The Name of the Rose (1986)
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Columbia Pictures was so certain Sean Connery was finished that it pulled its financing the moment he was cast. After a long run of flops, the studio wanted nothing to do with a medieval murder mystery built around a washed-up Bond.
THE NAME OF THE ROSE (1986) got made anyway, with financing assembled from a patchwork of European television networks.
Jean-Jacques Annaud's adaptation of Umberto Eco's dense medieval bestseller became Connery's comeback. He won a BAFTA and walked straight into The Untouchables and an Oscar.
Annaud had no interest in movie-star faces. He wanted the Middle Ages, so he cast the most weathered, distinctive actors he could find, by his own admission the ugliest, down to the silent monks lining the abbey halls. He spent four years assembling them, and nearly every face in the film looks carved out of the period.
Eco kept his distance from the result and disliked Connery's casting. The film does not even claim to adapt the author. Its credits famously describe the movie as "a palimpsest of Umberto Eco's novel".
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The Name of the Rose was an international co-production between West German, French, and Italian companies, including Neue Constantin Film, Cristaldifilm, and Les Films Ariane. Shot in English, it was filmed on location at the historic Eberbach Abbey in Germany and on massive exterior sets constructed near Rome. Distribution was handled regionally by various studios, with 20th Century Fox distributing the theatrical release in the United States and Canada, Columbia Pictures in Italy, and Neue Constantin Film in West Germany.
About the Film
Who, in the name of God, is getting away with murder?
- Directed By
- Jean-Jacques Annaud
- Runtime
- 130 minutes
- Released
- September 24, 1986
- Certification
- R
- Country
- France, Germany, Italy
- Starring
- Sean Connery, Christian Slater, Helmut Qualtinger, Elya Baskin, Michael Lonsdale
More Credits
- Genres
- Drama, Thriller, Mystery
- Language
- English, Italian, Latin, German
- Origin
- DE, IT, FR
- Studios
- Cristaldifilm, Les Films Ariane, ZDF, RAI, Constantin Film
- Written By
- Gérard Brach, Andrew Birkin, Howard Franklin, Alain Godard, Umberto Eco
- Produced By
- Alexandre Mnouchkine, Bernd Eichinger, Jake Eberts, Thomas Schühly, Franco Cristaldi, Bernd Schaefers
- Cinematography
- Tonino Delli Colli
- Music
- James Horner
- Also Starring
- Volker Prechtel, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., William Hickey, Michael Habeck, Urs Althaus
- Budget
- $18,000,000
- Box Office
- $77,200,000
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Such a great movie
I just happened to see it in a theater when it was new and loved it. I have it on DVD. It’s marvelous!
😘
That last bit is funny because I read the book and watched the film and the differences are minor, utterly superficial.
For further discussion, see TRAINSPOTTING
Tommy Matic IV Yeah, it’s a blip, on otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory. Good catch.
Also starring the impeccable Ron Perlman as Salvatore.
And 16 year old Christian Slater lost his virginty to a woman actress, Valentina Vargas, during filming. Sometimes, life imitates art.
I liked this film and love the even more poetic book more.
I saw this excellent film at an art meusem theater for medieval exhibit tie-in event.I had the unique experience of being not just visually immersed in a middle-ages realm but, because I sat behind a man who was so unwashed I literally saw an insect crawling about in his hair, I felt I was SMELLING what it must’ve been like in that monastery!
Must watch this again
Love this film. Still have a copy on disc. I love films, and i watch them from that perspective. Not so technical or even political. And i liked it. Gritty, dirty and beautiful at the same time.