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Cyrano De Bergerac (Silent) (1925)
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Edmond Rostand's Cyrano De Bergerac was a triumph from the moment of its premiere on December 28, 1897.It has become the most popular play of the modern French theater, and Cyrano, despite an ugly visage dominated by an enormous nose, has become a world-beloved symbol of generosity, magnanimity of spirit and beauty of soul.
The wonderful Cyrano of this film, Pierre Magnier, understudied Coquelin in the original stage production.He toured with Coquelin and Sarah Bernhardt in 1900, playing Laertes to her Hamlet.Magnier frequently performed Cyrano following Coquelin's death in 1909 and remained active on stage and in films for another forty years, being best remembered today as the General in Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game (1939).
In adapting Cyrano De Bergerac to the silent cinema, director Augusto Genina and scenarist Mario Camerini faced the contradictory task of "opening up" the play to take advantage of its spectacular 17th-century settings and its possibilities for action; while at the same time retaining as much as possible the beloved poetic language of Rostand's original work.The dialogue appears on screen in intertitles - more of them than is usual, but what glorious words!The grandeur of costume, setting and action is captured not only in impressive staging and sensitive performances but also through the filmmakers' bold decision to present almost the entire work in the highly stylized and beautiful Pathe Stencil Color process.
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