The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose is a series based on the novel by Umberto Eco. This is an ambitious effort that has clearly seen no expense spared.

The result is an intriguing and enjoyable series, that blends Renaissance politics with a crime drama. Everything of the period is infused with a religiosity that is not only philosophical but also highly political. The church and state were inseparable and this point is driven home by the fact the key figure, a Franciscan friar is both giver of religious truths, as well as an arbiter of temporal justice.

Perhaps the closest counterpart to this series I can think of is 1990's production Cadfael, set in an earlier medieval period. So far The Name of the Rose is shaping up to offer something similar but whether it will be as polished as this earlier drama remains to be seen.

Beyond this the acting is best described as solid to excellent from all of the cast and the stories are well told. I do think its quite an accomplishment to take a book of this kind and transform it into a series.

So far The Name of the Rose looks promising. 7/10 from me.

After watching the first episode I was extremely disappointed. Sure the costumes were wonderful and helpful in providing atmosphere but the writers decisions left me bored and disinterested. Umberto Eco's story was both pictorial and gripping yet the writers in this mess dilute it to such an extent that I kept thinking that there was something else I should be doing. Even when they strictly stick to the word's spoken by William of Baskerville and Adso it feels forced and artificial. As far as I'm concerned this conception of The Name of the Rose is mostly a fail.

In short: there is a reason why the central character in Eco's work is named after Occam and nods to Sherlock Holmes. It has to do with presenting complexity and then dealing with it though Occam's maxim and Holmes' deductive reasoning. Yet, the writers of this mess of an adaption seem to have not understood Eco or Rose at all and simply opted for injecting and proliferating haphazard disorder to mimic it complexity when it is just -- mediocre plot device and script-writing and. Sorry but gibberish is not complexity because it meanders, and proliferation non sequiter subplots are not semiotics just because your brain has to also work when decoding nonsense . It goes without saying as well that labyrinth is meaningless if you just proliferate blind ally diversions and don't understand it is the great classics Eco is presenting as the guide, the key.

If you've got that liberal arts degree for undergrad and loved history and literature, like I did, (before having to turn to something that can make some money for grad) they you probably knew about this series planning and had enthusiastic and positive expectations. The original film version of Name of the Rose was not bad, it was a decent adaption of Umberto's Eco's intricate but certainly his most approachable book, but it certainly could be much better fleshed out in a mini series length.

In addition to being a fan of Eco, I certainly am as well of John Turturro.

Sadly this series just doesn't work given the source material and talent. It is a serious disappointment; in fact a jumbled mess. Instead of using miniseries length to flesh out the complexity, tease the symbolism, and give us more of Eco, the writers went off the rails as well, distracting packing in all kinds of PC nods to contemporary issues that are not in Eco's novel. And even for "a loose adaptation" there is a continual sense of disjointed and artificially forced elements and messages that are not in Eco's work. Most galling -- but also telling -- metaphor for the utter humorlessness in the makers of this adaption is dropping emphasis on Aristotle's Poetics; whose dramatic theory, and utilization of humor, is what Eco is using. In the book we are immersed IN the Poetics, the author has structured he work so we are, while the character searches for it, along with a solution to the crime mystery, and this is not even attempted in this miniseries.

I spent about two years working in Italy and I have a high tolerance for the messiness of Italian productions, be they film, TV or contracting of goods or services. Things there are beautiful and interesting, but often don't work well. OK. I did not go into this adaption of name of the Rose expecting complete rationality or order. But there are so many artificial jumps in plot that it nears incoherence. Especially since none of it is really true to the core of Eco's work which has to do with the sequestration of knowledge, such as sublime and complex classics, and not for example some hamhanded lesson on immigration, class struggle, or violence toward women. Eco already had a strong and important social message with poverty and a church that lost its way, or whose future was being fought over. By throwing in the kitchen sink of social commentary this gets diluted to nothing.

I give this a six star, even though it is a four, since part of Eco is there, even if, with united irony -- it is hidden by the script writers' own nonsense.

The book and the movie are masterpieces. This serie spoils the original story by deviating from its storyline and not in a better way but rather in a french way( without inner purpose and in a life random but not clever way) maybe to prove the story can last for a while! Even the tricks that Baskerville used to elucidate mysteries and riddles have been Changed! Why? To gain independence from the movie? To serve the producer ego! The result is a little bit disappointing. You should have been more smart than Umberto Echo which is not needed and really hard. I'd rather watch again the movie instead! Which I did!

