#242: RENOIR, Jean: The Golden Coach (1953)

STAGE AND SPECTACLE: THREE FILMS BY JEAN RENOIR {Spine #241}

RENOIR, Jean (France)

The Golden Coach [1953]

Spine #242
DVD

The Golden Coach (Le Carrosse d'Or) is a ravishing eighteenth-century comic fantasy about a viceroy who receives an exquisite golden coach and gives it to the tempestuous star of a touring Commedia Dell'arte company. Master director Jean Renoir's sumptuous tribute to the theater, presented here in the English version he favored, is set to the music of Antonio Vivaldi and built around vivacious and volatile star Anna Magnani.

103 minutes
Color

Monaural

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2004

Director/Writers

From the play by Prosper Mérimée.

Screenplay by Renzo Avanzo, Ginette Doynel, Jack Kirkland, Giulio Macchi, and Jean Renoir.

Renoir was 59 when he directed The Golden Coach.

Other Renoir films in the Collection:

#818: La Chienne (1931)
#305: Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932)
#1040: Toni (1935)

#239: The Lower Depths (1936)
#746: A Day In The Country (1936)
#1: Grand Illusion (1937)
#324: La Bête Humaine (1938)
#216: The Rules Of The Game (1939)
#276: The River (1951)
#243: French Cancan (1955)
#244: Elena And Her Men (1956)

The Film

Rosenbaum (below) speaks of three different film trilogies (all on Criterion).

Pasolini meant his three films as a tryptich (The Decameron [1971 Spine #632]; The Canterbury Tales [1972 Spine #633]; and Arabian Nights [1973 Spine #634]); whereas both Antonioni (L’avventura [1960 Spine #98]; La notte [1961 Spine #678]; and L’eclisse [1962 Spine #278]) and Kiarostami (Where is the Friend’s House? [1987 Spine #990]; And Life Goes On [1991 Spine #991]; and Through the Olive Trees [1994 Spine #992]) set out with no intention that after having made three films in a row they would belong to each other, as a group.

Renoir, also, never intended that these three films boxed together as “Stage & Spectacle — Three Films by Jean Renoir” (Spine #241) would form a formal trio — it merely happened that, having returned to Europe, he was afforded the opportunity to make these three films, all with similar subjects — that being the melding together of his ideas about cinema/theatre, politics and business …

The first Italian Technicolor production (it shows), shot in Cinecittà, the film is not without its faults. Nevertheless, mediocre Renoir is better than many better-polished productions due to the sophistication of its auteur …

Anna Magnani (Camilla) is magnificent even with her broken English (when she speaks or sings in Italian, we see her more clearly). Duncan Lamont (easily recognizable, over 100 IMDb credits) is fine as the viceroy, along with Camilla’s other two lovers — Felipe (Paul Campbell) and Ramon, the bullfighter (Riccardo Rioli)

Renoir’s collaborator, Vivaldi (see below) — especially one of his bassoon concertos — is a perfect fit for all the madcap action.

Film Rating (0-60):

52

The Extras

The Booklet

Twelve-page wraparound featuring essays by Jonathan Rosenbaum and Andrew Sarris.

Rosenbaum quotes André Bazin:

“Renoir directs his actors as if he liked them more than the scenes they are acting and preferred the scenes which they interpret to the scenario from which they come. This approach accounts for the disparity between the dramatic goals and the style of acting, which tends to turn our attention from his aims. This style is added to the script like rich paint liberally applied to a line drawing: often the colors obscure and spill over the lines. This approach also explains the effort required to enjoy half the scenes Renoir directs. Whereas most directors try to convince the viewer immediately of the objective and psychological reality of the action and subordinate both action and directing to this end, Renoir seems to lose sight of the audience from time to time. His players do not face the camera but each other, as if acting for their personal pleasure.”

Sarris:

“The film, as well as the coach itself, was conceived primarily as a vehicle for the tempestuous talents of Anna Magnani. Renoir considered her incarnation of Camilla ‘dazzling’ and clearly built the film around her. Her flair for demotic street comedy was transfigured into stylized nobility by sumptuous costuming and Renoir’s formal camera work.”

Commentary

None.

Introduction

To the film by Renoir.

“I asked this illustrious person to collaborate with me in the writing process. I’m referring to Vivaldi. It’s very convenient to have as a collaborator someone who died several hundred years ago, because he never protests.”

Video introduction

By director Martin Scorsese.

Jean Renoir Parle de son Art

Part One of Jacques Rivette’s three-part interview with Renoir.

“I believe in the method of first reading dialogue without acting, and as the lines are slowly internalized, we don’t know why, but there comes a moment when the mysterious union of the actor’s and writer’s personality, the mysterious union of thoughts and words, is created. What results is unexpected. Even the actor didn’t expect it.”

Collection

Of rare production stills.

Extras Rating (0-40):

34

52 + 34 =

86

By Director
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