12 thoughts on “An Interview with Cyrano (2021) Costume Designer Massimo Cantini Parrini

  1. Both ophelia and Tale of Tales are on an amazon channel now with a 7-day free trial, which I just added to watch this weekend.

  2. Not impressed. Cyrano was a 17th-century person. I can surmise that the change might be because Peter Dinklage would have had a hard time handling a 17th-century rapier, but an 18th-century smallsword would be better for him. But all the natter about the costumes seems counter to the Frock Flicks standard for historical accuracy, or has that been abandoned altogether?

    1. The movie is obviously fantasy. Thus I have no problem with a small person Cyrano or a black Christian. Demanding historically accurate costumes seems foolish under these circumstances. A general 17th c. feel is good enough. As long as nobody is wearing jeans or a hoodie I’m happy.

      1. Thank you for that clarification (that it is a fantasy movie). I was taken aback with the century shift as well. :/

      2. I think it might be a bit misleading to call “Cyrano” a fantasy film (there are no Game of Thrones dragons here!), but it made me think of something the Frock Flick writers have been saying in their Snark Week posts: if a movie explicitly tells you it’s set in a certain time & place, and then the costumes don’t match up with the historical record, it’s way more snark-worthy than if the filmmakers left the setting a little ambiguous and went with a more flexible interpretation of history and costume. So while the play “Cyrano de Bergerac” is explicitly set in Paris in 1640, the movie never actually mentions the place or the year. It features actors speaking (and singing, and writing) in English, with vaguely French names, in a Mediterranean city, wearing 1700s styles, and it all worked for me because there was nothing in the script anymore to contradict those choices. Now, if the filmmakers had kept the references to a Parisian setting but still shot it in Sicily and done nothing to conceal the palm trees… THEN I would have been annoyed.

        1. Oh, Marissa….I love a well-written, cogent, and polite reply to criticism. Well done! (Plus, I agree with you!)

  3. What a lovely interview. Thank you so much for this. I always love hearing from the artists themselves. I already know this version will be very compelling.

  4. Absolutely gorgeous. That golden sandstone church that Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett are standing in front of looks an awful lot like the duomo in Syracuse, a stunning city everyone should visit! If so, another reason to see the film (even if reviews are rather mixed). I love that the costume designer took a fantastical, airy approach to 18th-century costume, which really fits well with the hot, sunny Sicilian aesthetic: the heavy French court clothes of the time would really have jarred with that setting.

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