The Golden Coach (Le carrosse d'or) (1953)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy Drama	Booklet-An essay by film historian James Leahy Trailer-Directors Suite trailers
Rating
Year Of Production	1953
Running Time	102:24
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (47:17)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Jean Renoir
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Anna Magnani Odoardo Spadaro Nada Fiorelli Dante Duncan Lamont George Higgins Ralph Truman Gisella Mathews Raf De La Torre Elena Altieri Paul Campbell Riccardo Rioli
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

    The quoted dialogue above may come from Jean Renoir's 1953 cinematic ode to his love for theatre, The Golden Coach, but it may well be a spoken retort, through Ana Magnani's main lead character, Camilla, of Renoir's feelings towards his experience of Hollywood in the 1940s. Jean Renoir's directorial career can be summarised through very distinctive periods. Firstly, there was his silent 1920s period, then his witty, social satirical 1930s period where he produced great films such as Grand Illusion, La Bete Humaine and The Rules of the Game. Due to the advent of Nazi occupation in France during World War II, Renoir emigrated to the United States and worked within the confines of the Hollywood system during the 1940s, an experience he greatly detested since it did not allow him the creative control he was used to during the 1930s. He has been famously quoted as describing his Hollywood experience as been a deterrent to his "preference for selling peanuts in Mexico" (Renoir was not alone among foreign directors to feel creatively hampered by the Hollywood system - for example, it was only after Alfred Hitchcock's contract with David O. Selznick expired in the mid-1940s did Hitchcock start to do the movies he wanted to do). Finally, after Renoir had taken out American citizenship did he return to Europe to make films. However, his return was unlike his brilliant adaptation of Rumer Godden's The River in India in 1951, this time Renoir would work in Europe with tight controls over his budgets and his source material. Renoir figured that he wanted to pay homage to his love for theatre that he had grown up with and which helped him to develop his cinematic style, and so was born The Golden Coach and two subsequent films after this which critics label as a 'loose' trilogy, French Cancan (1955) and Elena and her Men (1956).

    The main theme of The Golden Coach can be best understood in the dialogue quoted at the beginning of this review. The film is a comedic look at the relationship between art and life. Ana Magnani plays Camilla, the lead actress of an Italian performing troupe who travels to the Latin American Spanish colony of Peru and is courted by three suitors, Felipe, (Paul Campbell) her business manager, Ramon, (Riccardo Rioli) a bullfighter who is also a local celebrity and the colony's Viceroy (Duncan Lamont) who gives Camilla a golden coach, donated by the Viceroy's citizens as a symbol of colonial power, which then leads the plot to its conclusion. Will Camilla sacrifice her art for her true love or will she find true love in her art? The Golden Coach is presented on this DVD in English. The film was shot in Italy in English and released in English, French and Italian, however English was Renoir's preferred option for audiences viewing this film. Maybe this was because Renoir was determined to answer his critics who saw a huge disparity between his French films of the 1930s and his English films thereafter. The dialogue quoted by Camilla and Felipe at the beginning of this review may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy because ultimately The Golden Coach was a box-office and critical failure at the time of its release, and this forced Renoir to film his subsequent movies in French.

    The French Cahiers du Cinema critic, Andre Bazin greatly admired this film, as did Francois Truffaut who named his production company after it. The American critics Andrew Sarris and Jonathan Rosenbaum also have championed this film. Personally, I would say that although I can appreciate the satirical, comedic element that is evident in The Golden Coach, it is still difficult for me to reconcile Renoir's use of it in his 1950s films in comparison to his films during the 1930s, especially The Rules of the Game. Renoir's auteuristic style required an independent creativity, something we cineastes last get to see in Renoir in his 1951 film, The River.

    Ana Magnani only worked with Jean Renoir once, on this film, but it was enough for Renoir to proclaim that she was "the greatest actress that he ever worked with". Magnani was known for her work in Italian neo-realist films and this film, with her phonetic delivery of English, which she didn't fully understand, ultimately enabled her to win an Oscar for her role in Tennessee Williams' Rose Tattoo in 1955. Sadly, Magnani wasn't able to break free from her desire to avoid being typecast as an emotional working-class woman, with her career petering out after Pier Paolo Pasolini's Mamma Roma in 1962.

