Cyrano de Bergerac
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Movie Reviews of Cyrano de Bergerac
Movie Review: A Classic Romantic Tragedy
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Jean-Paul Rappeneau and cowriter Jean-Claude Carriere present this excellent adaptation of Edmon Rostand's tragic play. Everything in this film was well done: great direction, excellent cinematography, beautiful scenery, and an excellent performance by the entire cast.
This romantic tragedy is set in early-mid 17th century France during the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV: the same time period as Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers. Cyrano de Bergerac (Gerard Depardieu) is a musketeer in the regiment of Gascogne. A courageous champion of justice, Cyrano possesses all of the noble qualities the human spirit could be endowed with: courage, strength, prowess, sensibility, a great mind and wit. Despite all of these great qualities, Cyrano's main weakness is his own distorted self-perception regarding his oversized nose. Madly in love with his cousin Roxanne (Anne Brochet) but being too afraid of the rejection his nose might bring, Cyrano's loses his courage everytime he's approached by her. Cyrano's frustrated love soon finds a window when Roxanne tells him about her love for a new cadet in his regiment: Christian De Neuvillette (Vincent Perez), a brave,young, and devilishly handsome musketeer. As much as Cyrano fears the effect of his oversized nose, Christian fears strong-minded women like Roxanne due to his unfortunate lack of wit. An exchange takes place as each man provides the qualities the other lacks to conquer Roxanne: Cyrano becomes Christian's mind, voice and pen, while Christian becomes Cyrano's missing looks. After Christian serenades her with Cyrano's words, Roxanne falls madly in love and is weary to see him go off to war. Outside of this triangle, the powerful Comte de Guiche (Jacques Weber) wants Roxanne for himself and will use all of his royal connections to get her: will he succeed? How long with this masquerade last? Will Roxanne ever find out about the clever deception she's been subjected to?
The story is a romantic-tragedy in which Cyrano is our tragic hero. As with the original play, the dialogue in the film is set in verse: the language is therefore poetic and very rich. This is a light tragedy in which Cyrano, is an archetype to the likes of Don Quixote as opposed to a real tragic character such as Romeo or Oedipus. The story has various themes about human nature and life as an experience; how we're often our own worst enemy and critiques.
Gerard Depardieu gives the finest performance of his career as Cyrano de Bergerac; his performance is truly one of the best renditions of the love-struck tragic hero. The language is faithful to the play and rich in meaning. The costumes and settings for the film are equally lavish and splendid. This is truly a film meant to be in one's collection.
Movie Review: His enemies were Falsehood, Conformity, and Compromise.
Summary: 5 Stars
Cyrano De Bergerac, with Gerard Depardieu as Cyrano, is a magnificent, entrancing fantasy which could have seemed very, very silly in the hands of a lesser actor. This role seems tailor-made for Depardieu, and although I haven't seen most of his movies, I wonder if it might not even be his best performance. Depardieu's Cyrano certainly seems larger than life with his fiery temper ready to explode at the mere mention of the word "nose", his bravery, his braggadocio which disguised a pure and noble heart, his faithfulness to those he loved, and, not least, his imposing wit, sharper than any rapier he wielded. Even his foibles, such as his penchant for teasing the ladies with slightly off-color fibs seem merely a human expression of his nobility of spirit. Flamboyant and stylish, Depardieu as Cyrano causes the people around him to resemble cardboard cut-outs by comparison. In real life such an outspoken, uncompromising character would no doubt be insufferable to live with for most of us "practical" people. But when such a hero is properly showcased, as in this film, it is the rest of us who are shown to be lacking. In the times of the French monarchy, and frequent wars with neighboring countries, honor and bravery would have been a gentleman's most important currency, a coin with which Cyrano was well-supplied. The thing I really liked about this movie was that, although it is undeniably a fantasy where admirable traits are concentrated in a single individual to an extent rarely, if ever found in real life, Depardieu's excellent performance lets us suspend disbelief long enough to become absorbed with and care about his story. Contributing to this believability was the very authentic-seeming and comprehensive recreation of French society at the time. From street scenes to barracks, convents, and theaters, the ambiance seems very realistic. The behavior of the people in those scenes, down to the most incidental, seems so unstructured, at times madcap, as to be perfectly natural. There is a gaudy, impertinent, virile beauty to the portrayal of the times. The soundtrack is wonderful, as I especially discovered when I listened through a good set of headphones so as not to disturb people occupied otherwise. Many subtle background sounds such as leaves rustling in the breeze,etc. add a very sensuous undertone to the story, and the excellent music provides the right dramatic backdrop when Cyrano recites his moving poetry. It is a tribute to the film-makers and Depardieu that they could make us believe, even for a couple of hours, in the possibility of such a Gargantuan hero.Movie Review: Depardieu and Brochet are the ultimate Cyrano and Roxane.This is Jean-Paul Rappeneau's masterpiece.
