Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)

José Ferrer: Cyrano

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Vicomte de Valvert : Monsieur, your nose... your nose is rather large.

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Rather?

  Vicomte de Valvert : Oh, well...

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Is that all?

  Vicomte de Valvert : Well of course...

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Oh, no, young sir. You are too simple. Why, you might have said a great many things. Why waste your opportunity? For example, thus: AGGRESSIVE: I, sir, if that nose were mine, I'd have it amputated on the spot. PRACTICAL: How do you drink with such a nose? You must have had a cup made especially. DESCRIPTIVE: 'Tis a rock, a crag, a cape! A cape? Say rather, a peninsula! INQUISITIVE: What is that receptacle? A razor case or a portfolio? KINDLY: Ah, do you love the little birds so much that when they come to see you, you give them this to perch on. CAUTIOUS: Take care! A weight like that might make you top-heavy. ELOQUENT: When it blows, the typhoon howls, and the clouds darken! DRAMATIC: When it bleeds, the Red Sea. SIMPLE: When do they unveil the monument? MILITARY: Beware, a secret weapon. ENTERPRISING: What a sign for some perfumer! RESPECTFUL: Sir, I recognize in you a man of parts. A man of... prominence! Or, LITERARY: Was this the nose that launched a thousand ships? These, my dear sir, are things you might have said, had you some tinge of letters or of wit to color your discourse. But wit? Not so, you never had an atom. And of letters, you need but three to write you down: A, S, S. Ass!

  Vicomte de Valvert : Insolent puppy, dolt, bunpkin, fool!

  Cyrano de Bergerac : How do you do? And I, Cyrano Savinien Hercule de Bergerac.

  Antoine Comte de Guiche : Vicomte, come.

  Vicomte de Valvert : Such arrogance, this scarecrow. Look at him! No ribbons, no lace, not even gloves!

  Cyrano de Bergerac : True! I carry my adornments only on my soul, decked with deeds instead of ribbons. Manful in my good name, and crowned with the white plume of freedom.

  Vicomte de Valvert : But...

  Cyrano de Bergerac : But, I have no gloves. A pity too. I had one - the last of an old pair - and lost that. Very careless of me. A gentleman offered me an impertinence. I left it - in his face.

  Vicomte de Valvert : [Drawing his rapier]  So be it!

  Cyrano de Bergerac : You shall die exquisitely!

  Vicomte de Valvert : Oh, a poet?

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Oh, yes, a poet. So, while we fight, I'll improvise a ballade for you, and as I end the refrain, thrust home.

  Vicomte de Valvert : Will you?

  Cyrano de Bergerac : I will. Ballade of the duel at the Theatre of the Burgoyne, between de Bergerac and... a barbarian.

  Vicomte de Valvert : What do you mean by that?

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Oh, that? The title.

• Cyrano de Bergerac : What would you have me do? Seek for the patronage of some great man and like a creeping vine on a tall tree, crawl upward where I cannot stand alone? No thank you! Be a buffoon in the vile hope of teasing out a smile on some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad for breakfast each morning? Make my knees callous? Cultivate a supple spine? Wear out my belly groveling in the dust? No thank you! With my left hand, scratch the back of any swine that roots up gold for me, while my right, too proud to know his partner's business, takes in the fee? No thank you! Shall I use the fire God gave me, to burn incense all day long? No, thank you! Struggle to insinuate my name into the columns of the Gazette? Calculate, scheme, be afraid? Love more to make a visit than a poem? Seek introductions, favors, influences? No, thank you! No, I thank you and again, I thank you!

• Montfleury : Sir, I will not allow you to insult me in this manner.

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Really? In what manner would you prefer?

• [first lines] 

  Montfleury : Thrice happy he who hides from pomp and power/ In sylvan shade or or solitary bower/ Where balmy zephyrs fan his burning cheeks...

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Clown! King of Clowns! Leave the stage at once!

• [last lines] 

  Cyrano de Bergerac : All my laurels you have riven away... and my roses; yet in spite of you there is one crown I bear away with me. And tonight, when I enter before God, my salute shall sweep away all the stars from the blue threshold! One thing without stain, unspotted from the world in spite of doom mine own

  [he raises his hand high] 

  Cyrano de Bergerac : and that is... my white plume.

• Vicomte de Valvert : [to Cyrano]  Dolt! Insolent puppy! Jabbernowl!

  Cyrano de Bergerac : [bowing, sarcastically]  How do you do? And I - Cyrano Savinien Hercule de Bergerac!

• Cyrano de Bergerac : Very well, let the old fellow come now. He shall find me on my feet sword in hand.

  Roxane : Cyrano!

  Le Bret : He's delirious.

  Cyrano de Bergerac : I can see him now - he grins. He is looking at my nose, that skeleton. You there - who are you? A hundred against one, eh? I know them now, my ancient enemies...

  [Cyrano thrusts his sword at the empty air] 

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Falsehood! There! There! Prejudice! Compromise! Cowardice! What's that? Surrender? No! Never! Never!

