Name Of The Rose (DVD)

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Professor Umberto Eco once rather whimsically remarked that he started writing his best-selling 1980 novel "The Name of the Rose" because he "felt like poisoning a monk."

Some of that subtle humor permeates his book, the only long work I ever read at a single sitting. When the lengthy medieval murder mystery came out in paperback I thought I'd give it a try, figuring if I didn't like the first fifty pages or so, I could always toss it aside. I read straight through the night, 600 or more pages, mostly lying on the couch while my bemused wife called out to me several times wondering if I was ever going to sleep. Fortunately, it was a summer vacation, and I could get away with that sort of thing.

The novel was a wonder. It combined a dark atmosphere with suspense, politics, romance, and, in a particularly symbolic way, a look at the relationship between the Church and Man. Eco's field is semiotics, the study of signs and symbols, so it was natural that his first book should be grounded in multi levels of meaning. Like the rose flower, the book unfolds in many layers. So, when the movie was announced in 1986, I was delighted and looked forward to it with eager anticipation. But I found myself mildly disappointed when I finally did see it, French film director Jean-Jacques Annaud ("Quest for Fire," "The Bear," "Enemy at the Gates," "Two Brothers") choosing to concentrate almost exclusively on the story's atmosphere and melodramatics rather than on its deeper, metaphoric ideas. Oh, well; the movie is still intriguing, especially when it stars one of the screen's most magnetic actors, Sean Connery.

Of course, how you accept an English monk with a Scottish accent and the mind of a Sherlock Holmes nosing about in a fourteenth-century Italian monastery is another question. Film critic Rex Reed thought Connery looked ridiculous in a pair of sandals. Oh, well, again.

The beginnings of the plot, at least, follow Eco's book. In Eco's fiction, the Catholic Church convenes a council to debate the merits of Church wealth. "Did Christ own the clothes that he wore?" is a primary question. Representatives of the Franciscans, a mendicant Church order, are to argue in favor of the Church renouncing its riches. The Papal authorities are to hear them and consider the case. The year is 1327, and the Council is to meet at an ancient Church monastery in Northern Italy. Among the first Franciscan delegates to arrive at the abbey are Father William of Baskerville (Connery) and his young German novice and assistant, Adso of Melk (Christian Slater). No sooner do William and Adso arrive than they encounter a mysterious death.

The Abbot (Michael Lonsdale) confides to William that he cannot understand how one of his Benedictine monks could have died. He apparently fell from a tower window that was locked from the inside. Knowing that William has had some experience in investigative matters, the Abbot asks William for help in resolving the matter before the Pope's representatives arrive. Thus do we learn that Father William is a kind of medieval Sherlock Holmes. Of course, his name should have been our first clue: William of Baskerville. He's even given to say to Adso, his Dr. Watson, "It's elementary." Well, at least he doesn't declare, "The game's afoot."

Anyway, while William and Adso are investigating the first death, yet another death occurs, this one less easy to explain away as an accident: A monk is found drowned in a vat of pig's blood. The Abbot believes the devil is at work, and the abbey's monks think it's the beginning of the Apocalypse. William, perhaps more practical than he is entirely spiritual, thinks otherwise.

Both victims were translators and copyists in the abbey's scriptorium, the abbey being renowned for its supposedly vast library. But where, wonders William, are the books? The blind librarian, a fellow by the name of Jorge de Burgos (Feodor Chaliapin, Jr.), and his aide, Malachia (Volker Prechtel), will allow no one to see the books. Odd, thinks William. Why are the books being kept secret? Are they dangerous? And, while we're at it, why are these folks so dead set against any form of laughter or mirth?

Then a third death occurs, again a clear case of murder: Another translator, found drowned in his bath. And it is about this time that two other events of consequence to the story transpire. First, Adso is seduced by a beautiful young peasant woman, known only as "the Girl" (Valentina Vargas), a development that greatly disturbs the novice, wreaks havoc with his conscience, and confuses his spirit. Not only is he unclear on the line between love and lust, he is prompted to question all the more the Church's attitude toward the poor. William counsels him, "How peaceful life would be without love, Adso, how safe, how tranquil, and how dull."

Second, the Church's High Inquisitor, Bernardo Gui (F. Murray Abraham), arrives at the abbey to take charge of the case. He instills fear in everyone and quickly comes to the conclusion that the fatalities are, indeed, the work of the archfiend, and that several people of the abbey are involved, as well as the Girl! They are all to be burned at the stake posthaste, and anyone who disputes him risks being condemned to death, too. William must solve the case in order to save innocent lives, but a past experience with Gui gives him pause. The heretofore unflappable William, it seems, has his own skeletons in the closet, old wounds that have never healed, old fears that have never died.

The best parts of the movie are its atmosphere and its characters. The story line, I'm afraid, is rather easy to see in advance, the denouement rather too simple, and the reason for all the fuss rather feeble, not to say improbable. But the attention to period detail in matters of costume, makeup, and sets, make the film a compelling watch. For authenticity, most of the inside of the abbey was shot in a former Cistercian monastery in Germany, while the exteriors were built on a hillside in Italy, following the book's descriptions. It's a wonderfully big, dark, and creepy place. The movie's best scene, in fact, can be attributed to its set, the inside of the forbidden library at night, a labyrinth of rooms and staircases reminiscent of those drawings of E.M. Escher where doors and pathways lead paradoxically back on themselves. The old abbey is filled with secret rooms, dark catacombs, and the bones of dead ancestors. Director Annaud is shrewd enough to confine the majority of his action to the nighttime or within the abbey's dimly (and naturally) lit interior.

If the abbey is weird and wonderful, the characters are even better. Annaud says he chose all of the actors for their looks, and with the exception of Connery, who was probably chosen for his star power, this is undoubtedly true. Connery is at his most charming, establishing a character as much like Indy's dad in "The Last Crusade" as Sherlock Holmes. He is strict, demanding, seemingly unemotional, given to sensible, pragmatic affairs, with a keen eye for detail. Yet he is not without his droll, even mischievous side, which is a concern to the far more sober-minded Benedictine monks he's trying to work with. It's one of Connery's better roles, sandals or no sandals.