CMU School of Drama


Monday, February 28, 2022

'Cyrano': How the film's costumes helped reinvent a classic tale

CNN Style: How do you give a visual makeover to a classic tale that's centered around appearances? That was the question facing award-winning costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini when he began work on the latest screen adaptation of Edmond Rostand's 1897 play "Cyrano de Bergerac," and he had 26 days to figure it out.

2 comments:

Jessica Williams said...

Ok this is going to sound weird but here I go. So a few years ago I saw a really bad movie called #Roxie. It was atrocious in almost all aspects but I now realize that it was an updated version of this play Cyrano and I can guarantee that this is going to be better. I have been getting ads for it for the past couple of weeks and it was not until the designer in the article mentioned the nose that it all came flooding back to me. Also, the fact that his original “disgusting” trait was having a big nose kind of sucks big time and I am really glad that they dropped it. Whenever somebody, especially somebody from around that time, implies or straight up says that a particular physical feature is disgusting or anything of the like, I immediately go on high alert because I know a really bad take is coming.

Philip Winter said...

The costumes in Cyrano where absolutely incredibly done, and the level of detail and thought that was put into each and every garment was absolutely genius. I have made numerous garments from the 1750s and the patterns and cut of the garments within the film is spot on. I also respect the technical choices they made that infringed on historical accuracy, like making all the military coats out of a natural linen instead of the correct broadcloth wool, because linen simply looks better when dancing. I also loved the overly exaugurated historic makeup outfits of the aristocracy as it only emphasizes the obscure styles of the time. While the garments aren’t necessarily historically correct, they are not pretending to be, instead its portraying clothing styles in a unified and cohesive stylized vision which I love. Almost like basing a time periods style of cartoon caricatures. It reminds me almost of films like “Emily in Paris” which while taking place in modern times is highly stylized and not necessarily an accurate portray of how the average person dresses, yet it shows a cohesive style within the show which is better than throwing an amalgamation of historic rental clothing together and calling it a day.