1040 Toni
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
1040 Toni
In 1934, Jean Renoir stepped off the soundstage and headed to the South of France, where he captured vivid human drama amid the bucolic splendor and everyday social rituals of the countryside. Based on a true story and set in a community of immigrants living, working, and loving on the margins of French society, Toni follows the eponymous Italian migrant (Charles Blavette), whose tempestuous affairs with two women—the faithful Marie (Jenny Hélia) and the flirtatious Josefa (Celia Montalván)—unleash a wave of tragedy. Making use of nonprofessional actors, on-location shooting, and the resources of the great Marcel Pagnol’s Provence studio, Renoir crafts a marvel of poetic feeling that became a precursor to Italian neorealism and a favorite of the directors of the French New Wave.
SPECIAL FEATURES
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Audio commentary from 2006 featuring critics Kent Jones and Phillip Lopate
Introduction by director Jean Renoir from 1961
Episode of Cinéastes de notre temps from 1967 on Renoir, directed by Jacques Rivette and featuring a conversation with actor Charles Blavette about the film
New video essay about the making of Toni by film scholar Christopher Faulkner
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau
New cover by Katherine Lam
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: 1040 Toni
Interesting that this ports over the commentary from the long out of print MOC DVD
- TMDaines
- Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
- Location: Stretford, Manchester
Re: 1040 Toni
Hope we get this in the UK.
- Grisbi
- Joined: Mon Jun 10, 2013 12:19 pm
Re: 1040 Toni
A really beautiful film, one of Renoir's very best imo.
Oddly enough, while I generally don't care much for commentaries and probably haven't listened to 99% of the ones in my collection, I distinctly remember listening to and enjoying greatly the Jones/Lopate track from the old MoC dvd. If I'm correct, they also teamed up for the commentaries on the Naruse box.
Oddly enough, while I generally don't care much for commentaries and probably haven't listened to 99% of the ones in my collection, I distinctly remember listening to and enjoying greatly the Jones/Lopate track from the old MoC dvd. If I'm correct, they also teamed up for the commentaries on the Naruse box.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: 1040 Toni
Glad we’re getting the full Cinéastes de notre temps program previously excerpted on Boudu
- Rayon Vert
- Green is the Rayest Color
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Re: 1040 Toni
Great news
- Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
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- Location: New England
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Re: 1040 Toni
I never understood why MoC's DVD release of this wasn't a smashing (sales) success....
- Finch
- Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
- Location: Edinburgh, UK
Re: 1040 Toni
Fantastic month between this film and the Varda set. Never expected to see it on Blu-Ray and so happy to be proven wrong.
- Drucker
- Your Future our Drucker
- Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am
Re: 1040 Toni
Looks incredible, just hoping the audio isn't too bad.
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am
Re: 1040 Toni
The Gaumont's track is noticeably better than the Eureka DVD, but is low-pass filtered at 8 kHz. Hopefully, Criterion didn't tinker too much with it. Still, subs proved quite useful for me (twice, actually, since I saw the movie last Oct in theater and more recently on BD).
- hearthesilence
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
- Location: NYC
Re: 1040 Toni
What a beautiful looking film, especially the shot of the boat on the water where the sky seems to merge seamlessly with the river, but I didn't realize they spliced together two different sources for this restoration. I think that's what I was noticing when certain shots suddenly became heavily de-grained. It was usually in spots where there was a dissolve transition (one particular establishing shot even showed a strange halo of unnaturally pixelated grain around chimneys with the rest of the sky looking as if it was wiped clean), but check out the early scene where Toni first meets Marie. The first straight-on set up looks unnaturally clean, wiped of texture, but they cut away, then cut back, and suddenly a shot from the same camera set-up looks beautiful, rich in subtle grain.
- FrauBlucher
- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
- Location: Greenwich Village
Re: 1040 Toni
Where do folks put this in Renoir’s canon? And this was a favorite amongst the French new wave, yes?
- Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
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- Location: New England
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Re: 1040 Toni
My personal favorite.
- hearthesilence
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
- Location: NYC
Re: 1040 Toni
I liked it a lot. It's one of his masterpieces.
- MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
- Location: Worthing
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Re: 1040 Toni
It's one of Aki Kaurismäki's favourite films, and an acknowledged influence on Le Havre (2011). And, I suspect, on The Other Side of Hope (2018).