There’s a terrible trend in the visual and musical arts at the moment: the idea that beauty is an overrated, outdated concept. Better for an artwork to shock or disturb. Things don’t have to be beautiful to be art, they say: things don’t have to be beautiful to have an impact.
I condemn this idea. The achievement of beauty through art is not only a showcase of skill; it makes art worthwhile in the first place. What is the point in creating something which looks like a manifesto – or worse, a reactionary piece to somebody else’s – if nobody wants to look at it because you have made it ugly? Ugliness is not a mode of expression; it’s a statement of artistic quality.
The exception to this trend is in film. I put it down to the existence of Cinematography film awards, which force filmmakers to consider the aesthetic qualities of the production. And I have seen no film more beautiful than Cyrano.
Given its plot is so dependent upon aesthetic appreciation, it is no wonder that beauty is threaded into every piece of production on the film – the effect is utterly heart-stopping. Beauty is coded into every frame, the presentation of the actors, the songs they sing and the words they say. The handling of the theme of love is breathtakingly beautiful in itself and the ‘Every Letter’ scene is so palpably moving that I don’t watch it so much as feel it, feel it in every inch of my body. I find it hard to write about a film which had such an unstoppable effect on me, but it has seared me to the core in a way that no other film has.
Cyrano is a drastically under-appreciated film, and works as an irrefutable argument in favour of the importance of beauty.
The best films I have ever seen
Cyrano (2021)
There’s a terrible trend in the visual and musical arts at the moment: the idea that beauty is an overrated, outdated concept. Better for an artwork to shock or disturb. Things don’t have to be beautiful to be art, they say: things don’t have to be beautiful to have an impact.
I condemn this idea. The achievement of beauty through art is not only a showcase of skill; it makes art worthwhile in the first place. What is the point in creating something which looks like a manifesto – or worse, a reactionary piece to somebody else’s – if nobody wants to look at it because you have made it ugly? Ugliness is not a mode of expression; it’s a statement of artistic quality.
The exception to this trend is in film. I put it down to the existence of Cinematography film awards, which force filmmakers to consider the aesthetic qualities of the production. And I have seen no film more beautiful than Cyrano.
Given its plot is so dependent upon aesthetic appreciation, it is no wonder that beauty is threaded into every piece of production on the film – the effect is utterly heart-stopping. Beauty is coded into every frame, the presentation of the actors, the songs they sing and the words they say. The handling of the theme of love is breathtakingly beautiful in itself and the ‘Every Letter’ scene is so palpably moving that I don’t watch it so much as feel it, feel it in every inch of my body. I find it hard to write about a film which had such an unstoppable effect on me, but it has seared me to the core in a way that no other film has.
Cyrano is a drastically under-appreciated film, and works as an irrefutable argument in favour of the importance of beauty.