Summary: 5 Stars
How sad that a person can forego the deepest and best that life has to offer because they feel that their "ugliness" cannot outshine their inner beauty?
Such is the well known CYRANO de BERGERAC,a man with such a large nose that this self-perceived impediment causes him to over develop his rapier wit and tenderness of soul, never being able to feel the sense that he could be loved for who and what he is.
Having seen this Rostand play done on stage, Gerard Depardieu and Anne Brochet simply light up the screen in this Jean-Paul Rappeneau directed version of the French Classic as the "deformed" Cyrano and his object of love,his cousin,Roxane.Vincent Perez,always the handsome leading man, does a marvelous comedic turn as Christien, the love-struck cadet who is a bumbler at words to whom Cyrano lends his poetic tongue to win Roxane for him.
What I find exceptional about this CYRANO is Rappeneau's tremendous attention to the smallest of detail regarding the customs and historical facts concerning the times.The story is already a winner, but Rappeneau makes this also a film that is interesting to people who love accuracy concerning history and custom.There is also a proper treatment of the comedic side of this tragedy that I find lacking in other versions.Rappeneau knows how to make us both laugh and cry in his CYRANO thus keeping a proper balance of the tender and the comedic.
Anne Brochet as Roxane is allowed to be the beauty that she is (unlike her plainess in ALL THE MORNINGS OF THE WORLD) and she is the ideal actress to bring Roxane to the big screen.She has a fragile beauty and depth rarely found!
Depardieu is, well what can one say,THE BEST.Others may disagree,but Depardieu is the first actor ever to make me love Cyrano de Bergerac.Others were okay,but Depardieu IS Cyrano.
As to format,I personally find the digital video transfer version still superior to the dvd in both picture quality and sound.The dvd is" scrunched" looking while the vhs version is not.In any format, though,this is the definitive CYRANO in my book.The english tranlation is perfectly accessible and the subtitles are very clear and not rushed.If you "parlez francais" then all the better this CYRANO.
An excellent companion film that covers the exact same time frame would be MARQUISE (French) starring Sophie Marceau.
Movie Review: One of the high water marks of French cinema
Summary: 5 Stars
Jean-Paul Rappeneau's wonderfully cinematic version of Cyrano De Bergerac is one of the genuine high water marks of modern French cinema. Rappeneau is a director who really understands movement, and his far from static approach revitalizes the piece and frees it from the tyranny of the wonderful words to give it wings, while Gerard Depardieu's magnificent Cyrano keeps the film's emotions beautifully grounded. For once the supporting characters aren't played as idiots: Christian is no fool, merely an inarticulate man increasingly aware that his is a false victory, and the Comte De Guiche is allowed more dignity than you'd expect from a part that's usually reduced to mere comedy villainy.
Almost everything about the film is perfect, from Rappeneau and Jean-Claude Carriere's superb screenplay to Jean-Claude Petit's restrained score, which subtly underlines the emotions rather than play up the pathos (a shame his action cues use a thinly-disguised version of Danny Elfman's Batman theme: someone obviously fell in love with the temp track). Wonderful stuff, even if Cyrano takes longer to shuffle off this mortal coil than Brando did in Mutiny on the Bounty.
Sadly, there's still not a particularly satisfying English-friendly DVD release for the film - MGM/UA's Region 1 disc is disapppointing while even Arrow's UK PAL release only has brief interviews with Rappeneau and Depardieu as extras. One for Criterion to get round to, surely?
Movie Review: Love and War
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie Cyrano de Bergerac is a romantic love story is about a guy name Cyrano, played by Gerald Depardieu (who is a great actor), who falls in love with a girl name Roxanne (his cousin), but she has a crush on somebody else, a young cadet name Christian. Cyrano is a brave sword fighter who can go up against a hundred men but when it comes to love he is not that brave. Cyrano is a great poet who writes all these poems for Roxanne but he hides his love for Roxanne because he is afraid that he might get rejected because of his enormous nose. This movie has great meaning that says, "Look inside a person, not at the outside." Love is something that is hard to explain. I know we've all been there. Love can make you do crazy things, like, for example, when Cyrano pretended to be Christian in one part of the movie when she cannot see him from her balcony or when Cyrano wrote the poems for Roxanne saying they were from Christian. My favorite scene from the movie was when Cyrano interrupted the play at the theater and started making a big scene he even made fun of himself in the scene. I didn't really liked the ending to this movie; it is sad when Cyrano died at the end I would've change the ending and make it have a happy ending. This movie is an amazing movie that I suggest you all go and check out for yourself. I saw this movie for the first time in class. Once you see this movie you'll be amaze by how great this movie is.