“Cinema was always a passion for me,” says composer Alexandre Desplat. “I was very lucky to have a friend who had directed a short movie and he asked me if I could write the score… and it became my demo tape and opened to me many, many doors.” Having worked with director Guillermo del Toro before on many projects, most recently The Shape of Water, Desplat was thrilled when del Toro sent him the script for Pinocchio. “His take on this story was amazingly exciting,” says Desplat. “Not at all like what Walt Disney had done, because Walt Disney used to tweak and change all the fairy tales to his taste. Guillermo did the same with the Pinocchio story, but wrote it to his own world.”
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio delivers a visually stunning stop-motion adaptation of the Pinocchio fable, reimagining the story in 1930s Italy during the Fascist reign of Benito Mussolini. After the loss of his son Carlo due to an aerial bomb, woodcarver Geppetto (David Bradley) carves a wooden boy from the tree at Carlo’s grave, which has recently become the home of a cricket named Sebastian (Ewan McGregor). A mysterious Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton) brings the puppet to life, names him Pinocchio (Gregory Mann), and promises to grant Sebastian a wish if he serves as the boy’s conscience.
Before he got to work on the score, Desplat needed to work with del Toro and lyricist Roeban Katz to create the songs. “When the film was getting closer to being completed, I started working on the score,” he says. “But having written the songs before helped me a lot because I could connect the songs – the melodies of the songs, the motifs of the songs – to the score. Then I suggested to Guillermo to only use wood instruments for the score to keep our sound really special and belonging to our Pinocchio only.” While he blended most songs into the score, Desplat showed a certain reverence to “Ciao Papa” by leaving that song by itself. “I wanted it to be a unique moment in the film… I didn’t want to abuse that song and that melody.”
The most notable thing about the score is the blending of joyful and sad elements to create what Desplat calls a joyful melancholy, “which means that we like to be moved and at the same time feel like something is opening up.” The story of Pinocchio brings a lot of sadness and excitement, as a father mourns the passing of his son and is surprised when a new boy shows up, only to leave again soon after. “I think we really wanted, with Katz and Guillermo, to express that sadness and mixed feelings about the departure of a child.”
Click below to watch the full clip of “Ciao Papa”, sung by Gregory Mann, with music by Desplat and lyrics by Katz and del Toro.
