Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac is a French guardsman, poet and swordsman whose skill with a blade and with words is admired across Gascony. He loves his cousin Roxane but cannot bring himself to tell her, held back by shame over his enormous nose. When Roxane confides that she is drawn to the handsome young Christian de Neuvillette, Cyrano offers the tongue-tied soldier his own eloquence, writing the letters and verses that win her heart while letting Christian take the credit. The arrangement becomes harder to sustain as the war with Spain pulls the men to the front, and the truth of who actually spoke those words remains concealed.

Jean-Paul Rappeneau directed the film, his third feature, working from a screenplay he wrote with Jean-Claude Carrière after his earlier comedies The Married Couple of the Year Two and Lovers Like Us. Gérard Depardieu leads as Cyrano, with Anne Brochet as Roxane, Vincent Perez as Christian, Jacques Weber as the Count of Guiche, Roland Bertin and Philippe Morier-Genoud among a credited cast of fifty. The production keeps the verse of Edmond Rostand's play, running 137 minutes across comedy, drama, history and romance.

Released in March 1990, the film took about 6 million dollars worldwide, a modest figure for a period costume production, though its reputation has grown since. On IMDb it holds a critics' rating of 7.9/10 from thirty reviews; on TMDB it stands at 7.3/10 from 850 votes. Rappeneau went on to make The Horseman on the Roof and Bon Voyage.