After helming some of the greatest live-action genre movies of the 21st century, fromPan’s LabyrinthtoThe Shape of WatertoNightmare Alley, Guillermo del Toro has tried his hand at animation with his latest film: a stop-motion adaptation ofPinocchiostreaming exclusively on Netflix. While animation is a technical departure for the director, the subject matter of a sympathetic monster who just wants to belong can be seen in almost all of del Toro’s other films. Like Hellboy, Stan Carlisle, and Elisa Esposito before him, Pinocchio is an outsider who desperately wants to fit in. Del Toro is the latest in a long line of acclaimed live-action filmmakers to dabble in animation. Previously, George Miller took a break from makingMad Maxmovies to directHappy Feetand Wes Anderson took a break from making melancholic tragicomedies to directFantastic Mr. Fox.
Guillermo Del Toro
Guillermo del Toro has recently received some of the best reviews of his career for his stop-motion animated version ofPinocchio, co-directed with Mark Gustafson. As expected, del Toro has pumped all the eerie, macabre creepiness of the source material back into the story after the Disney adaptations removed those elements. Instead of shying away from the darkness, del Toro embraces it. After the bitter disappointment of Disney’s bland live-action remake of their own animatedPinocchio, del Toro’s version has arrived as a breath of fresh air.
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Throughout his entire career, del Toro has been telling stories that expose the humanity of monsters.Pinocchio’s titular puppet who wants to be a real boy has joined a rogues’ gallery of sympathetic monstersthat includes Blade, Hellboy, and the “Amphibian Man” fromThe Shape of Water.
George Miller
The high-octane vehicular carnage oftheMad Maxfilmsearned George Miller a much-deserved reputation as one of the world’s greatest action directors. His next franchise, created in the interim between the underwhelming conclusion of the originalMad Maxtrilogy and the unbridled glory of the action-packed rebootFury Road, couldn’t have been a more drastic change of pace. Miller followed up his post-apocalyptic carsploitation spaghetti westerns with a cartoon musical about dancing penguins.
With its heartwarming tale of soulmates and self-discovery,Happy Feetearned the inaugural BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film and also became the fourth non-Disney or Pixar movie to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Steven Spielberg
Arguably the most famous filmmaker on the planet, Steven Spielberg is the master of cinematic escapism who pioneered the modern blockbuster. Withtimeless hits likeJaws,E.T., and theIndiana Jonesseries, Spielberg has become the most commercially successful director of all time by a wide margin. After using groundbreaking CG techniques tobring the dinosaurs ofJurassic Parkto life, Spielberg tackled a fully computer-animated feature to bring Hergé’s iconicTintincomics to the screen.
With a combination of motion-capture performances and traditional computer animation, Spielberg deftly recaptured the escapist magic ofRaiders of the Lost Arkto send Tintin and Captain Haddock on a globetrotting adventure in search of fortune and glory.
Tim Burton
Since his heyday in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Tim Burton has been a fan-favorite filmmaker renowned for his weird sensibility, often putting a bizarre twist on mundane subjects like suburban life and, inNetflix’s newWednesdayseries, boarding school education. Burton made audiences care about a man with scissors for fingers, told the life story of Ed Wood in the style of a black-and-white Ed Wood B-movie, and upended the Adam West traditionto make Batman a badass. As a primarily visual director, Burton’s uniquely gothic cinematic style was perfect for the realm of animation.
Over a decade after producingThe Nightmare Before Christmasfor director Henry Selick, Burton sat in the director’s chair for a stop-motion animated dark fantasy musical of his own.Corpse Brideis the quintessential Burton movie, with pitch-black humor, inventive visuals, bittersweet feels, and a whimsical take on sinister themes.
Wes Anderson
After live-action dramedies likeBottle Rocket,Rushmore, andThe Royal Tenenbaumshad made him one of the most celebrated filmmakers in Hollywood,Wes Anderson tried his hand at stop-motion animationwith an adaptation of Roald Dahl’sFantastic Mr. Fox. This resulted in one of Anderson’s finest films; a breezy, lighthearted crime caper that’s fun for the whole family. A few years later, Anderson returned to the medium withIsle of Dogs, an original story set in a bleak dystopian near-future.
After making the leap over to animation, Anderson brought the medium’s creative control back into his live-action efforts. There’s a noticeable difference between Anderson’s live-action filmmaking before and afterFantastic Mr. Fox. In films likeThe Grand Budapest HotelandThe French Dispatch, Anderson used in-camera editing and meticulous blocking to direct his actors like stop-motion figurines.
