The Golden Coach
With Anna Magnani, Duncan Lamont, Riccardo Rioli.
France/Italy, 1952, 35mm, color, 103 min.
In English.
Print source: Janus Films
Renoir took Prosper Mérimée’s play about a commedia dell’arte troupe in 18th-century Peru and used it as an entry point for his greatest investigation of theater and performance. Shot at Cinecitta in Technicolor by Claude Renoir, starring the great Anna Magnani and featuring a beautiful score culled from the works of Vivaldi, The Golden Coach opens on a shot of a curtain rising to reveal a stage. As the camera moves slowly in, we are spectators in a theater hovering in front of the proscenium, but then a door opens on the stage and the camera follows a character through it and we enter the play, or, more accurately, the movie. Renoir considered Vivaldi one of his principal collaborators on the film, one whose music contributes to the film’s spirit of light-hearted irony, as the director put it.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
The Diary of a Chambermaid
This Land is Mine
The Woman on the Beach
Catherine, or A Life Without Joy
The Southerner
The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir
The Elusive Corporal
The Testament of Dr. Cordelier
Boudu Saved From Drowning
Elena and Her Men
Jean Renoir, the Boss, Part 2: Directing the Actor
