Aldo Tonti

Italian cinematographer Aldo Tonti began his career in 1934, but worked in relative obscurity until the emergence movement. Through his association with director Luchino Visconti on the latter's Ossessione (an unauthorized 1941 version of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice), Tonti found himself in demand with such other neo-realists as Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini. Though Tonti's later projects weren't always of the calibre of Rossellini's Open City (1945) or Fellini's Nights of Cabiria (1955), the photographer never wanted for publicity exposure. He was given plenty of press space in 1960 when he successfully filmed a solar eclipse as part of a "special effect" for an exterior sequence in Barabbas (1961). In keeping with the "everybody pitches in" atmosphere of the Italian cinema, Aldo Tonti also occasionally acted in comic supporting roles.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide