The theatrical and critical artificialism of Jean Renoir in The golden coach

Abstract

The article looks into the film The Golden Coach (1952), directed by Jean Renoir, seeking to identify how the director’s stylistic and dramaturgical choices constitute a theatrical artificialism. From the analysis of the mise-en-scène and the dramaturgy of the work, we analyzed how such artificialism results in a playful and incisive perspective on social relations. The theatrical aspect of the work is analyzed from the formal elements that are more common in the theater, such as the frontality of the faces, the denaturalization and the imprisonment of the spaces, or in a cinema considered theatrical, as the lateral entrances and exits, but which are preserved by Renoir’s style.

Keywords Jean Renoir; french cinema; theater; artificialism; mise-en-scène