The Name of the Rose- Sherlock Holmes At the Abbey
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What would happen if you take Sherlock Holmes, make him a Francisan friar, change his name to William of Baskerville( yes the same Baskerville of The Hound fame), and make Dr. Watson as a young monk called Adso of Melk, and put both of them together at a remote Benedectine Abbey somewhere in Italy? Change the setting from Victorian England to the dark Middle Ages, of the Inquisition? And add in elements of heretical sects, Aristotle, reason vs faith, medieval libraries to the mix? Well you have The Name of the Rose based on Umberto Eco’s novel of the same name.
The movie starts off with a voice over from Adso of Melk, older and wiser now, as he begins to narrate what happened in 1327 AD in a remote Benedictine abbey somewhere up there in the North of Italy. And the movie cuts to the time period, showing a much younger Adso( Christian Slater) arriving at the abbey along with William of Baskerville( Sean Connery) , to investigate what appears to be a suicide that has occured at the Abbey. During course of time, some other deaths occur, and things seem to be certainly amiss, as they run into a series of characters.
Salvatore a demented hunchback, who speaks a lot of gibberish, in all languages, and his mentor Remigio who seem to be hiding a dark secret. William infers that having been members of a heretical sect, they could have been the culprits. The authorities at the Abbey, meanwhile believe this is a case of the second anti Christ comming and that a demonic force is at work here. William who believes in reasoning and logical deduction, as opposed to blind faith, neverthless carries on with his investigation, and discovers among other things, a labyrinthine medieval library, at multiple levels in the main tower, which has been forbidden to visit.
As he digs deeper into the mystery, he deduces that Aristotle’s Second Book of Poetics has a connection with the deaths. However further investigation is hampered when Bernardo Gui(F.Murray Abraham), Inq
uisitor, arrives at the abbey. Gui however has no patience for reasoning and investigation, and believes that catching the suspects and torturing them would reveal the truth. To make matters worse, Gui and William had clashed in the past too. Gui implicates Salvatore, and a local peasant girl, of nomadic nature, based on very flimsy evidence, as the culprits. He tortures Salvatore to confess being guilty, who in turn implicates the girl as well as his mentor Remigio. William however knows that the condemned are innocent, and he is now in a race against time to find the truth, as well as save the 3 accused from being burnt at the stake.
Adapting a work like The Name of the Rose to the screen is not an easy task, the original novel is pretty much multi layered and complex book, and trying to fit that into 2 hours of screen time could be certainly ardous. The main challenge is however that the book is rich in symbolism and semiotics. What Umberto Eco, does in the novel, is work around the multiple meanings of word or symbol, and use that as a means to arrive at the end, again something that does not translate well into the screen. To the credit of the screen writing team however, they stick to the core issues raised by the novel, though simplifying the original plot. It also helps that director Jean-Jacques Annaud, himself had an interest in medieval churches as well a knowledge of Greek and Latin. The background helps in giving the authentic look for the movie. The abbey, the simple clothing worn by the monks, the detailing of the abbey traditions everything is done perfectly. In keeping with the tone of the story, the movie has a dark feel to it, as the camera often glides along the dimly lit passageways and the monks quarters. Torino Deli Coli, who picturized those sweeping landscapes for Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, creates a kind of dark, eerie feeling, keeping in mind the theme. Most of the camera shots, use an interplay of light and darkness, to create the dark atmosphere.
The movie is not an easy watch, as some of the scenes do have a kind of grisly feeling. The scene where Salvatore is tortured to make him confess the truth is quite unsettling. Not just the depiction of him being tortured , but the fact that a demented hunchback like him could be tortured so brutally, makes one flinch at the cruelty of it all. Also the other scene, where Salvatore and the nomadic peasant girl, are captured and accused of being Satan’s agents, just due to the presence of the black cat and candles. What the director is showing here, is the way certain people who were not normal, were branded as agents of the Devil during the medieval times, and then made the scapegoats. Salvatore was a hunchback, and not of sane mind, the girl, was a nomadic peasant, half wild, both of them not belonging to the normal society. Their fate was similiar to the millions of those killed during the Inquisition.
Another interesting scene is where William deduces the background of Salvatore and his mentor Remigio. Adso first meets Salvatore, but is unable to make out what he speaks. It is again William, who deduces that based on the word Penitenziagite, which was the motto of a sub sect called dolcinites. Though both the Francisans and Dolcinites, believed that Christ was poor, and so his followers should lead an asectic life, the Dolcinites believed that the rich should not actually exist, and went about killing them. Contrary to what most people say, there is a difference between being religious and being fundamentalist. A deeply religious person will follow the scriptures of his religion to the point, but he keeps his beliefs to himself. It is the fundamentalists who are more dangerous as they believe that every one around must follow their beliefs or be slaugthered, the Nazis and the Talibans being the best example. As William says
You see, Adso, the step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is all too brief.
