Cyrano de Bergerac

A detailed Summary of Cyrano de Bergerac

Sword fighting, witty humor and the love of a beautiful woman are just a few of the ingredients for this classic play. Cyrano de Bergerac was written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand and is originally a French play. Edmond Rostand created his play based off of a real character name Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, who lived from 1619-1655. Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac was a French duelist and satirist. He was quoted having said, "A large nose is the mark of a witty, courteous, affable, generous, and liberal man"(Dunn). This dramatic play has been performed in the original sense as a tragedy, and in the comical view in more modern renditions. The two film versions of this play are the classic 1950's Black and white rendition, starring Jose Ferrer, and the modern 1980's rendition Roxanne, starring Steve Martin. This comparison of film to play, and film to film will indicate the validity and exigency of the 1950's Edmond Rostand play text of Cyrano de Bergerac.

In the 1950 version of Cyrano de Bergerac the movie setting takes place in the French war with Spain. Cyrano is a soldier with an enormous nose that is fairly poor, but he is very witty and very quick with his tongue in tight situations. Roxanne is Cyrano's independen

In the movie Roxanne, characters and settings are a little different since the screenplay was rewritten by Steve Martin and has been modernized into a comedy. The movie takes place in the 1980's where the Cyrano character now has the name CD Bales and he is still in uniform but as a fireman. CD's nose is very large, and he is in love with Roxanne. She is an astronomy student and a tenant of one of CD friends. Roxanne is interested in Chris who is a new transfer into CD's fire unit. Though the characters and the time frame are slightly different, the plot line and conclusion is basically the same. Three same scenes again will be viewed to help us describe the characters in the movie.

In the first scene CD has gone to a bar where it seems everyone is having a good time. CD's characteristics show when a confrontation occurs as a character in the bar challenges CD in a fight and calls him "big nose". CD again using his great wit and candor decides that he can come up with twenty better insults for his nose. This is one of the very humorous parts of the film and ends up with CD defeating the character. CD's swiftness of tongue and fist show us that he is the hero type from, which is extremely intelligent despite his looks.

Dunn, Jason. Cyrano de Bergerac. 12 July 2000. Kensai Design. .

The next scene starts when Cyrano is helping Christian woe Roxanne. His character is again open to the audience by showing his charm and romanticism in his speech to Roxanne. Christian's character lacks in charisma and so he has Cyrano help him by telling him what to say. The situation worsens as Christian's intellect shines through, but Cyrano saves the day with his melody of poetry. The scene is filmed at night and the balcony shadows the two characters below. At this time Roxanne is becoming so engrossed with the words of Cyrano and the letters of which he has sent, she doesn't even realize that is was his voice she was hearing. Cyrano helps Christian to make Roxanne happy, showing his selflessness and caring for those he loves.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1515
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Music