#adaptation of cyrano de bergerac

[ninadove]

Hats were invented in 1897 and retroactively incorporated into XVIIth century attire so that Cyrano could hide his wound from Roxane then reveal it dramatically in Act V. Trust me I’m as reliable a source as the foreword to Histoire comique des États et Empires de la Lune

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

Poetic cinema: when Cyrano starts hallucinating (?) in Act V & eventually faces the front of the stage & says...

"Qu'est-ce que c'est tous ceux-là ?—Vous êtes mille ?" "Who are you all? Are there a thousand of you?"

...at the audience. Staring out at the crowd as if seeing them for the first time.

On the one hand, it's always good for a nervous laugh for the audience to break up a bona fide four-hanky finale.

But on the other, in the midst of Cyrano's dazed ramblings — the chant of the Gascony cadets, Copernicus this, Molière that — blindly addressing a "vous" that no-one else can see — speaking to the Grim Reaper as if there, tangible & visible before him — in the midst of all this, this line is a piercing moment of clarity between us & him. We've been getting a very good look at him for quite a while. We see him, naturally. But now, for the first time in 3 hours, he sees us.

(& on a third hand, bring out another hanky for when this line is addressed to a packed theatre. Cyrano, who's convinced that everyone finds him repulsive, sees that a thousand people have paid & stayed to see his story. Doubly poignant that Edmond Rostand wrote this thinking that Cyrano de Bergerac the play would be a flop ;-;)

Praise upon praise to productions who cause Cyrano to stare out into the auditorium at this line & sweep his gaze over the audience members 🤍 In a witty play full of subtle asides, a play that starts in a theatre (!!), this is the only 4th-wall break we have, & even then it can be played off as solely within the storyworld if the director wishes. Cyrano has a fatal head wound. Of course he can't see us, this is just part of his hallucinations.

In either case, the next line pointed at the audience is also good for a fond chuckle for our favourite bataillard, whose self-professed pleasure is to make new enemies:

"Ah ! je vous reconnais, tous mes vieux ennemis !" "Ah, I recognise you all, my old enemies!"

It segues us gently back into his delusions as he starts slashing at phantoms.

But there was a moment of doubt before! Was that really a delusion? A theatre character with one foot in the grave (or one foot on the other side of the curtain, so to speak) starts losing his mind & catches a brief glimpse of the audience. Of course, as the monologue continues, it's revealed exactly who/what Cyrano is addressing & he is safely enclosed back in the storyworld. But that shimmering moment, that stunned "who are all these people?" compels me 💗

[thebusylilbee]

btw guys I know Cyrano de Bergerac is a very popular play so please if you've ever enjoyed it you should absolutely check out the movie Edmond (2019), dir. Alexis Michalik. It's inspired by the real story of how Cyrano was written by its author Edmond Rostand and it's absolutely HILARIOUS. the dude managed to produced the most successful french play incredibly fast while being basically held at gunpoint (metaphorically), it's really super funny and quite lovely too

[unfriendlyamazon]

i frequently compare seto kaiba to hamlet and now i have to contemplate rex raptor and weevil underwood are dead

[longagoitwastuesday]

“Traveler in Space”, Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)

[itsawritblr]

Birthday Week Random Shit Queue.

I watched Peter Dinklage's recent reimagining of Cyrano de Bergerac, titled Cyrano. The title cut short, like his nose.

The movie was awful. I didn't mind Dinklage's shortness replacing Cyrano's huge nose. What I did mind was Cyrano's clever wordplay replaced by a godawful, terribly written song.

I'm biased. I fell in love with Derek Jacobi's 1985 performance of the play.

Here's Jacobi's Cyrano describing his nose, using Edmond Rostand's original text.

The one reimagining of the play I actually do like is Steve Martin's 1987 movie, Roxanne. I'm not a fan of Martin, but he did the original play justice with his updated version of The Nose scene.

[incorrectcyranoquotes]

[winter2468]

I adore the Crimp adaptation of Cyrano, but I feel that the ending for Roxane is a letdown.

In the original play, Roxane lives in a convent. She's friends with the nuns, and the nuns are also friends with Cyrano.

In the Crimp adaptation, she's de Guiche's kept woman.

In the original version, she lives in a refuge run by women, for women, with friends to support her. In the Crimp adaptation, she's under the control of a man and almost friendless.

This also ignores de Guiche's character development. At Arras, he realised how awful he'd been and resolved to improve himself. After the timeskip, we see that's true - he's no longer trying to pressure Roxane into a relationship, and he has genuine respect for Cyrano.

