Michael Gordon's "Cyrano de Bergerac" was a pleasant experience as long as it was carried by the flamboyant eloquence and thunderous voice of actor Jose Ferrer, which means a good portion of the film. But Edmond Rostand's iconic play isn't just the tale of a poet and a fighter, it is also an iconic romance, the story of a magnificent love triangle, where the looks of a man, and the wits of another create the perfect suitor for the heart of Roxane who's not a bland heroine either.
But Jose Ferrer, who won the Oscar for that role (and it was the only nomination) was good, too good, so good he made any role thankless. Young but witless Christian (William Prince) and the beautiful Roxane (Mala Powers) are unfortunately no match for Ferrer who owns the show whenever he appears. It's all natural when it comes to Cyrano who is a larger-than-life character (let alone the scenery) but the irony of the story lies on the way Cyrano must keep a low profile, to allow the romance between Roxanne and Christian to blossom.
Cyrano provides the good lines to Christian and consoles himself by the way she's truly conquered by the power of her love, it's as if she still loved a part of her doomed cousin. This is love by proxy, but the power is left intact and you can tell from the emotional involvement of Cyrano that he's accept his fate as half a doom, half a blessing. But Jose Ferrer is such a presence that the film's level of excitement inevitable fades where he's not there. His "nose" is so big it overshadows any other flaws. And reality joined fiction at the Oscar ceremony.
Ferrer wasn't even present at the ceremony but his voice was enough, you could tell it was Cyrano winning, and it's only fair that the other iconic performance of Cyrano de Bergerac, by Gérard Depardieu, won a similar award. Cyrano de Bergerac is just a daydream of any actor but not any actor can pull such powerful, over-the-top yet exhilarating performances. Ferrer does a magnificent job but even his performance can't make up for the rather, bland theatrical look, more apparent at the beginning, but the blurry black and white cinematography gives it the look of the TV movies we watched in little side.
The sword fights choreographs are actually very convincing and you could really hear the crossing of irons, but there are moments though that betrayed some low budget aspect and it doesn't really help to enhance the enjoyment of the story. One could think that the French version, considered now as the classic one did the film a disservice, in fact, it didn't, one could watch it with more forgiving eyes.
And it's a fair adaptation of Rostand's play but it needed a bigger budget and maybe a French version after all. The last line about the "panache" has been translated by "white plum", and I humbly believed it was a mistake, Cyrano has always been about a sword, a big nose, and a panache. But not in the meaning of a white plume.
But Jose Ferrer, who won the Oscar for that role (and it was the only nomination) was good, too good, so good he made any role thankless. Young but witless Christian (William Prince) and the beautiful Roxane (Mala Powers) are unfortunately no match for Ferrer who owns the show whenever he appears. It's all natural when it comes to Cyrano who is a larger-than-life character (let alone the scenery) but the irony of the story lies on the way Cyrano must keep a low profile, to allow the romance between Roxanne and Christian to blossom.
Cyrano provides the good lines to Christian and consoles himself by the way she's truly conquered by the power of her love, it's as if she still loved a part of her doomed cousin. This is love by proxy, but the power is left intact and you can tell from the emotional involvement of Cyrano that he's accept his fate as half a doom, half a blessing. But Jose Ferrer is such a presence that the film's level of excitement inevitable fades where he's not there. His "nose" is so big it overshadows any other flaws. And reality joined fiction at the Oscar ceremony.
Ferrer wasn't even present at the ceremony but his voice was enough, you could tell it was Cyrano winning, and it's only fair that the other iconic performance of Cyrano de Bergerac, by Gérard Depardieu, won a similar award. Cyrano de Bergerac is just a daydream of any actor but not any actor can pull such powerful, over-the-top yet exhilarating performances. Ferrer does a magnificent job but even his performance can't make up for the rather, bland theatrical look, more apparent at the beginning, but the blurry black and white cinematography gives it the look of the TV movies we watched in little side.
The sword fights choreographs are actually very convincing and you could really hear the crossing of irons, but there are moments though that betrayed some low budget aspect and it doesn't really help to enhance the enjoyment of the story. One could think that the French version, considered now as the classic one did the film a disservice, in fact, it didn't, one could watch it with more forgiving eyes.
And it's a fair adaptation of Rostand's play but it needed a bigger budget and maybe a French version after all. The last line about the "panache" has been translated by "white plum", and I humbly believed it was a mistake, Cyrano has always been about a sword, a big nose, and a panache. But not in the meaning of a white plume.