"If you love her, tell her so!" Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
Romantic love has arguably never been as deeply parsed as it was in the 19th century when Rostand's poetic drama Cyrano de Bergerac debuted. Here is a tongue-tied handsome soldier of the 17th century in love with a beautiful and courtly, albeit impecunious, lady, whose need was that he write her beautiful love letters. After many versions over the centuries, director Joe Wright gets it right with the recent Cyrano, starring Game of Thrones' Peter Dinklage as the poet Cyrano enlisted by lovelorn soldier Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) to write those letters for him to Roxanne (Haley Bennett, Wright's real-life wife).
Wright has chosen the diminutive Dinklage to represent Rostand's big-nosed Cyrano with a height-disadvantage Cyrano believes discounts Roxanne's ever loving him. But writing catapults him into her affection even though she believes the love words are Christian's. This new Cyrano just as easily represents as the original did the diffidence of men approaching the inscrutable demands of love, even though they had been codified by Andreas Capellanus's Art of Courtly Love in the Middle Ages and lyrically penned by poets in history.
This time around Dinklage handily acts the sword-proficient secret lover whose only chance to touch Roxanne's heart is anonymously drafting Christian's love letters. Harrison's vacuous but sweet Christian represents well the disabled communicator lovers feel their competition must be. Bennett's ethereal and superficial Roxanne is unreachable and simple enough to offer Cyrano-like suitors to claim she wasn't up to the intellectual demands anyway.
This stunningly gorgeous film, set in the mid-17th rather than 16th century, uses the powdered, billowy-costumed court to dance this iteration into audience hearts if only visually, but then that's the point, isn't it, about the difference between the suitors-surface versus depth? Like the visual splendor of the court, this musical version set in Noto, Sicily, has mostly forgettable songs, written by rock band The National for the stage production. The exception is the song sung by soldiers on the eve of battle. With Mount Etna as background, this song is powerful and melancholic as it foreshadows the tragedy to come.
I am one of a few devotees of Jose Ferrer's 1950 Oscar winning performance; no one could as magically depict Cyrano. But Dinklage is a worthy contestant in that cultural contest.
Musical or not, Rostand's words carry well over the centuries, with Love the lone survivor of the battle of the sexes.
Romantic love has arguably never been as deeply parsed as it was in the 19th century when Rostand's poetic drama Cyrano de Bergerac debuted. Here is a tongue-tied handsome soldier of the 17th century in love with a beautiful and courtly, albeit impecunious, lady, whose need was that he write her beautiful love letters. After many versions over the centuries, director Joe Wright gets it right with the recent Cyrano, starring Game of Thrones' Peter Dinklage as the poet Cyrano enlisted by lovelorn soldier Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) to write those letters for him to Roxanne (Haley Bennett, Wright's real-life wife).
Wright has chosen the diminutive Dinklage to represent Rostand's big-nosed Cyrano with a height-disadvantage Cyrano believes discounts Roxanne's ever loving him. But writing catapults him into her affection even though she believes the love words are Christian's. This new Cyrano just as easily represents as the original did the diffidence of men approaching the inscrutable demands of love, even though they had been codified by Andreas Capellanus's Art of Courtly Love in the Middle Ages and lyrically penned by poets in history.
This time around Dinklage handily acts the sword-proficient secret lover whose only chance to touch Roxanne's heart is anonymously drafting Christian's love letters. Harrison's vacuous but sweet Christian represents well the disabled communicator lovers feel their competition must be. Bennett's ethereal and superficial Roxanne is unreachable and simple enough to offer Cyrano-like suitors to claim she wasn't up to the intellectual demands anyway.
This stunningly gorgeous film, set in the mid-17th rather than 16th century, uses the powdered, billowy-costumed court to dance this iteration into audience hearts if only visually, but then that's the point, isn't it, about the difference between the suitors-surface versus depth? Like the visual splendor of the court, this musical version set in Noto, Sicily, has mostly forgettable songs, written by rock band The National for the stage production. The exception is the song sung by soldiers on the eve of battle. With Mount Etna as background, this song is powerful and melancholic as it foreshadows the tragedy to come.
I am one of a few devotees of Jose Ferrer's 1950 Oscar winning performance; no one could as magically depict Cyrano. But Dinklage is a worthy contestant in that cultural contest.
Musical or not, Rostand's words carry well over the centuries, with Love the lone survivor of the battle of the sexes.