Cyrano de Bergerac can fence as well as any man in 17th-century Paris. He can fight. He can write. He’s a soldier and a poet, both witty and wise. Yes, he is a man of towering talents.
But physically? He falls a little … short.
Many a 10-year-old might physically look down on Cyrano. Metaphorically, many an adult does too. Or, at least they do until they get to know him a bit—or meet the end of his sword.
But few know him better than his oldest friend, Roxanne, a beautiful woman of aristocratic birth and modest means. And Cyrano secretly loves her. He always has.
But in that, Cyrano has plenty of company. Half of Paris at times seems smitten by Roxanne—particularly the powerful Duke de Guiche. The influential nobleman has courted the coy Roxanne for a while now, hoping to ultimately marry the woman. And it would be, at least on paper, a good move: So what if Roxanne doesn’t love the guy?
“Children need love,” Marie, Roxanne’s maid, tells her. “Adults need money.”
But Roxanne’s not ready to make that sort of sacrifice just yet. For now, she’s happy to lead the Duke along.
But one night, as she attends a play with de Guiche and his foppish acolyte, Valvert, she spies another would-be suitor—a young cadet-to-be named Christian. And she falls for him from across the hall.
Roxanne knows Christian will soon be joining the same regimental guard Cyrano belongs to. During a private meeting, she implores Cyrano to help them communicate. Cyrano—heartbroken—agrees. He can never refuse Roxanne anything. And when Cyrano mentions Roxanne to Christian, he seems equally smitten with her.
But there’s one big problem: Roxanne wants Christian to write to her. Christian knows that she’d be very disappointed in anything he’d write.
“I have no wit,” he says.
“Borrow mine,” says Cyrano.
And with that, Cyrano becomes this romance’s ghost writer. With ink and paper, he chronicles his own love and hands it to another, to pretend it’s his own. In Christian, Cyrano finds a proxy lover—a social stand-in who will woo the woman he thinks he never could.
Granted, it’s not a foolproof plan: If the ruse works, Roxanne might want to speak to her suitor someday. But for now it must suffice. Each word Cyrano writes is a kiss, each sentence an embrace. And Cyrano knows, given his stature and standing, it’ll be the closest he’ll ever get to loving the woman he’s always loved … and the one he always will.
I’m pretty sure that a modern psychology student could earn a doctorate trying to interpret Cyrano’s many motives for becoming Christian in letters. But if Cyrano unpacked his rationale himself, it might be rather simple: He did it for love.
Cyrano adores Roxanne—loves her so much that he’s willing to embark on this strange (and presumably painful) exercise to make her happy. It’s not a mere favor: He’s deeply invested in it. He wants Christian to succeed and to keep his own role a secret. Yes, his motives are surely complex. And certainly we’ll have more to say about the lies at the center of this enterprise later. But despite its complexities and mushy moralities, Cyrano’s act is, at least in part, sacrificial.
Roxanne’s own character seems to deepen as the film goes on. She’s smitten by Christian at first—in part because of his looks. “He’s beautiful and he expresses himself beautifully,” she tells Cyrano. “It’s perfectly logical.” But she comes to love Christian far more for his “soul” (as manifested in Cyrano’s letters) than in his physicality. And when she ultimately says that she would love him even if he was broken or disfigured, she means it.
Christian, by the way, seems like a pretty decent fellow himself. Yes, he does allow Cyrano to become, as he says, his “soul.”
[Spoiler Warning] When Christian realizes that Cyrano isn’t just doing him a favor—that Cyrano is deeply in love with Roxanne—Christian insists that Cyrano put an end to the charade and tell Roxanne about his true feelings. “We have to tell her,” he says. “It’s our moral obligation. … She must have a choice, and I’m sure she will choose you.”
Cyrano takes place in a more spiritual age, and references to faith are many and mixed.
