CERT: U / DIRECTOR: JEAN-PAUL RAPPENEAU / SCREENPLAY: JEAN-PAUL RAPPENEAU, JEAN-CLAUDE CARRIERE / STARRING: GERARD DEPARDIEU, ANNE BROCHET, VINCENT PEREZ, JACQUES WEBER, ROLAND BERTIN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (REVIEWED – BLU-RAY, BFI 2020)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a poet, a soldier, a legendary swordsman, and a hopeless romantic. But although he is fearless on the battlefield, and not afraid to take on 100 men in a duel of honour, he is terrified of one thing; declaring his love to the beautiful Roxane, because he fears his famously oversized proboscis would cause her to reject his advances. So, when Roxane tells Cyrano she is in love with one of the soldiers in his regiment, a dashing but verbally challenged young man called Christian, Cyrano sees a way to express his love for Roxane in poetry, by writing romantic letters to her on Christian’s behalf. But will Roxane ever realise it’s Cyrano’s words that are making her heart melt, and that Christian’s surface handsomeness is nothing compared to the passion concealed beneath Cyrano’s external ugliness? And what will they do when a vengeful Count sends Christian and Cyrano off to war, and Cyrano’s enemies plot his devious and deadly downfall?
It’s been 30 years since moviegoers first fell in love with Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s delightful cinematic adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, and the BFI’s new blu-ray release proves the film has lost none of its quixotic, starry-eyed magic. Gerard Depardieu’s performance as the swaggering conk-challenged scribe remains the highlight of his illustrious career, although he’s well-matched by Jacques Weber as the foppish Count and Anne Brochet as Roxane, the rather impetuous object of everybody’s affections. Vincent Perez, who is probably best known for playing the titular undead hero in The Crow: City of Angels, does his best as the mannequin-like Christian, but if there’s one failing to this film it’s that it’s hard to feel any empathy for a character who’s little more than good-looking cardboard. That’s not really an obstacle for the majority of the story (in fact, it works to the narrative’s advantage) but, in the final Act, it severely undercuts a moment that should have had much more emotional resonance. Having said that, Anthony Burgess’s acclaimed but rather show-offy English translation (thankfully only available as subtitles) doesn’t help.
As Steve Martin’s Roxanne had already proved three years earlier, Edmond Rostand’s source play contains plenty of opportunities to be out-and-out funny and (as audiences would discover a year later, in Green Card), Depardieu is also a very fine comedian. Unfortunately, Burgess’s translation isn’t as fun as it should be and that’s a problem. Having said that, though, Cyrano de Bergerac is still a masterpiece.
The special features include a scholarly feature-length commentary, individual interviews with Depardieu and Rappeneau, and a pre-Cyrano conversation with Anthony Burgess that’s occasionally fascinating. All-in-all, a very nice little package.