    The source print for the Region 4 release of The Golden Coach seems to be identical to the Region 1 release used by Criterion which came from an inferior European master. The three-strip Technicolor process apparently suffered shrinkage due to time and this has not been digitally corrected on DVD in the same way that Renoir's 1951 film, The River has been.

Video

    There are issues with this transfer due to the source print.

    The original aspect ratio of the film is 1:33:1 fullscreen.

    There are no compression issues whatsoever. The average bitrate is 8 mb/sec which is excellent for DVD. The opening credits contains mosquito noise. There are contrast fluctuations throughout the movie, ranging from a red hue to blue to green. This can be seen every 9 to 10 seconds between 67:24 and 71:14. The closing credits are also blurry, no doubt due to shrinkage in the source print. This can be seen from 100:43 to 101:54.

    The 3 strip Technicolor process used to make the film makes it look wonderful onscreen. Unfortunately, a digital restoration would be needed to align the 3 strips to fully appreciate how wonderful this film actually looks.

    Film artefacts are very minor but they do occur at 11:21, 13:39, 15:41, 17:38, 19:30, 22:39, 31;41, 32;55, 35:51, 45:39, 47:55, 50:51, 59:07, 65:08, 80:23, 81:59, 83:57, 84:26, 92:16, 93:59, 94:17 and 97:49.

    Subtitles are clear and distinct in sublime, muted yellow. Well done Madman Entertainment for not choosing to use bold colours for your subtitling so that it doesn't stand out like a proverbial sore thumb! Other DVD production companies should take a lead from this example.

    RSDL change occurs at 47:17 during a scene transition which fades-to-black so it is unobtrusive.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

    Jean Renoir was inspired by Antonio Vivaldi's music while he prepared the screenplay for this film. Renoir would later acknowledge Vivaldi as a collaborator on the script and his music can be heard throughout The Golden Coach.

    There is one audio soundtrack in English. It is in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono encoded at 224 kbps. The soundtrack contains no crackling or audio pops, but it does have a slight background hiss throughout the film.

    Dialogue is clear and synchronised.

    Music by Vivaldi is used to great effect by Renoir to support the screenplay, especially as the movie is set in the eighteenth century. The film opens with the familiar opening theme of Vivaldi's La primavera movement from The Four Seasons which draws the viewer into the opening scene onto a stage via a camera pan.

    There is no surround channel usage because the soundtrack is in mono.

    The subwoofer is not utilised either.

Audio Ratings Summary

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Booklet

Trailer

    The Golden Coach has been issued in Region 1 in the Unites States as part of a box set entitled, Stage & Spectacle: Three Films by Jean Renoir. This box set also includes the films French Cancan which marked a return for Jean Gabin in working with Renoir and Elena and her Men which starred Ingrid Bergman. This box-set is packed with extras including introductions by Renoir, Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich, an interview with designer Max Douy, a three-part interview by Jacques Rivette with Renoir and a superb BBC one hour documentary by David Thompson; Jean Renoir - Hollywood and Beyond. This box-set release also includes essays by Andrew Sarris, Jonathan Rosenbaum and Christopher Faulkner.

     The Region 1 release is fantastic, replete with extras. If you want to see just The Golden Coach, which is usually thought of as the best of the three films, then the Region 4 Directors Suite is a good option also, especially as both releases share the same transfer.

    The Golden Coach is an important work in Jean Renoir's career, indicative of his late period directing, and is a fine film, but not necessarily great. Renoir's adaptation of Rumer Godden's The River, in my opinion, may be Renoir's last great film because that film was shot with much more creative control than Renoir was afforded on his subsequent return to film-making in Europe in the 1950s.

    Despite the transfer issues inherent in the source print for The Golden Coach, Madman Entertainment's specialist label, Directors Suite has again produced a faithful homage to a great director in its DVD production, with this film notable as being the only standalone release of The Golden Coach in any DVD Region.

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Audio
Extras
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