Our titular character is a man of deep faith—though, as we’re told, his “faith is Roxanne.” As for Christian faith, Cyrano’s devotion seems less pronounced and perhaps nonexistent. A lot of it seems to be related to his stature: During a duel he makes numerous jabs at God, too. He tells his opponent, “I’m living proof that God has a sick sense of humor.” He wonders, “What had God been smoking.” He adds that we shouldn’t be “so tough on God. Everyone makes mistakes.” (He also says Halloween is obviously his favorite holiday, suggesting that it’s the one time of year when he “fits right in.”)
But Cyrano can be moved by spirituality at times, too. In a church, he looks at the brightness cascading down from a window and says, “They say that light is the hole in a holy space. It is designed to be enough; enough beauty to—to just let go.” A nun worries over Cyrano’s soul. (Another nun tells her to stop trying to convert him. “I’m sure the Lord has a plan for him,” she says.) When Cyrano tells the nun that he’ll let her pray for him tonight, the nun retorts, “I have not waited for your permission.”
France is at war during the events of Cyrano, and we see soldiers writing letters to loved ones before a suicide mission. In song, they grapple with death and the hereafter: One older soldier says, “Tell my boys, the Lord, he found me.” Another ponders his father, who worries that he’s going to hell: “He wasn’t one of God’s best men, but I loved him anyway,” adding that he’s going to pave a way for his father in the afterlife—wherever that afterlife might be. “Tell him I can’t wait to see him.” The chorus of the song is simple: “Tell ’em not to cry at all. Heaven is wherever I fall.”
Baron de Guiche, ultimately, gets tired of waiting for Roxanne to commit to him. He sends a priest to her house and says via letter that he’ll follow soon behind. If she keeps the priest there, the two will marry. If not—well, we’ll get into that in the section below.
[Spoiler Warning] Roxanne does neither: instead she lies about the letter and says de Guiche sent the priest to Roxanne so she can marry Christian: She does, obviously, but before Roxanne and Christian even have a chance to sit down and enjoy a couple of minutes of wedded bliss, a furious de Guiche barges in and sends Christian off to the front. And when he pens an order to send Christian and Cyrano’s regiment into a suicidal situation, he engages in a bit of Pilate-like hand-washing: “We’ll let God decide the rest,” he says.
There’s a reference to the Roman demigod Hercules. There are also passing references to both Goliath and Samson. Cyrano says that Roxanne was “practically worshiped” in their hometown.
The romance here, at least superficially, is quite chivalrous and rather chaste. Much is made of Roxanne granting a kiss for her beloved, Christian. And while we see that kiss (and a couple of others), their relationship progresses no further physically.
But the letters … those are another matter.
We don’t hear what’s in most of them. And even if we did, chances are they’d simply be filled with the most romantic of thoughts. But they inflame Roxanne, and when she reads them, the film captures a certain raw eroticism on screen. She grabs the edge of a bed as she reads. She runs the paper across her chest. She sighs, eyes half closed.
We see her in some fairly modest undergarments (it was the age of the bustier and corset), and some of her dresses don’t just reveal cleavage; they augment and flaunt it. (We see the same sort of period wear on other women, as well.) Cyrano mentions that when Roxanne and he were growing up in their shared village, Roxanne was considered “notorious” by some, though he does not elaborate whether that notoriety was for sexual reasons or not. He also makes a seemingly suggestive reference that he’s not small in all ways—though that, too goes past without additional elaboration. Couples kiss.
Valvert, de Guiche’s friend, is rather effeminate. When Roxanne suggests that Valvert should’ve perhaps worn a dress that de Guiche gave her, Valvert quips that he tried it on but the bust was all wrong. (Most noblemen wear makeup, too, as was the style of the day.) Some dance numbers can feel sensual and intimate, and a number of songs speak about longing and desire. Roxanne refuses to wear a dress de Guiche gives her because “red is vulgar, and it reeks of lechery.”
As mentioned, de Guiche sends a priest to Roxanne in the hope that the two will be married that evening. But …
… The letter sent along with the priest is littered with veiled sexual threats: “I can no longer wait for you to enjoy your treasures,” he writes. And if she sends the priest away, he warns, “We shall consummate our love without the bonds of vows … either way, I will possess you tonight.” (In the end, though, he does not, and calls her a “slut”.)
