2023/10/01

Prime Video: The Name of the Rose Amazon DVD

Prime Video: The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose

An intellectually nonconformist friar investigates a series of mysterious deaths in an isolated abbey.

Starring

Sean ConneryF. Murray AbrahamChristian SlaterElya BaskinHelmut QualtingerRon Perlman

Directed by

Jean-Jacques Annaud

IMDb 7.7

2 h 6 min

1987

18+

Suspense

Drama

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Storyline

14. century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church's authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence which is considerable.—yusufpiskin

Plot summaryPlot synopsis

Taglines

A Medieval Murder Mystery

Genres

DramaMysteryThriller

Certificate

Parents guide

Did you know

Trivia

Sean Connery's career was at such a low point when he read for the role that Columbia Pictures refused to finance the movie when Jean-Jacques Annaud cast him as William von Baskerville.

Goofs

The secret message on the parchment is exposed three times. The translator heated it to reveal the location of the library, William of Baskerville heated it again when he was in the scriptorium and yet again to show the others the message. When a message is written in lemon juice, heating it will cause it to become exposed because the sugar in the juice is caramelized and thus would not disappear again.

Quotes

Adso of Melk: Master? Have you ever been in love?

William of Baskerville: In love? Yeah, many times.

Adso of Melk: You were?

William of Baskerville: Yes, of course. Aristotle, Ovid, Vergil...

Adso of Melk: No, no, no. I meant with a...

William of Baskerville: Oh. Ah. Are you not confusing love with lust?

Adso of Melk: Am I? I don't know. I want only her own good. I want her to be happy. I want to save her from her poverty.

William of Baskerville: Oh, dear.

Adso of Melk: Why "oh dear"?

William of Baskerville: You *are* in love.

Adso of Melk: Is that bad?

William of Baskerville: For a monk, it does present certain problems.

Adso of Melk: But doesn't St. Thomas Aquinas praise love above all other virtues?

William of Baskerville: Yes, the love of God, Adso. The love of God.

Adso of Melk: Oh... And the love of woman?

William of Baskerville: Of woman? Thomas Aquinas knew precious little, but the scriptures are very clear. Proverbs warns us, "Woman takes possession of a man's precious soul", while Ecclesiastes tells us, "More bitter than death is woman".

Adso of Melk: Yes, but what do you think, Master?

William of Baskerville: 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.

Crazy credits

The opening credits read - A palimpsest of Umberto Eco's Novel The Name of the Rose

Alternate versions

Certain prints of the movie have the sex scene between Adso and The Girl removed in order to comply with local laws.

Connections

Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Touch and Go/'Night, Mother/Blue Velvet/Where the River Runs Black (1986)

User reviews

203

FEATURED REVIEW

/10

The Novel Predates the Davinci Code by 20 years

A number of people have commented on the similarity of this film, and the Novel by Umberto Eco, to the DaVinci Code.

For those who were not born then, The Name of the Rose was published in 1980, thus predating DaVinci by about 20 or more years. I must admit that I found DaVinci to be a mass market popularization of Eco's theme, in short a "rip off".

Still, it may be the popularity of Brown's novel which has resulted in Name of the Rose being brought back in a DVD version, and for that I am truly thankful.

For a film which was not favorably reviewed by the critics, it is surprising how many reviewers 20 years later are giving it a 10. Either the film wore well or tastes have changed. I loved the film first time around and was delighted to find it on DVD.

Certainly the screenplay had to deviate from the philosophizing of the book.

It would have been almost unwatchably "talkie" had it not, and those of us who want to read the sermons/discussions can read the book. The film stands on it's own.

The most ominous feeling for me, living in the religious and politically free thinking 21st century, was the realization that

the church had such a grip on every aspect of life and thinking in the middle ages, and that any perceived repudiation of accepted Church dogma was deemed heresy and punishable by torture and a horrible death.

That one group of people should wield such power, and the length they would go to to hold on to that power is truly frightening.

The rigid class structure where the nobility and church owned the land which the peasants worked, and supported those above them while being kept down by those above, was very well conveyed in the film.

Life was short and hard, health was poor and the plague could return at any time, carrying off those who had not been carried off by the incessant wars.

Not a pleasant age to live. The period of the film is set just prior to the reformation. It is hardly surprising that the teachings of the various religious orders began to be questioned.

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emuir-1Mar 13, 2005

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4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,673 ratings
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The Name Of The Rose

customer reviews

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2,673 total ratings, 857 with reviews

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From Australia

tom

5.0 out of 5 stars Great story

Reviewed in Australia on 18 June 2023

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Arived early ,been looking for a long time good story

Alan L Hicks

5.0 out of 5 stars Works perfectly

Reviewed in Australia on 7 November 2022

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Gret movie, good price and excellent delivery

Raymond 3710

5.0 out of 5 stars The Name Of the Rose (DVD)

Reviewed in Australia on 20 June 2022

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Glenda Forster

1.0 out of 5 stars Wasted time and money purchasing this.

Reviewed in Australia on 12 June 2023

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Most boring, dreary Sean Connery movie I have ever seen.

From other countries

Jörg

5.0 out of 5 stars Connery in top form

Reviewed in Germany on 13 September 2023

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Great medieval film about the church and its activities.

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videoworm

4.0 out of 5 stars There are no audio or subtitles in Italian

Reviewed in Italy on 6 August 2023

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I don't know which edition was received by those who wrote on this page that there are Italian audio and subtitles. What I know is that the DVD I received, which is exactly the one in the illustration, has audio and subtitles only in German and English. For me it's fine, but I wanted to warn those who think of ordering it because they think they will find Italian, which is not the case.

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Kindle Customer

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Movie based on a Wonderful Book

Reviewed in the United States on 19 June 2005

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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.