Italian/German co-production with interesting and suspenseful screenplay by Andrea Porporati, Nigel Williams, John Turturro, director Giacomo Battiato himself and based on novel "Il Nome Della Rosa" by Umberto Eco. The novel has sold over 50 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling books ever published. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, literary theory and Roger Bacon's scientific method. Set in 1327 , when after a strange death in a Medieval Abbey, the Benedictine monks are convinced that the four riders of apocalypse are coming ; many of the monks fear that there can be only an evil, supernatural explanation. Our two protagonists (John Turturro, Damian Hardung) arrive at a Benedictine abbey in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation. The abbey is being used as neutral ground in a dispute between Pope John XXII and the Franciscans over the question of apostolic poverty. The monks of the abbey have recently been shaken by the suspicious death of one of their brothers, Adelmo of Otranto, and the abbot asks William (a former inquisitor) to investigate the incident. During his inquiries, William has a debate with one of the oldest monks in the abbey, Jorge of Burgos, about the permissibility of laughter, which Jorge regards as a threat to God's established order. The abbey is in fear over the recent death of one of their young monks, a brilliant illustrator who was found killed by an impact at the base of a cliff outside. With the Abbey to play host to a council on the Franciscan's Order's belief that the Church should rid itself of wealth, William of Baskerville (John Turturro), the enlightened friar and his young apprentice Adso da Melk (Damian Hardung) investigate a series of mysterious deaths at the mysterious abbey risking the wrath of a powerful Inquisitor. The Abbot (Michael Emerson) asks William to help solve the mystery as he is known to be a man of great intellect and a former investigator for the inquisition. As William is asked to assist in determining the cause of the untimely death. Meanwhile , several murders happen and along the way the young monk Adso finds a mysterious girl (Greta Scarano). At the request of Pope John XXII (Tchéky Karyo) - whose intention is to eliminate the Franciscan order together with his ideal of poverty and the heretical religious sect of the ¨Dulcinos¨- the General Inquisitor (Rupert Everett) arrives at the Abbey and things go wrong. A Medieval Murder Mystery !. Who, in the name of God, is getting away with murder?. A story of unholy murder !. They believed in God, but traded with the Devil !.

This is an acceptable television rendition of Umberto Eco's bestseller and the series took time of preparation. The TV series contains thrills, suspense , mystery , sexual scenes , intriguing issues, Impressively spectacular production design and results to be quite entertaining. Television adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel 'The Name of the Rose' who previously was successful in 1986 by Jean-Jacques Annaud with Sean Conney and F. Murray Abraham. The series deals with a valuable lost book and the relentless search to find it; through the motif of this lost and possibly suppressed book which might have aestheticized the farcical, the unheroic and the skeptical, it also makes an ironically slanted plea for tolerance and against dogmatic or self-sufficient metaphysical truths - an angle which reaches the surface in the final epidodes. The mystery revolves around the abbey library, situated in a fortified tower-the aedificium that has 4 towers. This structure has three floors-the ground floor contains the kitchen and refectory, the first floor a scriptorium, and the top floor is occupied by the library. This has a total of fifty-six rooms. Each room has a scroll containing a verse from the Book of Revelation. The two lower floors are open to all, while only the librarian may enter the last. A catalogue of books is kept in the scriptorium, where manuscripts are read and copied. A monk who wishes to read a book would send a request to the librarian, who, if he thought the request justified, would bring it to the scriptorium. Finally, the library is in the form of a labyrinth, whose secret only the librarian and the assistant librarian know. It displays very fine acting by John Turturro as an intellectually nonconformist and respected Franciscan monk investigating a series of mysterious deaths in an isolated abbey. Turturro as a monkish Sherlock Holmes trying to solve a series of murders , he is fun to watch. Good support cast plenty of familiar faces (mostly Italian and German actors), such as Damian Hardung, Greta Scarano, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Richard Sammel, James Cosmo, Elya Baskin and special mention for Rupert Everett as the feared Inquisitor and Michael Emerson as the suspect Abbot.

Nowadays, the only place where manuscripts and books are made with the same techniques and materials depicted in the movie is the abbey of Praglia on Padua (Veneto, Italy); it takes six months to a year to create a single page. Dialogues in medieval Occitan language have been translated and supervised by a team of experts from the University of Salerno.

It contains colorful and luxurious cinematography by John Conroy, filmed on various locations in three different Italian regions: Lazio, Abruzzo and Umbria. As well as suspenseful and spiritual musical score by composer Volker Bertelmann. The series was finely directed by Giacomo Battiato, a specialist on accurate biopic , as he directed autobiography stories about Giovane Casanova , Benvenuto Cellini and Stradivari. The Name of the Rose(2019) rating: 6.5/10. Better than average.