''The Name of the Rose'' is a 1986 historical

mystery film A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means of clues, i ...

directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, based on the 1980 novel of the same name by

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of th ...

. Sean Connery stars as the

Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

friar William of Baskerville, called upon to solve a deadly mystery in a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

abbey.

Christian Slater Christian Michael Leonard Slater (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor and producer. He made his film debut with a leading role in ''The Legend of Billie Jean'' (1985) and gained wider recognition for his breakthrough role as Jason "J.D." D ...

portrays his young apprentice, Adso of

Melk Melk (; older spelling: ) is a city of Austria, in the federal state of Lower Austria, next to the Wachau valley along the Danube. Melk has a population of 5,257 (as of 2012). It is best known as the site of a massive baroque Benedictine monastery ...

, and F. Murray Abraham his

Inquisitor An inquisitor was an official (usually with judicial or investigative functions) in an inquisition – an organization or program intended to eliminate heresy and other things contrary to the doctrine or teachings of the Catholic faith. Literall ...

rival, Bernardo Gui. Michael Lonsdale, William Hickey, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Valentina Vargas, and Ron Perlman play supporting roles. This English-language film was an

international co-production A co-production is a joint venture between two or more different production companies for the purpose of film production, television production, video game development, and so on. In the case of an international co-production, production companie ...

between West German, French, and Italian companies and was filmed in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

and at the former

Eberbach Abbey Eberbach Abbey (German: Kloster Eberbach) is a former Cistercian monastery in Eltville in the Rheingau, Germany. On account of its Romanesque and early Gothic buildings it is considered one of the most significant architectural heritage sites i ...

in the Rheingau. It received mixed to positive reviews from critics and won several awards, including the

BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Best Actor in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film Award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film. Superlatives Note: ...

for Sean Connery. Another adaptation was made in 2019 as a television miniseries for

RAI RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

Plot

friar William of Baskerville and his novice, Adso of

, arrive at an early 14th century

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

abbey in Northern Italy. A mysterious death has occurred ahead of an important theological Church conference. William, known for his deductive and analytical mind, confronts the worried Abbot and gains permission to investigate the death – a young illuminator appears to have committed suicide. Over the next few days, several other bizarre deaths occur. William and Adso make the acquaintance of Salvatore, a hunchback who speaks gibberish in various languages, and his handler and protector, Remigio da Varagine. William deduces from Salvatore's speech that he had once been a member of a heretical sect and infers that Salvatore and Remigio may have been involved in the killings. Meanwhile, Adso encounters a beautiful

feral A feral () animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some ...

peasant girl who snuck into the abbey to trade sexual favors for food, and is seduced by her. Investigating and keen to head off accusations of demonic possession, the protagonists discover and explore a labyrinthine library in the abbey's forbidden principal tower. William finds that it is "one of the greatest libraries in all Christendom," containing dozens of works by Classical masters such as

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

, thought to have been lost for centuries. William deduces that the library is kept hidden because such advanced knowledge, coming from pagan philosophers, is difficult to reconcile with Christianity. William further deduces that all of those who died had read the only remaining copy of Aristotle's ''Second Book of Poetics''. His investigations are curtailed by the arrival of Bernardo Gui of the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

, summoned for the conference and keen to prosecute those he deems responsible for the deaths. The two men clashed in the past, and the zealous inquisitor has no time for theories outside his own. Salvatore and the girl are found fighting over a black cockerel while in the presence of a black cat. Gui presents this as irrefutable proof that they are in league with Satan and tortures Salvatore into a

false confession A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interroga ...

