Day 22: Film with Great Makeup and Hair
One of mine has to be “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1950), starring the
brilliant José Ferrer. For me, older Ferrer brings to mind Hajim Bey in Lean’s
“Lawrence of Arabia” and Shaddam IV in Lynch’s “Dune,” but I have to confess
that any younger, he will always be so inextricably inseparable from that
wonderful face/nose of Cyrano (and none the worse for it, it looks as good on
him as his own haha). This first film version gives this swashbuckling poet a
nose that is ’that marches on before me by a quarter of an hour,’ inches off
Ferrer’s handsome face but so natural, not ludicrous or distracting but
definitely unusual, humorous. And Ferrer wears it well, just like he wears the
whole role, giving Cyrano a romantic tragic air and a defiantly affirming
brightness, leaning on his own impressive stage background to give this
performance a truly majestic theatricality Xo
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