The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose (1986)

Timing: 2:10 (130 min)

7.479/10
2905

7.604/10
43369

7.7/10
127000

All about film

Video 1

Photo 25

Actors and characters

Release date

1986-09-24

Country

France, Germany, Italy

Production

Les Films Ariane, Constantin Film, RAI, ZDF, Cristaldifilm

Genre

Drama, Thriller, Mystery

Budget

$20 000 000

Revenue

$77 153 487

Website

Director

Jean-Jacques Annaud

Actors

Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, Christian Slater, Helmut Qualtinger, Ilya Baskin, Michael Lonsdale, Volker Prechtel, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., William Hickey, Michael Habeck
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Bernd Eichinger, Franco Cristaldi, Alexandre Mnouchkine, Bernd Schaefers, Jake Eberts, Thomas Schühly

Operator

Tonino Delli Colli

Composer

James Horner

Artist

Audition

Celestia Fox, David Rubin, Dominique Besnehard

Editing

Jane Seitz
All team (58)

• In one interview, Jean-Jacques Annaud said that actors Albert Finney, Richard Harris, Robert De Niro, Michael Caine, and Ian McKellen were also considered for the role of William Baskerville.
• Christian Slater was only 17 years old when he filmed a love scene with Valentina Vargas, who was 22.
• The film's screenwriter, Andrew Birkin, played the role of Monk Cuthbert of Winchester in the film.
• Fyodor Shalyapin Jr., the son of the famous opera singer Fyodor Shalyapin, played the monk Jorge of Burgos.
• The director initially wanted to cast John Huston for the role of Jorge.
• During the filming of the library fire, a real oak beam fell on Fyodor Shalyapin Jr.
• William of Baskerville finds a commentary in an ancient manuscript made by someone named Umberto of Bologna. This is, of course, a reference to Umberto Eco, who teaches at the University of Bologna.
• Actor Helmuth Költinger (Remigio da Varagine) was seriously ill during the filming. He died just hours after finishing the scenes he appeared in. The actor was often forced to interrupt his lines due to relentless pain.
• The role of the scriptorium – the room where the monks copied books – was played by the dormitory – the monastery bedroom.
• The monastery walls served various purposes – throughout its history, it functioned as a prison and a military hospital. Only in 1998 did this monument of the early Middle Ages become a museum.
• The main source of income for the Eberbach Monastery was the production of grape wine. In one of the stone halls, giant presses have been preserved, which, according to legend, inspired Johannes Gutenberg with the idea of printing he later implemented. How true this legend is is difficult to say, but another fact is real: it was with the invention of printing that the monks of Eberbach lost their traditional work – copying books, after which winemaking became the monastery’s main source of income.
• Sean Connery's robe for the film was commissioned in Morocco, and it was made according to all the rules, just as they did in the Middle Ages, from undyed sheep's wool.
• Sean Connery's career was in such a slump at the time that Columbia Pictures refused to finance the project when Connery was chosen for the role of William of Baskerville by Jean-Jacques Annaud.
• Filming took place in a specially built and very cold monastery and lasted almost nine months.
• In search of locations, the filmmakers visited over three hundred monasteries in Western Europe.
• Working on the screenplay for 'The Name of the Rose' took almost five years. Seventeen script drafts were made, with four screenwriters contributing.
• Umberto Eco disliked the film so much that he refused to authorize further adaptations of his novels. For example, he turned down Stanley Kubrick's request to adapt 'Foucault's Pendulum'.
• The monastery interiors were filmed at one of the oldest monasteries in Germany – Kloster Eberbach, located in the Rhine Valley near Wiesbaden. Eberbach Monastery (which translates to “Boar Creek”) was founded in 1116 by Augustinian monks, and 20 years later it passed into the hands of the Cistercians, who managed it until 1803.