the fairy tale’s Christmas Day release in the US. Initial reviews following an advance press screening have been mainly glowing. “It’s the most beautiful film I’ve seen in...the last 40 years. A real masterpiece which does Italian cinema proud,” gushed Carlo Rosella, editor of weekly magazine Panorama.
ROME (Reuters) -- Anyone who tells you Italy is not eagerly awaiting a new film about the long-nosed puppet Pinocchio is lying. With Oscar-winning Roberto Benigni in the title role, the classic 19th-century fairy tale hits a record number of screens across Italy on Friday and anticipation and national pride have reached fever pitch. The combination of “Pinocchio,” the most widely read book in the country’s history, and Italian icon Benigni, last seen in the Oscar-winning Holocaust tragi-comedy “Life Is Beautiful,” is proving irresistible for young and old alike. The blockbuster about a wooden puppet whose nose grows whenever he tells a lie is Italy’s most expensive film to date. It will be screened in 860 cinemas — a record for any film in Italy, either home-grown or imported. One Neapolitan theater, which had been closed for 20 years, even contacted the distributors and offered to reopen if it could screen “Pinocchio.” Thousands of billboards emblazoned with a cone-hatted Benigni keep watch over Rome, and stores say sales of the book, written by Carlo Collodi, have skyrocketed. Benigni, who also directed the film, has been largely faithful to Collodi’s fable, which begins with the elderly Geppetto carving a puppet from wood. “It’s the world’s third most famous and most translated book after the Bible and the Koran. There’s nothing in the world as beautiful as Pinocchio,” Benigni gushed to Italian media. Foreign press have been shut out of Italian interviews, indicating that Miramax wishes to minimize exposure until the fairy tale’s Christmas Day release in the US. Initial reviews following an advance press screening have been mainly glowing. “It’s the most beautiful film I’ve seen in...the last 40 years. A real masterpiece which does Italian cinema proud,” gushed Carlo Rosella, editor of weekly magazine Panorama.