The Name of the Rose

Only a limited number of films that I watched during my youth managed to leave an everlasting impression on me, but Jean-Jacques Annaud's adaptation of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" is one of them. Even though we are 25 years later, and I've seen perhaps 15.000 films since then, I still remember practically every detail of that wondrously grim and mysterious film in which creepy monks were being killed off in a remote and petrifying old monastery. Although I tried a couple of times, I never found the courage to actually read Eco's source novel. It's just too thick, sorry. The 1986-masterpiece is urgently due for a re-watch, but instead I stumbled upon this Italian/German mini-series that allegedly was a lifelong dream-project for actor and producer John Turturro to realize. Come to think of it, it's actually quite surprising that it took more than 30 years for someone to make a new version! Seeing that Annaud's film is "only" a little over two hours long, I must assume that it threw a massive amount of Eco's book-content overboard. With 8 episodes of approximately 1 hour each, I'm sad to confess that "Il Nome Della Rosa" is too long and quite often balancing on the verge of boring. Also, I keep reading that the script differs immensely from the book, at least for what concerns the numerous sub plots surrounding the pivot murder mystery.

Turturro is great, but Sean Connery's charismatic image remains stuck in my brain as the one and only William of Baskerville; - wise Franciscan friar and Sherlock Holmes ahead-of-time. All the other, nevertheless adequate, actors can't even begin to measure themselves against the quality performances of the fantastic actors in the 1986 film, like F. Murray Abraham, Ron Perlman, Michael Lonsdale or William Hickey. The sole performance I rate higher comes from the fairly unknown Damian Hardung, who's portrayal of young novice Adso Von Melk is more authentic and convincing than Christian Slater's role.

Or, perhaps I just ought to stop comparing this with youth's nostalgia and simply acknowledge the multiple great aspects of this prestigious mini-series. The production values, for instance, are deeply impressive. The 14th century set-pieces, costumes and relics are astounding. Also, the history lessons processed into the screenplay are far more educational and compelling than anything you'll ever learn in school, and Tchéky Karyo has a brilliant supportive role as the megalomaniac Pope Giovanni XXII. If there's anything I firmly believe, it is that medieval Popes were exactly as deplorable and vile as him.

I'm very sorry to say that this adaptation makes unnecessary changes to the book, and executes the climax very poorly. Adso's sin also goes unpunished, which dilutes a key theme of the book. They also mess up the murder mystery plot, which is the fun part of the book, that is the hook for all the philosophy. For modern audiences the original story has no strong female characters. They have tried to update the story, but inserting a Mary Sue like character does it no favours.

That's it. Watch the tv series and be yourself the critic. You should trust yourself to see it this adaptation is good or not.

That being said, I'd like to say that I've read the book on which these series is based, a monumental thriller set on the middle ages by the master Umberto Eco. I've seen the first two episodes, and I find myself thinking this is a nice start. Strangely to me, I come to see the reviews on this site and I'm baffled. Honestly, I really don't know what they saw. John Turturro is a great William of Baskerville and overall the setting is good. There is a bit of cgi on the landscapes, but mixed properly with real life places that look beautiful. Don't let these people misguide you, who knows what interests do they seek.

In short: there is a reason why the central character in Eco's work is named after Occam and nods to Sherlock Holmes. It has to do with presenting complexity and then dealing with it though Occam's maxim and Holmes' deductive reasoning. Yet, the writers of this mess of an adaption seem to have not understood Eco or Rose at all and simply opted for injecting and proliferating haphazard disorder to mimic it complexity when it is just -- mediocre plot device and script-writing and. Sorry but gibberish is not complexity because it meanders, and proliferation non sequiter subplots are not semiotics just because your brain has to also work when decoding nonsense . It goes without saying as well that labyrinth is meaningless if you just proliferate blind ally diversions and don't understand it is the great classics Eco is presenting as the guide, the key.

If you've got that liberal arts degree for undergrad and loved history and literature, like I did, (before having to turn to something that can make some money for grad) they you probably knew about this series planning and had enthusiastic and positive expectations. The original film version of Name of the Rose was not bad, it was a decent adaption of Umberto's Eco's intricate but certainly his most approachable book, but it certainly could be much better fleshed out in a mini series length.

In addition to being a fan of Eco, I certainly am as well of John Turturro.

Sadly this series just doesn't work given the source material and talent. It is a serious disappointment; in fact a jumbled mess. Instead of using miniseries length to flesh out the complexity, tease the symbolism, and give us more of Eco, the writers went off the rails as well, distracting packing in all kinds of PC nods to contemporary issues that are not in Eco's novel. And even for "a loose adaptation" there is a continual sense of disjointed and artificially forced elements and messages that are not in Eco's work. Most galling -- but also telling -- metaphor for the utter humorlessness in the makers of this adaption is dropping emphasis on Aristotle's Poetics; whose dramatic theory, and utilization of humor, is what Eco is using. In the book we are immersed IN the Poetics, the author has structured he work so we are, while the character searches for it, along with a solution to the crime mystery, and this is not even attempted in this miniseries.

