Film Review: Cyrano DeBergerac

In the film Cyrano deBergerac, many of the characters appear or are perceived differently than they are. Cyrano's appearance keeps people, including Cyrano, from seeing the beauty in his words and Christian's physical appearance is better than Cyrano's however he is not nearly as good with words.

Cyrano is worried about his appearance throughout the film and it causes him to do things differently than he would have if he looked differently. In the beginning of the film a man insults his nose and Cyrano fights him because of it. Despite Cyrano's excellent abilities with a sword and his ability to write very well he is noticed much more for the size of his nose and he is very upset about that. Cyrano loves Roxanne, but he refuses to tell her of his love because he is afraid she will reject him because of his looks. Instead he agrees to help Christian with his writing, so he can fulfill Cyrano's goal of getting Roxanne to love him. At the end of the film Cyrano learns that Roxanne is in love with the words which she believes Christian wrote more than she is in love with Christian and she tells Cyrano that she would love Christian because of his words even if he were ugly. Cyrano is happy to hear this because he believes it means that she would love him since the words are actually his. Cyrano tells Roxanne "My life's work has been to prompt others and be forgotten. Remember that night when Christian came to your balcony? That moment sums up my life. While I was below in the shadows, others climbed up to kiss the sweet rose" (Act 5). This is when Cyrano finally realizes that he can be loved and that his words beauty makes up for his physical features.

Christian's beauty is not enough for him to win Roxanne's heart so he asks Cyrano for help. Cyrano writes letters for Christian to give Roxanne and she thinks they are his words. Roxanne falls in love with Cyrano's words, though she thinks they are Christian's. This causes many problems as Cyrano actually loves Roxanne though he does not tell her. Christian believes that he will be able to tell Roxanne that the words are Cyrano's and she will still love him for his looks. However, Cyrano learns from Roxanne that she cares more about the words than about the looks of her love.

The way the characters are perceived in the film is the reason for many of their problems. Because of their perceptions they believe things about each other and themselves that are not true and make important decisions with that information.