Another well directed scene is where William takes on his erstwhile rival Bernardo Gui in court. After torturing Salvatore, Gui makes him confess his crimes in a kangaroo court. Remigio, though adamant at first, confesses everything when Gui threatens to torture him. William believes in reasoning and deduction, Gui however believes that only torture can make people confess the truth. The key to Gui’s character comes later in the movie, when during a showdown with one of the monks he says
Laughter kills fear, and without fear there can be no faith because without fear of the Devil, there is no more need of God.
Fear is what both Gui and the monks dominate over the peasantry in different ways. Gui seeks to stamp his authority using the fear of torture, the way he gets Remigio to confess everything. The monks believe that its only the fear of the unknown, that keeps people devout. The fact that the Church wielded such enormous power for centuries over the lives of the common people, is really scary. In fact during one of the initial scenes, we see that the peasants in the village live off the scraps of food thrown down by the abbey. It is the peasants again who rise in revolt against Gui later.
Another interesting scene in the movie, is when Adso confesses to Wiliam, that he is love with the nomad girl. The dialogue between Adso and William over love, is beautifully structured. When Adso asks William what he thinks , his reply is
Well, of course I don’t have the benefit of your experience, but I find it difficult to convince myself that God would have introduced such a foul being into creation without endowing her with some virtures. Hmm? How peaceful life would be without love, Adso, how safe, how tranquil, and how dull.
If you love murder mysteries, this is a movie to be watched. But you would need to have some knowledge of medieval churches and 14th century scholastic thought to understand the movie. If you had read the novel, the movie would seem to be a diluted version of it, but again the philosophizing and sermonizing would not be as effective in the movie as the novel.
Sean Connery perfectly fits the role of William, and in fact one of the main strengths of the movie. He effortlesly essays the role of William, though his Scottish accent does stand out at times. F. Murray Abraham proves an able foil to him as the ruthless Bernardo Gui, wonderfully conveying the cruelty, the wickedness, the arrogance. Christian Slater, does a fairly good job as Adso, while Ron Perlman’s performance as the demented hunchback Salvatore has a touch of pathos to it.
Tags: Aristotle, Medieval Europe, Mystery Movies, sean connery, Sherlock Holmes, Umberto Eco, William of Baskerville, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
what a co-incidence. Ive just starting reading the novel… done almost 100 pages… meaning to get hold of the film once i’m done with the book…and here u’ve just written out a lovely piece on the film. very nice. without spoilers too! looking fwd to completing the book and getting onto the film. its quite a serious read though!thanks.
Mayurica, do check out the movie, but changes have been made from the novel. The book covers a lot of issues related to empirical thought, medieval scholasticism, abbeys, philosophy, the movie version however concentrates mostly on the murder mystery part. Thankfully the core issues have not been dumbed down much, and above all there is good ole Connery.
Hi Ratnakar,
How come you always write reviews movie I love,
Great stuff,
I captured movie stills of this particular film for the reference for the comic book, regarding Gothic stuff.
Hmm Shekhar, i guess we have some kind of kindred spirit, we seem to love the same kinda movies. This movie has some of the best Gothic shots, especially the gloomy atmosphere of the abbey.
I saw the film sometime ago…excellent performances…and they were able to create a gothic, macabre setting that enhances the impact…
I think the film concentrates rightly on the mystery part of the novel…otherwise Eco’s novel contains extremely long descriptions of various aspects of the abbey and its life which is a good read but definitely not suitable for films…
Jitaditya, yes actually the movie adaptation makes sense in that way. Its not possible to fit in all those descriptions of the abbey, the scholastic processes into the framework of a movie. The setting has that eerie Gothic feel, though i felt at times, the darkness angle was overdone. There were some shots, where i just could not make out what was happening. Anyway good ole Sean Connery is always there to make it up, one of the finest actors for sure.
good insightful post ratnakar. havent watched the movie, not read the book. but now, i plan to do both,and at the earliest.
thx for the hint…
Satyen, yes do check out the movie and book, but there are differences between both, so you need to be prepared for it. It is nowadays regularly shown on UTV World movies, so you can catch it there.
Would like to watch the film … have read the book and found to be excellant..Hope Orhan Pamuk’s ‘My name is red’ which is also some what on similar lines would be made into a film..
Sharath, the movie version is slightly different from the novel. But then its expected, because the novel, has a lot of passages about abbeys, medieval philosophy, scholasticism, empirical thought, which can’t be captured in the movie. The movie concentrates more on the murder mystery angle, and how William makes his deductions, so you need to see from that angle. But overally a very good adaptation, something which Ron Howard failed badly with Da Vinci Code.
ratnakar, thx for the info. btw, plz do let me know whenever this is scheduled next on UTV World movies. hope u dont mind.
wud luv to catch it asap.
I ve been like looking for the movie for some time now and last night i got to see only the first 30 minutes of it, plan to see it more now after your blog!!Gr8 description of scenes, very highly rated!!!