With enormous trepidation do I write this review.\u00a0 In this year 2018, surrounded by the mores and mentality currently on display in the former realm of Christendom, how can you explain, never mind, recommend the story of Cyrano de Bergerac?\u00a0 To a generation that embraces Miley Cyrus, Beyonc\u00e9 and the Kardashians how do you justify Cyrano\u2019s chaste love for Roxane.\u00a0 To a world that needs safe spaces to cower in at the very hint of harsh language how do you explain two men fighting to the death with rapiers over an insult?\u00a0 It\u2019s ludicrous to even consider.\u00a0 The very word honor has ceased to have an explicable meaning.<\/p>\n
No, there is no way.\u00a0 This story can only be presented to an older generation.\u00a0 And even to them, watching it would be a jarring exercise in switching gears from the world of Caitlyn Jenner and Hillary Clinton to the chivalry of seventeenth century France.\u00a0 So, I cannot expect any sympathy from a modern audience for such a story. Even when this movie was filmed in 1950 the plot was considered much too sentimental.\u00a0 In fact, the only saving grace it had was the tour de force performance of its star Jose Ferrer.\u00a0 Even critics who savaged the rest of the production including the rest of the cast, declared Ferrer\u2019s portrayal of Cyrano as a masterpiece and his recital of Rostand\u2019s words inspired.\u00a0 And so, they were.\u00a0 Ferrer\u2019s mastery of the material only seems the more convincing compared to the journeyman competence of his fellow cast members.<\/p>\n
For those who have read this far but do not know Rostand\u2019s plot, Cyrano is a musketeer in the employ of the King of France in the seventeenth century.\u00a0 He is also a poet and a deadly skilled swordsman.\u00a0 He also possesses a very large nose about which he is devilishly sensitive.\u00a0 One word or even a glance at his nose is enough to trigger a duel from which the offender will exit without his life.\u00a0 And Cyrano is secretly in love with Roxane his distant cousin and one of the most beautiful women in Paris.\u00a0 Because of his relationship with Roxane he is compelled by his sense of honor to help her in whatever she asks.\u00a0 Unfortunately, what she asks him is to help his rival in love to succeed in his courting of Roxane.\u00a0 When Cyrano meets this rival Christian, he discovers that he is unable to string romantic words together in a way that appeals to Roxane.\u00a0 So, Cyrano must become Christian\u2019s coach in writing and speaking poems of love.\u00a0 And finally, when it becomes too difficult, he uses the darkness of night to impersonate Christian under Roxane\u2019s balcony and succeeds in winning her love for Christian with Cyrano\u2019s own passionate declaration of love.<\/p>\n
There follow several obstacles, a nobleman as rival to Christian who is also his superior officer in the army and a war with Spain.\u00a0 Marriage, sorrow, misunderstanding and death stand in the way of true love.\u00a0 But revelation finally occurs, if too late to allow for happiness.\u00a0 All of this is brocaded with a script that Ferrer delivers with wit and panache.\u00a0 For a man of the late nineteenth or early to mid-twentieth century it is a treat and for those afterward a puzzle only.<\/p>\n
Recommended only for the true sentimental idealist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With enormous trepidation do I write this review.\u00a0 In this year 2018, surrounded by the mores and mentality currently on display in the former realm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237],"tags":[934,935,1583],"class_list":["post-5445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-cyrano-de-bergerac","tag-edmond-rostand","tag-jose-ferrer"],"yoast_head":"\n