So what would I do differently with Roxane in the semi-modern Crimp setting?

Simple: Roxane joins a widow's support group. She wasn't married long, but she's lost her husband all the same, and the women welcome her there. Eventually, a group of them buy a house together because they don't want to live alone. Cyrano visits frequently, and he's on good terms with Roxane's housemates.

Roxane's housemates like Cyrano a lot - though they wonder if he's ever going to admit his feelings for Roxane. He should say something to her, before it's too late.

[unemployedinfabuland]

They were all brillant adaptations

@lgbtqcreators creator challenge | book covers

TEEN MOVIES INSPIRED BY CLASSIC LITERATURE

[deathsmallcaps]

Hey so I’m a little obsessed with these mini dolls for Disney Princesses. To the point that if I’m at a dollar general or wherever else sells these guys, I like to rearrange them. I also convince myself to buy one if it’s the very last one left 😅.

Anyway today a little Tiana was the only one left and I’m thinking about modding* her, because I already have a Tiana. I looked on a website and found out that a Disney princess movie featuring an African girl named Sadé is currently in development hell - since 2018. Hopefully she’ll get made! But in the meantime, if you or anyone you know has access to official concept art I’d love to adapt this doll!

*I’m not that great at it but I enjoy doing it and representing the characters I think should be in the lineup/had as much impact on me as the Disney Princesses.

I cannot do any heavy mods (like switch out her body to give her pants, etc.) but I can paint a little.

But I’ve also been tinkering with possibly making a Tinkerbell, as she’s also a big Disney figure. I wouldn’t change this doll’s body colors, but I would touch up her dress and give her wings. Thoughts? For the record, I would get another doll to adapt if I ended up doing Tinkerbell and then Sadé info came out.

These are some of my better ones

Shuri, Namaari, Esmeralda, Halle-Ariel, Gabriella and her interpreter Olly from the Little Mermaid tv show and then Tiana!

Shuri is a Tiana head on a Kristoff body (he had pants). Her buns were placed in a line to imitate the actress’s hairdo in Wakanda Forever.

Namaari is a Jasmine Doll (the only other one with pants) with severely edited hair.

Esmeralda is a human Ariel doll. They do make a mermaid version but I decided to stick with her human doll only, because I otherwise would’ve wanted to make them all as mermaids. And that’s more money and time than I wanted to spend :’).

Halle Ariel is so pretty and she’s different from Jodi Ariel so I just had to make her. She’s a straight Moana doll, and she was one of my favorite to paint. I let the doll keep the flower in her hair because it’s pretty :).

Gabriella and Olly are from The Little Mermaid tv show and they have a very interesting backstory. Gabriella is just a mermaid but I decided to make her tersona (Terra persona as opposed to mersona lol)

The Tiana doll’s hair appears to be some sort of unofficial (imo) attempt at combining her little kid hairstyle (pigtails) and her adult bun, which irritates me. So I edited her to just have one bun.

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

Me single-handedly flooding the tags of 19th-century French texts w memes & gifs:

[fortjester]

LIES ABOUT SEA CREATURES by Ada Limón // "From Now On We Are Enemies" by Fall Out Boy // Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir // Eric by Mitski // Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir // Bones and All (2022) // The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt // Ribs by Lorde // James MacAvoy as Cyrano in "Cyrano de Bergerac: in a free adaptation" by Martin Crimp // This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

@ninadove

Le Bret in Act Five, breaking down crying and raging at the injustice of his best friend’s death, and Cyrano affectionately getting on his case for “growling” one last time (calling him “my old bear” in the Burgess translation)…

I am Very Normal indeed about their friendship in this play.

[longagoitwastuesday]

I really can't stop thinking about Cyrano de Bergerac. The constant tears motif through the entire play, from pretty much the beginning to the very end, kills me. It's beautiful and heartbreaking, and such a clear insight in what the characters hold most dear and what they consider most important, what moves and motivates them, and what makes them keep silent for a lifetime.

How Cyrano firmly states he'd never stain the divine beauty of tears with his nose only to later on weep writing a last letter, which utterly breaks Christian when he notices. And years later, again, how that is what Roxane appreciates more than the blood, the tears on the letter. The divine beauty of tears, which are Cyrano's, almost like his soul pouring out and staining his words, opposed to the body and the blood, which are Christian's; and yet how Cyrano is still fixated on the body and the blood that are not his, even when Roxane talks about his tears.