Cyrano fights a duel with Valvert, which he wins without bloodshed. But when Valvert tries to run Cyrano through when he’s not looking, Cyrano thrusts his own sword into the man—jutting out through the back. Though the blood seeping through Valvert’s clothes is relatively sparse, Valvert expires in Cyrano’s arms.
Later that night, assassins are sent to kill Cyrano. He fights them all and wins, killing many or most of them with his blade or by throwing them off a ledge. During the battle, he’s lassoed around the neck and hoisted up to the level above, but obviously he escapes. He’s wounded in the melee: The next morning, Cyrano and Roxanne argue over whether it’s a wound, a cut, or a scratch before Roxanne bandages the injury tenderly. (The conversation is revisited later in the film, when Cyrano’s suffering from another wound.)
On the front, we see people shot, with some dying while others survive. Dead bodies can be seen on a hillside. A letter or two sent to Roxanne bear blood stains. Someone collapses in a street.
We hear a couple of mild profanities (“d–n” and “h—“), along with three misuses of God’s name.
A few people casually drink, and there’s mention of a drinking song.
Obviously, the movie’s entire premise is based on a lie: Cyrano writes letters to Roxanne, pretending they’re written by Christian. Both Cyrano and Christian go to significant lengths to keep up the ruse. When Roxanne demands to speak to Christian, for instance, Cyrano stands in the shadow and feeds Christian his lines—until finally, he takes over the conversation himself, still in hiding.
Cyrano brings Roxanne weekly news blasts. One of his joking news briefs features a “tiny little dog who had to be given a very large enema.” People insult Cyrano, sometimes using derogatory slurs. The subject of Cyrano’s pride comes up.
The story of Cyrano de Bergerac first saw light in 1897, courtesy playwright Edmond Rostand. It is said that after its first performance, the audience was still applauding an hour later.
Traditionally, Cyrano’s social standing is hampered by an obnoxiously big nose. But whether Cyrano’s problem is too much nose or too little height, the poignancy of the story still rings true. As much as we may tell ourselves that looks don’t matter, Cyrano knows different. And in an age of airbrushed Instagram photos, this century-old story feels curiously timely.
Cyrano, a musical take on the tale (based on a 2018 stage musical) is a top-notch addition to the de Bergerac canon. Sweet and sad, powerful and poignant, it was nominated for one Oscar (for best costume design) and, in my opinion, should’ve gotten more. And even though star Peter Dinklage (whose most familiar role would be Tyrion in HBO’s Game of Thrones) can’t really sing, his acting more than makes up for it.
The film holds pretty true to the original play (though it does take some liberties here and there), and it embraces much of the period’s ethos. Sure, this is a love story—a romance that embraces (if you will) both purity and passion. But the passion we see and hear takes place between the pages of letters, not between the sheets. Here, a love affair is sealed with a kiss, not a carnal canoodle.
Would-be viewers should be aware that while technically chaste, Cyrano drills into the story’s underlining passion with sometimes blushing effectiveness. Rarely have I seen a film where just reading your mail could feel quite so steamy. Anyone watching will need to navigate some mixed spiritual elements as well, and deal with a bit of violence. And, of course, there’s the ethical question whether this love story should’ve happened at all, morally speaking. As any married couple could tell you, nothing ruins relationships quite so effectively as lies. And to build a relationship on a lie—well, that seems inherently problematic.
But Cyrano acknowledges that truth, too. More importantly, Cyrano acknowledges the power of love itself—not sexual attraction or childhood infatuation masquerading as such. What Cyrano feels for Roxanne is true and, in its own messy way, beautiful. It seems to touch on what Paul wrote so poignantly about in Romans—how love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Cyrano, the character, might not be a particularly ethical fellow. But he understood love better than many, and the sacrifices that we make for it. And if you can only understand one thing in this life, that’s not a bad thing to understand.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
