THE DEATH OF CYRANO: Cyrano keeps his weekly date with Roxane
Cyrano's romanticized story--based on the Rostand play--has inspired several movies, including a comedic treatment by Steve Martin ("Roxane"), and a lavish French production with Gerard Depardieu. None of these efforts has come close to the sheer beauty and vitality of the 1950 American classic with the distinguished Puerto Rican actor Jose Ferrer in the lead. Ferrer simply owns this role.
SCENE PRECIS: Cyrano (Jose Ferrer), seriously hurt as a result of a treacherous attack, struggles to keep his customary weekly appointment with Roxane, who now resides in a convent. Over the years, since Christian's death, Cyrano has been her main link with the outside world, especially the frivolous comings and goings of the personages surrounding the King. Cyrano is happy to oblige and play the efficient gazetteer for his beloved cousin, but this time, another personage, of much greater power, is impatiently waiting for his company...
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)
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Read more about this film and José Ferrer in our soon-to-be-inaugurated special section on cinema.
NOTES ON CYRANO DE BERGERAC AND WHY THIS SITE IS INSPIRED BY HIS CHARACTER
We take our inspiration from Cyrano de Bergerac, yeah, the big-nosed fellow, noted 17th century French poet and soldier, famous in his time for his wit, proboscis, valor and inability to suffer fools, phonies and bad fellow writers. During his tumultuous life--he died not quite 36--short even for an age in which life expectancy barely touched 40, Cyrano succeeded amply in irritating most of the powerful, self-impressed egos of the day. He reserved special contempt for establishment lapdogs; Thomas Friedman, Chris Matthews and others of that stripe would have been natural targets for Cyrano. (But he's not around so we do what we can.) Cyrano is also important in another way. He's the closest that French civilization has come to honor the spirit of Quixote, the man capable of dreaming the impossible dream. There's a lesson here for those who would wish to make revolution against seemingly impossible odds...
Romantic aura notwithstanding, the real Cyrano de Bergerac had very little in common with the hero of the Rostand play. He was born in Paris, and was educated by a priest in the village of Bergerac. Later he was sent to the Collège de Beauvais. After acquiring fame as a dueller and Bohemian (out of principle, or maybe sheer lunacy, he fought more than 1,000 duels, an astonishing figure even for a bellicose age), he enlisted in the army at the age of 20.
However, he was an iconoclast and had problems adjusting to discipline. Cyrano was an opponent of war in general and of the death penalty. His humanitarian way of thinking was acknowledged by his contemporaries and the next generations. Well ahead of his time, he also opposed Descartes' influential way of describing animals as mere soul-less automatons unable to feel or comprehend pain, Cyrano argued that animals were simply fellow creatures worthy of respect and compassion, and not to be subjected to the self-serving caprices of the human race. For that, the Church itself, well-noted to this day for its worthlessness in matters concerning great moral outrage, condemned him as a dangerous heretic.
But Cyrano did get his woman, or rather, his women, for he was acknowledged as a virile lover. Cyrano's willingness to stick his neck out had little in common with today's breed of spineless opportunistic politicians and mainstream media figures, whose usefulness to society, as a rule, is almost exactly in reverse proportion to their paychecks and power.
