The Golden Coach: Film Analysis

The Golden Coach is a 1952 film directed by Jean Renoir. The film tells the story of a commedia dell’arte troupe in 18th century Peru. Renoir is a French film director, and the son of impressionist painter Pierre Renoir. His films, in both silent and later eras, are noted for their realism and narrative. Inspired by both Mérimée's short play, “Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement” and Vivaldi’s music, Renoir's film unfolds naturally in a dramatic atmosphere that is both theater and life. Indeed, with the creation of The Golden Coach, Renoir manages to reinvest a theatrical aesthetic, specifically a Baroque one, which is articulated mainly around three main themes: illusion and reality, art and existence, theater and life, whose borders seem undefined. This paper will explore the ways in which commedia dell’arte is integrated in Renoir’s movie, The Golden Coach, and its effects on the viewer through our analysis: using acting and life as two facing mirrors which …show more content…
Felipe find peace in voluntary exile, Ramon will return to the arena and Camilla will understand that his place is on stage since "is not made for what is called life." We must not forget the coach, object of ornament and longing that will fall into the hands of “the best”: those of the Church and in this way will finally serve something. The Golden Coach can be defined as Renoir’s tribute to the theater consisting of a vision of art’s denial of normal life. It is impossible to define the tone of the movie as The Golden Coach so smoothly does comedy shade into drama, joy into despair, optimism into cynicism and vice versa. A colorful grand finale gives way to a hauntingly melancholic coda, in which the performer is forced to acknowledge her ultimate isolation making a devastating climax to a magnificent