Back years ago in high school studying Cyrano de Bergerac, with a textbook having pictures from this film, one of the other students asked simply why didn't he just get a nose job? It got a lot of amusement when the teacher told her that that procedure just wasn't available in Cardinal Richelieu's France.
I'm afraid that that might be the feeling of a lot of readers of the play and viewers of the film. Rostand, who wrote the play in the 19th century about the 17th century might as well have been writing about people on Mars.
If they take that tack then folks will be losing out on appreciating a great play and role essayed by a man who possessed one of the great speaking voices of the century. Jose Ferrer puts everyone else in the cast to shame with his performance of Cyrano.
To be sure Cyrano de Bergerac is a one man play. All the other characters Rostand gave absolutely no depth to. Roxanne is a sweet young girl looking for romance, Christian is a handsome dunce, Comte de Guiche is a Snidely Whiplash villain. But Cyrano, you have to be a real actor to play that one.
Cyrano is a soldier, writer, swordsman even a gourmet of sorts. But that proboscis fills him with doubt when the opposite sex is concerned. He's a tortured soul and Ferrer gives THE interpretation of Cyrano. It will be so a hundred years from now. He's a swashbuckler to be sure, but you certainly couldn't cast any of the normal movie swashbucklers in that part.
I don't know if the MTV generation will feel like my classmate of years ago, but if they turn away from music videos and watch this, they will be treated to a once in a lifetime acting performance.
I'm afraid that that might be the feeling of a lot of readers of the play and viewers of the film. Rostand, who wrote the play in the 19th century about the 17th century might as well have been writing about people on Mars.
If they take that tack then folks will be losing out on appreciating a great play and role essayed by a man who possessed one of the great speaking voices of the century. Jose Ferrer puts everyone else in the cast to shame with his performance of Cyrano.
To be sure Cyrano de Bergerac is a one man play. All the other characters Rostand gave absolutely no depth to. Roxanne is a sweet young girl looking for romance, Christian is a handsome dunce, Comte de Guiche is a Snidely Whiplash villain. But Cyrano, you have to be a real actor to play that one.
Cyrano is a soldier, writer, swordsman even a gourmet of sorts. But that proboscis fills him with doubt when the opposite sex is concerned. He's a tortured soul and Ferrer gives THE interpretation of Cyrano. It will be so a hundred years from now. He's a swashbuckler to be sure, but you certainly couldn't cast any of the normal movie swashbucklers in that part.
I don't know if the MTV generation will feel like my classmate of years ago, but if they turn away from music videos and watch this, they will be treated to a once in a lifetime acting performance.