Jean-Paul Rappeneau makes elaborate romances move with the speed of comedy, without treating their feelings as a joke. We value his warmth and precision, particularly in Cyrano de Bergerac, though he can keep pressing an emotion after it has registered.
Fi1m perspective
In Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Gérard Depardieu makes speaking for someone else look easy and admitting his own feelings almost impossible. Jean-Paul Rappeneau keeps the film busy without losing sight of that embarrassment. We were moved by Cyrano’s private hesitation, because Depardieu lets us see the fear beneath his public confidence. This is where we value Rappeneau most: he makes a grand romance feel worth taking seriously.
His taste for quick dialogue and physical commotion belongs to screwball comedy, adapted to French settings. He co-wrote Philippe de Broca’s That Man from Rio (1964) before directing his first feature, A Matter of Resistance (1966). Long gaps between projects went with extensive preparation and rewriting. The international recognition of Cyrano de Bergerac was followed by another literary adaptation, The Horseman on the Roof (1995), with Juliette Binoche. Bon Voyage (2003), co-written with Patrick Modiano and featuring Depardieu, continued his work in comedy-drama.
With Cyrano de Bergerac, that comic timing serves the romance particularly well. Rappeneau and co-screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière retain the verse and make it sound like something people need to say, rather than something they have learnt to recite. Editor Noëlle Boisson gives the performances room for their rhythms without allowing the surrounding bustle to interrupt them. Depardieu has time to be proud, ashamed and difficult, and the film never asks us to find all of it charming. Speech and movement work together; nobody has to stop the film to deliver the poetry.
The reservation is there in Cyrano de Bergerac too: Rappeneau occasionally keeps pressing a feeling after Depardieu’s face has made it plain. At 137 minutes, the film has passages that would benefit from less insistence. Still, its warmth is welcome, and the wit keeps the romance from becoming solemn. Start there, provided verse and declarations of love are pleasures rather than obstacles.
Biography
Jean-Paul Rappeneau was a French film director and screenwriter. Born in Auxerre in 1932, he began his career as an assistant and screenwriter, collaborating with Louis Malle on Zazie dans le métro (1960) and Vie privée (1961), and co-writing That Man from Rio (1964).
His directorial debut was A Matter of Resistance (1966). He went on to direct and write a series of films including The Married Couple of the Year Two (1971), Lovers Like Us (1975), All Fired Up (1982), The Horseman on the Roof (1995), Bon Voyage (2003) and Families (2015). Rappeneau wrote only for his own films from 1975 onwards.
He achieved international recognition with his 1990 adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Gérard Depardieu, which won him the César Awards for Best Director and Best Film, among ten Césars overall. The film was also nominated for five Academy Awards.
