No 142 - Cyrano de Bergerac
Director - Jean-Paul Rappeneau
It's shallow to start blogs, by saying you adore,
the 1600s due to their sense that more was more.
But I loved it in this and do truly believe
That life would be better if this style was reprieved.
So instead of subtle clothes with elegant grace,
we'd get velvet garments with feathers, capes and lace.
This visual aesthetic makes something so much more
from the tale of battle. And romance at its core.
We follow a duellist, with sword and lengthy nose
In love with his cousin, and challenges that pose
with dealing with rivals in his quest for her hand
whilst he thinks he is doomed, that God had somehow planned
for him to be lonely, unloved and out of grace,
Due to the protuberance emerging from his face.
The cousin is Roxanne, the beauty, bloss'ming peach
(Loved by Christian, Cyrano and the Comte de Guiche).
She seems to me quite plain, nowhere near as stunning
She's far too thin for one, and thinks she is cunning
as she manipulates men in each discussion.
We know these plans will fail, there'll be repercussions.
Cyrano loves Roxanne (but shy, coz of his nose),
Roxanne falls for Christian, who is rubbish at prose.
So the men join forces. As a poet, with books,
Cyrano provides passion, whilst Christian provides looks.
Combined they make a match so perfect for Roxanne
that she can not help but fall madly for the man.
With Cyrano's writing, Christian wins Roxanne's heart
Kissing in the bedroom, they swear they'll never part.
(All this while Cyrano is below the balcony
in the pouring rain. Pathetic fallacy?)
Seconds after kissing, the pair of them marry,
for the Comte is coming so they cannot tarry.
Cyrano delays de Guiche in feeble disguise,
he masks his famous nose he doesn't mask his eyes.
Nor does he mask his voice, thus the Comte uncovers
Cyrano's true face and breaks up the young lovers.
In a fit of angry jealousy he sends cadets to war
(which includes Cyrano and Roxanne's Paramour).
The war is cruel violence and of course Christian dies
Tragically Cyrano continues the lies.
It would break Roxanne's heart if he pledged his heart to hers.
So he never mentions that he wrote Christian's words
Only on his death bed is the truth uncovered
Cyrano mourns his life and his lack of lovers.
Those final scenes are sad, more tragic than mere death,
but also quite annoying as Cyrano's last breath
takes bloody hours from the start of his speech,
he shouts and walks around and sword fights with a Beech.
(Really... the type of tree he fights with, I don't know
I just used Beech to rhyme, and help the rhythmic flow.)
The film is pretentious (I'll explain in a sec),
but it is quite moving and well worth the respect,
that it got from Oscars, especially Gerard
who deserved Best Actor, which he won in regard
of the moving balance of passions - love and war
which he presented in a manner that's so raw
he starts off as a prick whom you'd not want to know
but by the end you love the tragic Cyrano -
Who was a real person, though without the large nose
He was a real duellist and he wrote actual prose.
He really knew Roxanne, they really were cousins
A beam fell on his head for real, but then dozens
Of lies and fantasies were weaved into a myth
to create this tragic romantic monolith.
Back to the film now please, I have my final point
Pardon the pun, but this put my nose out of joint.
The big annoying thing, was that most of the time
the subtitles weren't following the spoken line.
Alexandrines were used for the initial script
So with their subtitles, the same trick was equipped.
And yes, it is clever but it is also a pain
Reading something diff'rent from what they're all sayin'
(seriously.... bloody hell. I don't know how someone wrote a film using that rhyming pattern... IT IS TOUGH. Anyway, good film, but a bit of a headache to follow. Probably like this nonsensical blog - proud I hardly had to cheat though (except for the last line, look at those apostrophes... eek!)
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