122 people found this helpful

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Ray

5.0 out of 5 stars Once upon a time in 1327...

Reviewed in Germany on 21 July 2015

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With 5,896,891 viewers, “The Name of the Rose” by Jean Jacques Annaud is one of the most successful box office hits Made in Germany. The Bernd Eichinger production was created in 1986 in collaboration with France and Italy. It wasn't just the audience that loved the film - contemporary critics were also positive and the convoluted medieval crime thriller based on the great novel by the Italian Umberto Eco also won the silver film ribbon. The world-famous designer Dante Feretti also won gold at the German Film Awards and Sean Connery won gold for his performance as the Franciscan monk William of Baskerville, who, with the instinct of Sherlock Holmes, wants to solve strange deaths in a small compartment in the Apennines in 1327.

The success also spread internationally. “The Name of the Rose” earned its director Jean Jacques Annaud the Cesar for best foreign film. There were also a total of four David Di Donatello Awards in Italy.

The film didn't do so well in the USA. Well-known critics expressed themselves rather negatively and found the filming to be far too chaotic and the characters exaggerated and cliched, almost as if they had come out of parodies.

In fact, some of the actors had to have a strong courage to be ugly, but for me the characters we get to know in this eerie abbey look very authentic. In any case, the faces of these monks are very distinctive and drawn. No matter whether they are called Jorge von Burgos (Fyodor Chaliapin), Malachias von Hildesheim (Volker Prechtel), Remigo da Varagine (Helmut Qualtinger), Salvatore (Ron Perlman) or Severinus von St. Emmeran (Elya Baskin).

In this very popular historical film, the spirit of a bygone era is magnificently evoked, which, as a dark age, was very much influenced by the great fear of God. The Franciscan monk William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) has great ambitions to solve the murders in an abbey, which his confreres quickly interpret as a Last Judgment and Apocalypse

As the story progresses, we learn of his past as an inqusitor accused of heresy. Baskerville is a lover of books, he is known for his sharp mind and he secretly has a modern anachronistic character within him. He is accompanied by his adlatus, the young Benedictine novice Adson von Melk (Christian Slater in his first film role), the youngest son of a noble count, who, as in the novel, also takes on the role of the first-person narrator... a long time after this Events in the abbey - as an old monk, on the threshold of his death, he writes down these horrific and memorable experiences from back then that he witnessed.

William of Baskerville is supposed to take part in a theological dispute in the Benedictine abbey. The spiritual leader of the Franciscans (William Hickey) is already on site and other brothers in faith are to follow.

It is the time of the Avignonese Papacy, the Franciscans are supposed to discuss the explosive theological question of the poverty of the church with an expected embassy from Pope John XXII, which is also said to include the notorious inquisitor Berarndo Gui (F. Murray Abraham). and maybe come to an agreement.

But the lives of the monks in the abbey are overshadowed by the strange death of the young, pretty monk Adelmo of Otranto (Lars Bodin-Jorgensen). The monks believe that the devil had a hand in it and expect the apocalypse to begin. The Abbot (Michael Lonsdale) asks Willam of Baskerville for advice. He quickly finds out that the cause of the monk's death was not the work of the devil, but a suicide. Everything seems to calm down again when the Greek translator Venatus von Salvernec (Urs Athaus) is found murdered in the monastery's butcher's shop. Everything points to poisoning and William finds out that he was good friends with Adelmo. The dead man had blackened fingers and a blackened tongue. He believes that the suicide and murder also have something to do with the monastery's library, to which they are not allowed access. The librarian's assistant, the fat, feminine Berengar von Arundel (Michael Habeck), also has a rather strange name. During the criminal investigation, Adson meets a farm girl (VAlentina Vargas) during a nighttime pursuit, who lovingly seduces him. Willam himself has almost solved the case when he finds the monastery library, which turns out to be an almost inaccessible labyrinth. Then the papal delegation arrives. Bernardo Gui takes on the case. who lovingly seduces him. Willam himself has almost solved the case when he finds the monastery library, which turns out to be an almost inaccessible labyrinth. Then the papal delegation arrives. Bernardo Gui takes on the case. who lovingly seduces him. Willam himself has almost solved the case when he finds the monastery library, which turns out to be an almost inaccessible labyrinth. Then the papal delegation arrives. Bernardo Gui takes on the case.

and thus the viewer witnesses the ghastly crimes committed in the name of the Holy Inquisition. Suspects who must be in league with the devil are quickly found and just as quickly they are to receive a just death at the stake. It is not the devil who is the cause of the murders, but a missing book: the second book of Aristotle's Poetics. in which the ancient philosopher, after the tragedy, deals with comedy and thus also laughter in his first part. And this seems to be a very dangerous subject in the dark times of godliness. The positive attitude towards joy and humor represented in this work, which was believed to be lost, seems incompatible with reverence for the creator.

It is clear that the film can never achieve the complexity of the great novel. The multi-layered novel is, on the one hand, an epochal work, but also a philosophical essay. But as a broad historical crime story, the film works just as perfectly as the novel. The substance of the dark and harmonious images creates a vivid picture of monastic life in the late Middle Ages and the religious, political and social trends. Great actors reinforce the positive image. Sean Connery shines, but it is also the young Christian Slater who is remembered as Adson von Melk. He is a young person who is torn back and forth by the currents of his time and still has to carve out a place for himself in his life and in the future. No question, that these elementary events of life and death will have a lasting impact on people throughout their lives. "The Name of the Rose" - a commercial film through and through, but also an exciting masterpiece of European cinema.

20 people found this helpful

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Simon

4.0 out of 5 stars Great classic

Reviewed in Germany on 16 August 2023

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I bought this great classic used here on Amazon. Was significantly cheaper. You can also see signs of wear on the CD case but the CD itself is without any scratches. It's okay for me.