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DVD The Name of the Rose
Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose is a flawed attempt to adapt Umberto Eco's highly convoluted medieval bestseller for the screen, necessarily excising much of the esoterica that made the book so compelling. Still, what's left is a riveting whodunit set in a grimly and grimily realistic 14th-century Benedictine monastery populated by a parade of grotesque characters, all of whom spend their time lurking in dark places or scuttling, half-unseen, in the omnipresent gloom. A series of mysterious and gruesome deaths are somehow tied up with the unwelcome attention of the Inquisition, sent to root out suspected heretical behavior among the monastic scribes whose lives are dedicated to transcribing ancient manuscripts for their famous library, access to which is prevented by an ingenious maze-like layout.
Enter Sean Connery as investigator-monk William of Baskerville (the Sherlock Holmes connection made explicit in his name) and his naive young assistant Adso (a youthful Christian Slater). The Grand Inquisitor Bernado Gui (F. Murray Abraham) suspects devilry; but William and Adso, using Holmesian forensic techniques, uncover a much more human cause: the secrets of the library are being protected at a terrible cost. A fine international cast and the splendidly evocative location compensate for a screenplay that struggles to present Eco's multifaceted story even partially intact; Annaud's idiosyncratic direction complements the sinister, unsettling aura of the tale ideally. --Mark Walker
This film is a fascinating combination of modern and medieval elements. The setting is an abbey, whose name according to the narrator, 'it seems pious and prudent to omit'. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Umberto Eco, a semiologist and intellectual I had the pleasure of meeting twice - once at my university in America, and then again a few years later in London. Semiotics is a study of signs - in many ways, my theological training parallels, and it is this kind of parallel that is at the heart of the novel.
There is a debate about to be had at the high, inaccessible abbey. This debate, according to the leading Franciscan participant, is one that can determine the theology of the church for generations to come. So pivotal was this issue that papal envoys and monastics from around Christendom have gathered to determine the answer to the question - did Christ, or did he not, own the clothes he wore.
This is a play on the kind of theological musings that, then and now, distract the church from its proper functions of being a witness to the world. One could imagine the question of how many angels dancing on the head of a pin being used by Eco, except that that would be far too obvious a silliness.
However 'pivotal' this conference may be to the future of Christendom, it is in fact incidental to the storyline of the film. The real story revolves around the happenings at the hosting abbey, a Benedictine community whose vocation involves the preservation and transcription of a major library (libraries being full of books, written in language, full of signs and symbols). However, two things become immediately apparent - there don't seem to be any books around, and the transcriptionists are dying one by one.
Enter William of Baskerville (the name an obvious homage, a sign of respect, to Sherlock Holmes). William is a Franciscan journeying to the abbey with his novice, Adso, to take part in the upcoming conference. The Abbot enlists William's assistance in discovering how the monks are dying, which he does with Holmesian technique and precision. Analysing data such as footprints, fall-patterns from hillsides, and other such observational information, he comes to a few conclusions, but these distress the head librarian, who has seen it as his task to protect the world from blashphemous books (ironically, while maintaining their existence within the confines of the great library's labyrinth).
While William and Adso do their Holmes and Watson in a scientific manner, one of the other Franciscan visitors decides to apply a different interpretation to the happenings, preferring to see in the murderous environment of the abbey the signs of the apocalypse, particularly worrisome given the nature of the pivotal conference soon to take place.
Unfortunately for William, just as he is getting close to the truth, the Inquisition is called (no one expects the Spanish Inquistition), and in the figure of Bernardo Gui, the Inquisition descends upon the abbey with full force and terror. Gui accepts neither William's rational explanations nor Ubertino's end-times interpretations, preferring a more common staple of Inquisition deciphering - it must be the work of the devil. Finding a black cat and a woman smuggled into the abbey only help confirm this, particularly in an environment that sees little value in either.
Ultimately, however, the interpretation is wrong. William and Adso finally discover a way into the library, and make the further discovery that the key text the librarian is trying to hide is one by Aristotle, his work on Comedy, for he fears that in the Scholastic environment of the church, in which Aristotle is seen as the rational side of God's wisdom, that a book by Aristotle that permits laughter would be the undoing to the world.
