Animation; Fantasy; Folk Tale

Although it's obvious that Pinocchio is an animated film, we think it's worth emphasizing the point. After all, the movie was released way back in 1940, which makes it one of the first dozen or so animated films ever made. That's pretty insane.

So it's important to think about the nature of traditional animation when analyzing the film. Every single shot in this movie was drawn by hand. That might sound insignificant, but the complicated nature of the animation process affected the composition of the film as a whole.

In fact, it took twelve artists eighteen months to craft a passable look for Pinocchio himself. And it took two million drawings—300,000 of which are used in the movie—to craft the animation (source).

Animation aside, Pinocchio takes its cues from fantasy movies and literature. This thing features anthropomorphic villains, wish-granting fairies, and leviathan-sized whales, after all, so we know that this is a magical world far different from our own.

In addition, the simple plot and focus on morality is reflective of folk stories, which in and of themselves are influential on the fantasy genre—after all, we wouldn't have Game of Thrones if George R.R. Martin hadn't been so enamored with old stories about dragons in the first place.