Toni (1934)
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100% of critics liked it
(6 reviews) -
88% of users liked it
(562 ratings)
After completing his successful Madame Bovary (34), director Jean Renoir could have had the pick of France's top "name" actors for his 1935 film Toni, but chose instead to use nonprofessionals. The plot was based on a true story, brought to Renoir's attention by the sheriff of the… More After completing his successful Madame Bovary (34), director Jean Renoir could have had the pick of France's top "name" actors for his 1935 film Toni, but chose instead to use nonprofessionals. The plot was based on a true story, brought to Renoir's attention by the sheriff of the village where it occurred. The story is the basic "good man destroyed by bad woman" conceit: An Italian laborer sets the gears in motion for Zola-esque tragedy by falling in love with a young woman, who then marries his foreman. This terse triangle is given verisimilitude by the unknown players and the location filming at the actual village where the real-life incident took place; what could have been relentlessly grim material is imbued with warmth and sentiment by Renoir. Taken for granted upon its initial release, Toni was obviously a major influence in the Italian Neorealist movement of the 1940s; the Renoir film finally and permanently secured classic status in the auteur-conscious 1960s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Directed By
- Jean Renoir
- Written By
- Jean Renoir, Jacques Levert
- Genres
- Drama
Unrated,
- In Theaters
- Jan 1, 1934 Wide
Critic Reviews
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Renata Adler, New York Times
It has a curious, muted, infinitely poetic way of treating human passion.
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, Chicago Reader
Even these lapses often serve the positive function of bringing us closer to the people in the film, if not the characters. What one ultimately carries away from Toni, in fact, is a memory of felt presences rather than incarnations
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Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out
Renoir invests it with a sense of character and place that gives it an unusually blunt and sensual impact.
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David Denby, New Yorker
Some of Renoir's staging, faithful to the characters' willfulness, is abrupt, with a casual lyricism caught on the fly.
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, Senses of Cinema
Each sequence of the film is a tour-de-force of imagination: Renoir continues his investigations of depth of field and the moving camera and makes painterly use of the natural landscapes to counterpoint the drama.
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Cast
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Charles Blavette
as Antonio "Toni" Canova
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Celia Montalván
as Josepha
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Edouard Delmont
as Fernand
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Max Dalban
as Albert
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Jenny Hélia
as Marie
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Andrex
as Gaby
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Paul Bozzi
as Jacques Bozzi the Guitarist
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Andre Kovachevitch
as Sebastian
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Jacques Leveil
as Jacques Mortier
