Cyrano et d'Artagnan (1964)
Directed by Abel Gance

Film Review

And so ends the illustrious filmmaking career of Abel Gance, one of France's most revered and influential cineastes. His third colour feature, Cyrano et d'Artagnan was among Gance's more ambitious productions, bringing together three great French literary works - Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, Alexandre Dumas's Les Trois Mousquetaires and Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme - into one flamboyant swashbuckling epic.  Gance did make one further film after this, the epic drama-documentary Bonaparte et la revolution (1971), but this was largely a re-edit of his earlier 1927 masterpiece Napoléon.

Whilst it is hard not to be impressed by the scale and sheer cinematographic beauty of Cyrano et d'Artagnan, it is a pretty taxing film, marred by its dull characterisation and leaden pacing. For a combination of budgetary and artistic reasons, Gance made use of foreign actors, including the American actor José Ferrer, who had previously played Cyrano de Bergerac in Michael Gordon's 1950 adaptation of Rostand's play (for which Ferrer won an Oscar).  Consequently, most of the dialogue is dubbed, rendering the film coldly static and artificial.  With lengthy dialogue exchanges and protracted action sequences, the film feels painfully slow in places, whilst some of Gance's attempts to inject some originality - such as some experimental use of the camera - backfire horribly.  When it was first released, the film was torn to pieces by the critics and was a commercial disaster for its director, effectively ending his career.  It may not be Abel Gance's best film, but Cyrano et d'Artagnan does have a certain charm, and it isn't such a bad parting shot from one of the most iconic film directors of the 20th century - a more than respectable companion piece to his previous historical romps Le Capitaine Fracasse (1943) and La Tour de Nesle (1955).

Film Synopsis

In 1642, France is in a state of political turmoil.  Louis XIII is the king in name only.  The real power lies with Cardinal Richelieu, whose battles with the Marquis de Cinq-Mars have resulted in a growing rift between  the king and his queen, Anne of Austria, threatening the peace of the nation.  On the road from his Gascogne to Paris, Cyrano de Bergerac meets D'Artagnan and they are struck by how much they have in common.  They are both 25, they come from the same region and they seek to make their fortune in Paris.  Inevitably, they soon become the best of friends, but their friendship will be put to the test once they reach Paris.  Cyrano de Bergerac puts himself at the service of the king, D'Artagnan allies himself with the queen.   Who better than these two emblems of French chivalry to thwart the dangerous political ambitions of Cinq-Mars and restore unity to a divided country?