Triumph by miscast : Depardieu's style.

In 1990, Jean-Paul Rappeneau switched from comedies with beautiful ladies to fat budgets with fatter men : « Cyrano de Bergerac » with Gérard Depardieu. Billy Wilder was right : « Nobody’s perfect ».

Gérard Depardieu’s nose is big, but not so big that he could play the part without a prosthesis. So why choose him ?

Despite his nose, Cyrano is all levity : a swashbuckling swordsman always leaping and bouncing. The original Cyrano was so light that he wrote about « his travel to the moon » : can you envision a Depardieu take off ?

In their own time, Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power would have fit the part -nose aside-. Imagine Depardieu as Robin Hood or Zorro, and pray it will not happen. Kevin Costner and his beer belly were bad enough.

A younger Belmondo would have been a decent choice, too. His nose is not huge, but badly broken ; he can claim to be a modern day Cyrano with a happy twist : his very un-leading-man looks became the face of the New Wave, he forced them down the throat of resisting producers, played them for thirty years to packed movie theaters and into the bed of his sexier screen partners.

To be moving, Rostand’s tale of unattractive lover who lends his soul to his dumb and beautiful rival must be acted as the comedy it is.

Alas. Depardieu mistakes « Sturm und Drang » for panache. He looks at his nose, then his navel, and pities himself ; the more he takes himself tragically, the less we feel for him.

His miscast was richly rewarded : Depardieu won the Cesar for best actor ; the movie received eight additional nods : best film, director, and a wagonload of technical awards.

Depardieu plays in so many films, how could he steer clear of miscasts ?

One year after « Cyrano de Bergerac », he is Marin Marais, a « viole de gambe » player and composer in Alain Corneau’s « Tous les matins du monde », as film interlaces the lives of Marais and older master, M. de Sainte Colombe.

Depardieu has a big nose and bigger hands. Fancy his fingers delicately tweaking his musical instrument.

Result would be fun, if the film shortcomings did not extend far beyond two miscast hands. Movie is Artfilm light, Miramax style : a bad director’s garden salad with Art dressing. Proof is not in the pudding, but in the recipe.

Film is about artists, so must be art. Script and dialogues are by exquisite writer Pascal Quignard, an aristocratic delight to the enlightened, hopelessly obscure to the masses : how could this not be art ? Film is a 17th century period piece with no car chase, its characters wear otherwordly costumes and wigs. Film boasts candle-lit indoor scenes and mist hovering above the countryside at dawn. Pace is slow. There is boring music directed by baroque guru Jordi Savall. The characters do not smile, much less laugh. Their solemn faces inform us that their speech is profound.

Depardieu’s presence adds weight to an already ponderous mix ; with him, weight matters : it means seriousness, which means « gravitas », which means you’d better pay attention and take notes when he speaks.

« Tous les matins du monde » is art, no doubt : like a McDonald’s « Happy Meal » is organic food.

Absolute failure was a huge success : France went « gaga » for « viole de gambe ». Film received seven Césars : best film and director, plus the usual suspects of costume and production design, music, sound and editing .

Plus, amazingly, a deserved one. In « Cyrano de Bergerac » and « Tous les matins du monde », a young actress with delicate, pale skin and mischievous eyes, provided welcome esthetic relief. Anne Brochet received the best supporting actress César for the latter film. Her film career has since gone nowhere. Good casting does not always pay off.