. Salvatore, Remigio, and the girl are dragged before a tribunal, where Gui intimidates the Abbot into concurring with his judgment of heresy. But William, also "invited" by Gui to serve on the panel of judges, refuses to confirm the accusations of murder, pointing out that the murderer could read Greek, a skill that Remigio doesn't possess. Gui resorts to extracting a confession from Remigio by the threat of torture, and clearly plans to take care of William for good. When the head Librarian succumbs like the others, William and Adso ascend the forbidden library, and come face to face with the Venerable Jorge, the most ancient denizen of the abbey, with the book, which describes comedy and how it may be used to teach. Believing laughter and jocularity to be instruments of the Devil, Jorge has poisoned the pages to stop the spread of what he considers dangerous ideas: those reading it would ingest the poison as they licked their fingers to aid in turning pages. Confronted, Jorge throws over a candle, starting a blaze that quickly engulfs the library. William insists that Adso flee, as he manages to collect an inadequate armload of invaluable books to save; the volume of ''Poetics'', Jorge, and the rest of the library are lost. Meanwhile, Salvatore and Remigio have been burned at the stake. The girl has been slated for the same fate but local peasants take advantage of the chaos of the library fire to free her and turn on Gui. Gui attempts to flee but they throw his wagon off a cliff, to his death. William and Adso later take their leave of the Abbey. On the road, Adso is stopped by the girl, silently appealing for him to stay with her, but Adso continues on with William. In his closing narration, a much older Adso reflects that he never regretted his decision, as he learned many more things from William. Adso also states that the girl was the only earthly love of his life, yet he never learned her name.

Cast

* Sean Connery as William of Baskerville * F. Murray Abraham as Bernardo Gui *

as Adso of

Dwight Weist Dwight Weist, Jr. (January 16, 1910 - July 16, 1991) was an actor and announcer in the era of old-time radio. Early years The son of Mr. and Mrs. Dwight W. Weist, he was born in Palo Alto, California, but was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He ...

as older Adso (voice) * Helmut Qualtinger as Remigio de Varagine * Elya Baskin as Severinus * Michael Lonsdale as The Abbot * Volker Prechtel as Malachia * Feodor Chaliapin Jr. as Jorge de

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of ...

* William Hickey as Ubertino de Casale *

Michael Habeck Michael Habeck (23 April 1944 – 4 February 2011) was a German actor who was best known for providing the German dubbing for Oliver Hardy after Bruno W. Pantel died. Habeck, who was born in Bad Grönenbach, also dubbed several characters in ...

as Berengar * Valentina Vargas as The Girl * Ron Perlman as Salvatore * Leopoldo Trieste as Michele da Cesena * Franco Valobra as Jerome of Kaffa *

Vernon Dobtcheff Vernon Dobtcheff (born 14 August 1934) is a British actor, best known for his roles on television and film, he has acted in numerous stage productions. Biography Dobtcheff was born in Nîmes, France, of Russian descent. He attended Ascham Pre ...

as Hugh of Newcastle * Donal O'Brian as Pietro d' Assisi *

Andrew Birkin Andrew Timothy Birkin (born 9 December 1945) is an English screenwriter and director. He was born the only son of Lieutenant-Commander David Birkin and his wife, actress Judy Campbell. One of his sisters is the actress and singer Jane Birkin. ...

as Cuthbert of Winchester * Lucien Bodard as Cardinal Bertrand *

Peter Berling Peter Berling (20 March 1934 – 21 November 2017) was a German actor, film producer and writer. He has worked on several occasions with director Werner Herzog, among them his collaborations with actor Klaus Kinski like ''Aguirre, the Wrath of Go ...

as Jean d'Anneaux * Pete Lancaster as Bishop of Alborea * Urs Althaus as Venantius * Lars Bodin-Jorgensen as Adelmo of

Otranto Otranto (, , ; scn, label=Salentino, Oṭṛàntu; el, label= Griko, Δερεντό, Derentò; grc, Ὑδροῦς, translit=Hudroûs; la, Hydruntum) is a coastal town, port and ''comune'' in the province of Lecce (Apulia, Italy), in a ferti ...