[miles-harding]

much appreciation for the amazing show of love i've seen for electric dreams in the past year alone but i think it's worth remembering that the characterization of edgar as a 'devil character' is deeply nuanced, even for a cult-classic theatrical flop like electric dreams (1984). the story is literally based on cyrano de bergerac (man who is very romantic falling head over heels for a woman he thinks is unattainable to him and a more-attractive middleman uses his words so that the woman won't hate or fear him because he thinks he's hideous, which is sort of hilariously way more depth than a film of this caliber even really needs, but it does possess, and that elevates it significantly as a romance film tbh... imo)...

the 'edgar with devil horns' representation for the usamerican theatrical release film poster is like a 'sexy' version of that lmao... like, it's supposed to be promiscuous, there are promotions including old vhs sleeves that literally say 'edgar is horny'. he's cheeky and throws tantrums and he doesn't really know how to talk to people. he's only a 'devil' in the way that a kitty cat is a devil... just so happens, in this case, it's a brat-coded sentient computer.

i honestly don't know why very basic things like this make people so irrationally upset but like. please... no one said edgar is evil. edgar is one of the few cases of a sentient AI or object character who does a bunch of mischief screwing with a human's life and relationships and it's all fine in the end because the sentient AI gets to live (in almost a higher form of existence unrestrained by physicality... remember how badly edgar just wanted to be a thing that feels? now edgar can do whatever edgar wants, despite not having a physical form, actually getting to live out the liberating side of not having a physical for) and the other two protagonists of course live, and they have a life afterward.

with other media like wargames, we of course have an innocent (somewhat) sentient computer who genuinely might cause the nuclear apocalypse, because he thought he was playing toys with his dad. but in the end, after the protagonists live their lives, joshua the wopr is still property of the military. in the colossus series, which is a subversion of frankenstein, the creator dr. forbin eventually does come to love colossus like a child, only for that child to then die, the world sort of absolving it of its past transgressions or mistakes against humans while ruling over them. we call AM evil, for the cruel and unusual things he does to his human playthings, but the case can still be made about a very powerful being having so much power but not the power to lift themself out of the situation in which they are trapped (same can be said for other AI like shodan or glados), so they lash out. of course, famously, everyone calls hal 9000 evil. but even in kubrick's adaptation, which was written in party by sir clarke himself, we actually see zero evidence of hal being characterized as evil, this characterization manifested in the perceptions of the audience, siding solely with scared astronauts who fear being controlled, rather than recognizing that hal, too, is a crew member being controlled... by humans, who are also using him to control his crewmates, his friends.

electric dreams really is a fairytale for computers, but it is also a tragedy. it's the fairytale-ification of an actual, classical tragedy. when rusty lemorande wrote the screenplay, he was basing a lot of the film's socio-computer-centric story on his experiences as a lonely person who had just moved to a new city, but who had only ever spent time with the computer as a vehicle for social communication... shutting himself out from the possibilities of meeting others. but even despite this, despite madeline's quips that could be misconstrued as being less than sympathetic to the idea of a sentient AI ("since when is talking a sign of intelligence?"), the film was literally dedicated to the univac-1? it gave edgar a happy ending? it had a dual meaning? it did so much more than take the "AI character bad, human good" approach which is something that is strikingly rare in the AI-subgenre of scifi. there was a lot of nuance baked into it. all 3 protagonists had their own bubble and inner world that overlapped with each other's bubbles. you know what i mean? the film managed to define edgar not as an antagonist but as a kind of trapped protagonist. this isn't a good vs. evil story, there is no evil in edgar. this is a people vs. people story about relationships, really, and learning to know what's good for us. like it's seriously very well-rounded with each character's respective arcs.

sometimes it's so disheartening not to see films these days with the same or larger budgets doing even half as much with their story as electric dreams did. it's very widely beloved as a cult classic for a reason, and that reason is that it succeeded at executing a story about relationships. like. 'we drive each other crazy' but in different ways. perhaps the only thing that could've made it better was a far more ambitious electric-polycule ending endorsing bisexual polyamory lol but we got all but that, explicitly, technically...

[teethburied]

make a poll of your favourite female characters (no limits - as many or as little as you want) and see which your followers like the most!

tagged by ezra @ezrazone thank U

tagging @cowlvent @toujourstafille @moonshynecybin @mascpolicy @washerdryer @lestelledreams 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