THE GOLDEN COACH Movie Review

Le Carrosse d'Or

Jean Renoir was fascinated by the way that our lives mirror, and are mirrored by, the theatrical experience. The stories of love and passion that recur again and again through the ages, in many guises, articulated in different ways, are what Renoir sees as a kind of continuing, generation-to-generation grand performance. It's there in the many little recreations of theatre that he includes in Grand Illusion, Rules of the Game, and The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir, as well as in his two great films about theatre, French Can-Can and The Golden Coach. The first in a trilogy of colorful period films in which the theatre plays a central role (the others being French Can-Can and Eléna et les Hommes), The Golden Coach is blessed by a magnificent, incomparable force of nature named Anna Magnani. The plot—a very distant cousin to Fitzcarraldo—tells of a troupe of Italian commedia dell'arte players who are bringing their art to 18th-century Peru. Pursued by at least three suitors, Magnani struggles to remain true to her heart, and, most importantly, true to her art. At a certain point—and we can't be absolutely sure where that is—her theatrical life and her “real” romantic life become one. The heartbreakingly funny and touching performance she gives onstage is also—quite literally—the performance of her life. Magnani is astounding and unforgettable, and Renoir is a match for her. The Golden Coach is a priceless moment in movie history in which theatre, love, and cinema converge, becoming—ever so briefly—inseparable.

NEXT STOP… French Can-Can, Eléna et les Hommes, Boudu Saved from Drowning

1952 101m/C FR Anna Magnani, Odoardo Spadaro, Nada Fiorelli, Dante Rino, Duncan Lamont; D: Jean Renoir; W: Ginette Doynel, Jack Kirkland, Giulio Macchi, Jean Renoir; C: Claude Renoir, Ronald Hill; M: Antonio Vivaldi. VHS, LV FCT, CRC, INT