  [He slashes his sword wildly] 

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Ah, you too, Vanity? I knew you would overthrow me in the end. No! I fight on! I fight on! I fight on!

• Antoine Comte de Guiche : As for you sir, have you read "Don Quixote"?

  Cyrano de Bergerac : I have, and found myself the hero.

  Antoine Comte de Guiche : Be so good as to read once more the chapter of the windmills...

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Chapter thirteen!

  Antoine Comte de Guiche : Windmills, remember, if you fight with them... may swing round their huge arms and cast you down into the mire!

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Or up, among the stars!

• Cyrano de Bergerac : Watching other people making friends, everywhere, as a dog makes friends. I mark the manner of these canine courtesies and think, here comes, thank Heaven, another enemy!

• Le Bret : [Earlier, Cyrano had arranged to meet Roxanne at Ragueneau's, tomorrow at 7. Now he promises to escort Ragueneau home & protect him from armed ruffians hired by the Comte de Guiche]  Why are you risking your life for this pastry cook?

  Cyrano de Bergerac : First, because this pastry cook is a friend of mine. Second, because this pastry cook is also a poet. And most important, if anything should happen to this pastry cook, tomorrow morning at 7, his shop will be closed.

• Christian de Neuvillette : [Cyrano is coaching Christian, and Christian is reciting badly what Cyrano has written]  "Thus do I love thee."

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Idiot! There are a dozen ways to read that line - "*Thus* do I love thee"; "Thus do *I* love thee", "Thus do I love *thee*! *thee*! *thee*!"

• Duenna : [Cyrano is trying to talk to Roxanne in private, when her Duenna enters]  I have eaten the cakes, Monsieur de Bergerac.

  Cyrano de Bergerac : [pushing her out the door]  Good. Now go out and enjoy Nature.

• Cyrano de Bergerac : Think of me./ Me whom the plainest woman would despise./ Me with this nose of mine that marches on/ Before me by a quarter of an hour./Whom should I love? Why of course it must be/ The woman in the world most beautiful.

  Le Bret : Most beautiful?

  Cyrano de Bergerac : In these eyes of mine, beyond compare.

  Le Bret : Wait! Your cousin - Roxane!

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Yes. Roxane.

• Le Bret : Look at me, twenty years a captain, while others, who know only how to deploy their forces at court, now dangle a marshal's baton.

  Cyrano de Bergerac : [smiling]  Hmm... , well, someday I will avenge you too.

• Cyrano de Bergerac : But to sing, to laugh to dream To walk in my own way, free, with an eye to see things as they are. A voice that means manhood. To cock my hat where I choose. At a word... a yes, a no. To fight, or write... but never to make a line I have not heard in my own heart. To travel any road under the sun, under the stars. Nor care if fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne. Yet, with all modesty to say, my soul be satisfied with flowers, with weeds, with thorns, even... but gather them in the one garden you may call your own. You know well I am too proud to be a parasite. And if my intellect is not the germ that grows towering to Heaven like the mountain pine, I'd stand not high as may be... but alone.

• Cyrano de Bergerac : Whom I love? Think a moment. Think of me. Me, whom the plainest woman would despise. Me, with this nose of mine, that marches on before me by a quarter of an hour. Whom shall I love? Why, of course, it must be the woman in the world most beautiful.

  Le Bret : Most beautiful?

  Cyrano de Bergerac : In these eyes of mine, beyond compare.

  Le Bret : Wait, your cousin, Roxane.

  Cyrano de Bergerac : Yes, Roxane.

  Le Bret : Well, why not? If you love her, tell her so.

  Cyrano de Bergerac : My old friend, look at me and tell me how much hope remains for me with this protuberance? Well, I have no more illusions. Now and then, I may grow tender, walking alone in the blue cool of evening through some garden fresh with flowers after the benediction of the rain. My poor, big devil of a nose inhales April, and I follow with my eyes where some boy with a girl upon his arm, passes a patch of silver. And I feel somehow, I wish I had a woman too, walking with me under the moon and holding my arm and smiling. And then I dream and I forget. And then I see the shadow of my profile on the wall.

  Le Bret : My friend.

  Cyrano de Bergerac : My friend, I have my bitter days knowing myself so ugly, so alone.

  Le Bret : Ah, but your wit, your courage - why that poor child who just now offered you your dinner. You saw it. Her eyes did not avoid you.

  Cyrano de Bergerac : [In a state of awe and shock]  That is true.

• Cyrano de Bergerac : You may go. / Or tell me, why are you staring at my nose?

  The Meddler : No!

  Cyrano de Bergerac : It disgusts you, then? Does its color appear to you unwholesome? / Or its form obscene?

  The Meddler : But I've been careful not to look!

  Cyrano de Bergerac : And why not if you please? / Possibly you find it just a trifle large!

• Cyrano de Bergerac : [dueling with Valvert]  Prince, pray God that is Lord of all, Pardon your soul, for your time has come, Beat, pass! I fling you aslant, asprawl, Then as I end the refrain, thrust home!

• Cyrano de Bergerac : [referring to Montfleury]  Very well, then; I enter, with knife, to carve this fat stuffed goose!