Rating: 
Summary: A Classic Romantic Tragedy
Review: Director Jean-Paul Rappeneau and cowriter Jean-Claude Carriere present this excellent adaptation of Edmon Rostand's tragic play. Everything in this film was well done: great direction, excellent cinematography, beautiful scenery, and an excellent performance by the entire cast.
This romantic tragedy is set in early-mid 17th century France during the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV: the same time period as Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers. Cyrano de Bergerac (Gerard Depardieu) is a musketeer in the regiment of Gascogne. A courageous champion of justice, Cyrano possesses all of the noble qualities the human spirit could be endowed with: courage, strength, prowess, sensibility, a great mind and wit. Despite all of these great qualities, Cyrano's main weakness is his own distorted self-perception regarding his oversized nose. Madly in love with his cousin Roxanne (Anne Brochet) but being too afraid of the rejection his nose might bring, Cyrano's loses his courage everytime he's approached by her. Cyrano's frustrated love soon finds a window when Roxanne tells him about her love for a new cadet in his regiment: Christian De Neuvillette (Vincent Perez), a brave,young, and devilishly handsome musketeer. As much as Cyrano fears the effect of his oversized nose, Christian fears strong-minded women like Roxanne due to his unfortunate lack of wit. An exchange takes place as each man provides the qualities the other lacks to conquer Roxanne: Cyrano becomes Christian's mind, voice and pen, while Christian becomes Cyrano's missing looks. After Christian serenades her with Cyrano's words, Roxanne falls madly in love and is weary to see him go off to war. Outside of this triangle, the powerful Comte de Guiche (Jacques Weber) wants Roxanne for himself and will use all of his royal connections to get her: will he succeed? How long with this masquerade last? Will Roxanne ever find out about the clever deception she's been subjected to?
The story is a romantic-tragedy in which Cyrano is our tragic hero. As with the original play, the dialogue in the film is set in verse: the language is therefore poetic and very rich. This is a light tragedy in which Cyrano, is an archetype to the likes of Don Quixote as opposed to a real tragic character such as Romeo or Oedipus. The story has various themes about human nature and life as an experience; how we're often our own worst enemy and critiques.
Gerard Depardieu gives the finest performance of his career as Cyrano de Bergerac; his performance is truly one of the best renditions of the love-struck tragic hero. The language is faithful to the play and rich in meaning. The costumes and settings for the film are equally lavish and splendid. This is truly a film meant to be in one's collection.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment in long-awaited release.
Review: I'd been waiting years for this to be released on DVD, it's a fabulous movie, my absolute favorite adaptation of the original play - however, MGM messed up. This edition is a matted letterbox, which means that it's actually a 4:3 TV image with the full image reduced to fit on the screen of a traditional TV screen and has black mattes on the top and bottom. However, it should have been presented in anamorphic widescreen - which gives the same presentation on a 4:3 TV but also fits a widescreen television set. As it is, it will not display properly on a widescreen tv - the image is either stretched out (so that everyone and everything is flat) or is enlarged beyond the border of the tv screen - thus cutting off the subtitles! My wide television has 6 separate display formats but I cannot format a full image on my screen that is not warped or severely cropped. Extremely disappointing. I'm hoping for a new true anamorphic widescreen edition to be released eventually, but at least I have the film for now.
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