I spent about two years working in Italy and I have a high tolerance for the messiness of Italian productions, be they film, TV or contracting of goods or services. Things there are beautiful and interesting, but often don't work well. OK. I did not go into this adaption of name of the Rose expecting complete rationality or order. But there are so many artificial jumps in plot that it nears incoherence. Especially since none of it is really true to the core of Eco's work which has to do with the sequestration of knowledge, such as sublime and complex classics, and not for example some hamhanded lesson on immigration, class struggle, or violence toward women. Eco already had a strong and important social message with poverty and a church that lost its way, or whose future was being fought over. By throwing in the kitchen sink of social commentary this gets diluted to nothing.

I give this a six star, even though it is a four, since part of Eco is there, even if, with united irony -- it is hidden by the script writers' own nonsense.

Italian/German co-production with interesting and suspenseful screenplay by Andrea Porporati, Nigel Williams, John Turturro, director Giacomo Battiato himself and based on novel "Il Nome Della Rosa" by Umberto Eco. The novel has sold over 50 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling books ever published. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, literary theory and Roger Bacon's scientific method. Set in 1327 , when after a strange death in a Medieval Abbey, the Benedictine monks are convinced that the four riders of apocalypse are coming ; many of the monks fear that there can be only an evil, supernatural explanation. Our two protagonists (John Turturro, Damian Hardung) arrive at a Benedictine abbey in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation. The abbey is being used as neutral ground in a dispute between Pope John XXII and the Franciscans over the question of apostolic poverty. The monks of the abbey have recently been shaken by the suspicious death of one of their brothers, Adelmo of Otranto, and the abbot asks William (a former inquisitor) to investigate the incident. During his inquiries, William has a debate with one of the oldest monks in the abbey, Jorge of Burgos, about the permissibility of laughter, which Jorge regards as a threat to God's established order. The abbey is in fear over the recent death of one of their young monks, a brilliant illustrator who was found killed by an impact at the base of a cliff outside. With the Abbey to play host to a council on the Franciscan's Order's belief that the Church should rid itself of wealth, William of Baskerville (John Turturro), the enlightened friar and his young apprentice Adso da Melk (Damian Hardung) investigate a series of mysterious deaths at the mysterious abbey risking the wrath of a powerful Inquisitor. The Abbot (Michael Emerson) asks William to help solve the mystery as he is known to be a man of great intellect and a former investigator for the inquisition. As William is asked to assist in determining the cause of the untimely death. Meanwhile , several murders happen and along the way the young monk Adso finds a mysterious girl (Greta Scarano). At the request of Pope John XXII (Tchéky Karyo) - whose intention is to eliminate the Franciscan order together with his ideal of poverty and the heretical religious sect of the ¨Dulcinos¨- the General Inquisitor (Rupert Everett) arrives at the Abbey and things go wrong. A Medieval Murder Mystery !. Who, in the name of God, is getting away with murder?. A story of unholy murder !. They believed in God, but traded with the Devil !.

This is an acceptable television rendition of Umberto Eco's bestseller and the series took time of preparation. The TV series contains thrills, suspense , mystery , sexual scenes , intriguing issues, Impressively spectacular production design and results to be quite entertaining. Television adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel 'The Name of the Rose' who previously was successful in 1986 by Jean-Jacques Annaud with Sean Conney and F. Murray Abraham. The series deals with a valuable lost book and the relentless search to find it; through the motif of this lost and possibly suppressed book which might have aestheticized the farcical, the unheroic and the skeptical, it also makes an ironically slanted plea for tolerance and against dogmatic or self-sufficient metaphysical truths - an angle which reaches the surface in the final epidodes. The mystery revolves around the abbey library, situated in a fortified tower-the aedificium that has 4 towers. This structure has three floors-the ground floor contains the kitchen and refectory, the first floor a scriptorium, and the top floor is occupied by the library. This has a total of fifty-six rooms. Each room has a scroll containing a verse from the Book of Revelation. The two lower floors are open to all, while only the librarian may enter the last. A catalogue of books is kept in the scriptorium, where manuscripts are read and copied. A monk who wishes to read a book would send a request to the librarian, who, if he thought the request justified, would bring it to the scriptorium. Finally, the library is in the form of a labyrinth, whose secret only the librarian and the assistant librarian know. It displays very fine acting by John Turturro as an intellectually nonconformist and respected Franciscan monk investigating a series of mysterious deaths in an isolated abbey. Turturro as a monkish Sherlock Holmes trying to solve a series of murders , he is fun to watch. Good support cast plenty of familiar faces (mostly Italian and German actors), such as Damian Hardung, Greta Scarano, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Richard Sammel, James Cosmo, Elya Baskin and special mention for Rupert Everett as the feared Inquisitor and Michael Emerson as the suspect Abbot.

Nowadays, the only place where manuscripts and books are made with the same techniques and materials depicted in the movie is the abbey of Praglia on Padua (Veneto, Italy); it takes six months to a year to create a single page. Dialogues in medieval Occitan language have been translated and supervised by a team of experts from the University of Salerno.

It contains colorful and luxurious cinematography by John Conroy, filmed on various locations in three different Italian regions: Lazio, Abruzzo and Umbria. As well as suspenseful and spiritual musical score by composer Volker Bertelmann. The series was finely directed by Giacomo Battiato, a specialist on accurate biopic , as he directed autobiography stories about Giovane Casanova , Benvenuto Cellini and Stradivari. The Name of the Rose(2019) rating: 6.5/10. Better than average.