* Kim Rossi Stuart as a

novice A novice is a person who has entered a religious order and is under probation, before taking vows. A ''novice'' can also refer to a person (or animal e.g. racehorse) who is entering a profession with no prior experience. Religion Buddhism ...

Production

Director Jean-Jacques Annaud once told Umberto Eco that he was convinced the book was written for only one person to direct: himself. He felt personally intrigued by the project and other things because of a lifelong fascination with medieval churches and a great familiarity with

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

. Annaud spent four years preparing the film, traveling throughout the United States and Europe, searching for the perfect multi-ethnic cast with interesting and distinctive faces. He resisted suggestions to cast Sean Connery for the part of William because he felt the character, who was already an amalgam of Sherlock Holmes and

William of Occam William of Ockham, OFM (; also Occam, from la, Gulielmus Occamus; 1287 – 10 April 1347) was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and Catholic theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small vill ...

, would become too overwhelming with " 007" added. Later, after Annaud failed to find another actor he liked for the part, he was won over by Connery's reading, but Eco was dismayed by the casting choice, and

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

pulled out because Connery's career was then in a slump.

was cast through a large-scale audition of teenage boys. For the wordless scene in which the Girl seduces Adso, Annaud allowed Valentina Vargas to lead the scene without his direction. Annaud did not explain to Slater what she would be doing in order to elicit a more authentic performance from the actors.DVD commentary by Jean-Jacques Annaud The exterior and some of the interiors of the monastery seen in the film were constructed as a replica on a hilltop outside Rome and ended up being the biggest exterior set built in Europe since '' Cleopatra'' (1963). Many of the interiors were shot at

, Germany. Most props, including period illuminated manuscripts, were produced specifically for the film.

Reception

The film was very successful in Germany with a gross of $25 million. However, the film did poorly at the box office in the United States where it played at 176 theaters and grossed $7.2 million. However, it was popular in other parts of Europe (including Italy, France and Spain) and grossed over $77.2 million worldwide. Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of a possible 4, writing "What we have here is the setup for a wonderful movie. What we get is a very confused story...It's all inspiration and no discipline."'' Time Out'' gave the film a positive review: "As intelligent a reductio of Umberto Eco's sly farrago of whodunnit and medieval metaphysics as one could have wished for...the film simply looks good, really succeeds in communicating the sense and spirit of a time when the world was quite literally read like a book." The film has a rating of 75% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 24 reviews. In 2011, Eco was quoted as giving a mixed review for the adaptation of his novel: "A book like this is a club sandwich, with turkey, salami, tomato, cheese, lettuce. And the movie is obliged to choose only the lettuce or the cheese, eliminating everything else – the theological side, the political side. It's a nice movie." John Simon stated ''The Name of the Rose'' misfired due to its preposterously happy ending.

Awards

* The film was awarded the César Award for Best Foreign Film. * The film was awarded two BAFTAs: Sean Connery for Best Actor and Hasso von Hugo for Best Make Up Artist.

Notes

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Name Of The Rose 1986 films 1986 drama films 1980s crime drama films 1980s English-language films 1980s historical drama films 1980s mystery thriller films 1980s thriller drama films 20th Century Fox films BAFTA winners (films) Best Foreign Film César Award winners Columbia Pictures films English-language French films English-language German films English-language Italian films Films about bibliophilia Films about murder Films about religion Films about witchcraft Films based on crime novels Films based on Italian novels Films directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud Films produced by Bernd Eichinger Films scored by James Horner Films set in Italy Films set in libraries Films set in monasteries Films set in religious buildings and structures Films set in the 14th century Films with screenplays by Gérard Brach Films with screenplays by Howard Franklin French crime drama films French crime thriller films French historical drama films French mystery thriller films German crime drama films German crime thriller films German historical drama films German mystery thriller films Historical mystery films Italian crime drama films Italian mystery thriller films Italian historical drama films The Name of the Rose Poisoning in film West German films 1980s Italian films 1980s French films 1980s German films