In the end, the library burns with few books saved, the conference ends without a resolution, the Inquisition gets a judgement leveled against itself in a very 'just-desserts' fashion, and William and Adso depart.
But what of the name of the rose? We never learn the name of the rose; indeed, the rose is yet one more sign, a symbol for the love of Adso's life, the woman accused of being a witch. As the final credits fall, we learn that in the midst of all the tumult, Adso never learned her name.
The performances here are solid and gripping. Sean Connery plays William of Baskerville with aplomb. A young Christian Slater is a good novice, with still enough innocence to his performance to be believable. The abbot is played by Michael Lonsdale (not too many years off of playing a James Bond villain). Special mention goes to Helmut Qualtinger, who played the librarian Brother Remigio, who died just hours after filming his last scene, and was frequently in pain from the illness he was suffering during filming. William Hickey plays Franciscan Ubertino with an air of strangeness and mystery. Finally, F. Murray Abraham plays the dreaded Bernardo Gui, in every way as psychologically beguiling as in his starring role in 'Amadeus', but unfortunately with a much smaller role in this film.
Despite not making an Oscar bid, this film won numerous awards throughout Europe, including the BAFTA best actor award for Connery. It also was nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe award for mystery film.
The sets are dramatic, the costumes are perfect (particularly the contrast between the simplicity of the Franciscans, the durability of the Benedictines, the opulence of the papal envoys, the flair of the Inquisitors, and the rags of the peasants - all signs of a stratified society). The film is done in a cinematographic style that gives an overall feel of isolation; the abbey is isolated from the world, and the people are detached from each other for the most part.
This is a remarkable film in many ways, and one that I frequently turn to again to see what new signs I missed the last time through.
The Name of the Rose
Arrived within the scheduled time period. I have not viewed it yet.
A Wonderful Movie based on a Wonderful Book
I never saw this film in the theatre. I saw it on TV many years ago and was enchanted with the medieval setting. I just recently got the DVD when I remembered the movie due to discussion of the book on an internet board I post on.
All I can say is that I am in awe of the work done by the director in bringing the book to the screen. The visuals alone express exactly the sense and the setting that Eco took pages and pages of info dump to allude to.
The size of the whole complex with small poorly clad men scuttling over it at the mercy of the weather accurately places man (in the understanding of the time) between cruel and capricious nature (i.e.: godlessness) and being dwarfed by the immense buildings dedicated to god, which represent his power and importance in the world, and the puny stature of man.
The dark interiors, lit only by fire highlight the fear, superstition and lack of education and outside contact that the average 'simple' person had. It made real the poverty and the terror and the precarious hold on life the people had, and how they would grasp at anything that promised safety and salvation. How it was so easy to believe in demons, and witches and other physical manifestations of their hard life. The strange look of the monks also represents the difficulty of surviving unscathed by disease, or accident.
At the ending of the medieval period the church had grown into a fat, rich, bloated institution more interested in temporal matters, and internal minutia (angels dancing on the head of a pin) than on acting as shepherds to god's flock.
The movie shows the Benedictine monks, the caretakers of the monastery and local flock, as those who started with a good heart, yet who uphold the status quo in fear rather than love. Because the times have changed, the flock's needs have multiplied, and the monks have not, they end up going through the motions of the religious life during the day, with venality creeping in during the dark hours: Greed, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, Acquisitiveness, and Selfishness.
Rather than copy and disburse books to uplift the darkness they hide them away, and prevent the spread of learning; keeping the knowledge as secret treasure for the select within the monastery. There are gradations of the select within the walls, leaving the monks in competition to become 'more select', rather than focusing on the needs of their flock, and god's work. All they do is dump refuse through their sewer and make the people scramble like animals to survive.
This is the setting upon which the future role of the church and god's place in man's affairs is to be debated, in the guise of the question `was Jesus poor? ` Where the regular church people are too afraid of change, and being branded heretics, yet no longer can really believe in the simple answers and rituals of the past, or rely on their superiors for good guidance.
The papal delegation, the Dominicans, are rich, fat, and far above the ordinary life of the monks or the 'simple' peasants. They do not wish to give up the wealth, the life of luxury, the ability to satisfy every personal whim, and the temporal power over kings, states, and the simple peasants that the current state of the church bestows on them. Within their ranks is an Inquisitor, the judge, and jury they use to keep any who question them in line, with threats of torture, horrible death, and damnation. They use the Inquisitor to stamp out those who have drunk at the deadly cup of ancient knowledge and who are beginning to question and think for themselves.
The Franciscans are the group who represent change, the desire to be free of the trappings of the past, who want to minister to the needs of the people both physical and spiritual and leave power and wealth to Caesar. They are concerned about the good and bad of the knowledge that can lead one to sin, but they are not all the same and not all want the books hidden or destroyed. Some believe that using the reason god gave them, they will find more to worship the creator for. Though their oldest member, Ubertino shows that they come from the same past as the Benedictines.
The deaths and murders in the monastery are the outward manifestation of unease, sin, and the breakdown of real belief in the past solutions the church is preaching. Enter William of Baskerville, and his young novice, who represent the coming of the renaissance, the coming of reason, knowledge and enlightenment. They move within the rhythms of the monastery, while staying true to their own beliefs. They try to set the wrongs to right, and move the Benedictines to open their library and disburse the knowledge they hoard, while winning the dispute with the papal legation, and ultimately staying alive. In some they are successful, and in some they are not - much like life.
I can't give the movie 5 stars, because too little time and context was set up so that the viewer who had not read the book would understand what the debate stood for, and what the Greek book stood for. Without those clues, the movie seems a lot of to-do about some really trivial matters, yet they are still issues we are struggling with today.
This is a movie that you can watch over and over, and pick up and revel in all the details, as well as the wonderful performances. There are some who think Gui, and Salvatore are over the top, but in fact they are needed as they show real human passion escaping from the control of a repressed setting. The sex scene is also needed for the story and really rather beautiful.
The movie actually led me to read the book, and I think that those who complain about the movie being different don't understand that the movie must be visual, and that what they think is lacking in the story is mostly presented in the visuals. I agree with the director who said The Name of The Rose is a bestseller which most who purchase don't read, and that if you can read and understand the book, you can also understand and appreciate the movie. The quibble about the ending is really a matter of your preference for the tone, hopeful, or not.
The director's commentary and the documentary on the making of the movie are very good, as is the director's photo tour. The music, sets, lighting, and cinematography are magnificent.
The up-and-down career of director John Milius had no finer moment than The Wind and the Lion, a dandy adventure tale. It's based on fact: An American (played by Candice Bergen) and her two children were kidnapped in 1904 Morocco by a Berber tribe, an international incident settled by President Theodore Roosevelt's "big stick" military muscle. The film's sweep and swagger are unabashedly old-fashioned, even as Milius occasionally pokes fun at the grand characters. Some of the peripheral material is sloppy, but as long as Milius keeps his sights locked on the two powerful protagonists, he's dead-on: Brian Keith makes a gutsy Roosevelt, and Sean Connery is in splendid form (with Scots accent in place--got a problem with that?) as the dashing Berber chieftain. Perhaps overshadowed... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sean Connery - Candice Bergen Director(s): John Milius DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A grandly entertaining, old-fashioned adventure based on the Rudyard Kipling short story, The Man Who Would Be King is the kind of rousing epic about which people said, even in 1975, "Wow! They don't make 'em like that anymore!" When director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen) first started trying to make the film, with Gable and Bogart, the project was derailed by the latter's death. It was a few decades before Huston was able to finally realize his dream movie--and with an unimprovable cast. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are, respectively, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, a pair of lovably roguish British soldiers who set out to make their fortunes by conning the priests of remote Kafiristan into making... More Info about this DVD Director(s): John Huston DVD Release Date: Released the 19 November 1997 Usually ships in 24 hours
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In this 12th-century version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Henry II of England (Peter O'Toole) and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), meet on Christmas Eve to discuss the future of the throne. These two are having slight marital problems, as she is kept in captivity most of the year for raising a rebellion against him, and he flaunts his young mistress. Then there are the problems raised by their three treacherous and traitorous sons.
James Goldman won an Oscar® for the brilliant screenplay, based on his Broadway play. It is a tad wordy, as the action is kept to a minimum, but those words are sharp as daggers. The humor is wicked and black and delivered with very dry, dead-on precision. Sparks fly and the screen sizzles whenever Hepburn and O'Toole... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Anthony Harvey (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 19 June 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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