The Name of the Rose
by Jean-Jacques Annaud
List Price:
Our Price: $8.99
You Save: $3.99 (31%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $3.90 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Christian Slater, Elya Baskin, Helmut Qualtinger, Michael Lonsdale, Sean ConneryDirector: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Brand: Warner Brothers
Writer: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Producer: Alexandre Mnouchkine
Writer: Alain Godard
Writer: Andrew Birkin
Writer: G?rard Brach
Writer: Howard Franklin
Writer: Umberto Eco
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 130 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-07-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of The Name of the Rose
DVD Review: "The step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is all too brief."
Summary: 3 Stars
The film opens in 1327, with a Franciscan monk and his young novice arriving to a remote abbey in the dark north of Italy to participate in a crucial debate between the emissaries of Pope John XXII and leaders of the Franciscan order, to decide whether the church should take vows of poverty or wealth...
After a series of murders--attributed to the presence of a supernatural force-- that are taking place within the cold walls of the godforsaken battlement, Brother William of Baskerville (Connery) ends up undertaking an investigation to solve the secrets surrounding these unexplainable crimes... All of them bearing blackened fingers and blackened tongues...
What follows, brings William face to face with Bernardo Gui (F. Murray Abraham), the sadistic Grand inquisitor--appointed by the Pope to hunt down and free the Church of heretics--who sees the abbey enshrouded in a terrifying mystery and the devil roaming behind every foul deed... Gui burns every last suspected devil-worshipper in the village, forcing Baskerville to uncover the truth before innocent blood is shed...
As always, Connery lends dignity, intelligence as the acute and prudent monk who has knowledge, both of the human spirit and the wiles of the evil one... Connery plays his role with gusto...
Newcomer Christian Slater plays Connery's faithful sidekick, Adso, the youngest son of the Baron of Melk who sure does like to watch his master at work... One night--expressing fear and confusion-- he gets feminine carnal delights from a peasant girl, 'a creature that rose like the dawn, was bewitching as the moon, radiant as the sun, terrible as an army poised for battle...'
For a moment, Ron Perlman steals the show as the heretical hunchbacked monk named Salvatore who is ugly yet phenomenal... His scenes with Abraham are stirring...
"The Name of the Rose" is atmospheric, but disturbing at many levels... Some might say, contradictory, leaving plenty of twists and turns unresolved and unexplained, but the film was a smash hit in Europe... Annaud succeeds in capturing the claustrophobia and panic of being truly lost in the menacing, creepy Dark Ages...
DVD Review: Not a Nice Place to Visit
Summary: 3 Stars
This is the famous Umberto Eco book become a fairly well-received movie. But I found "The Name of the Rose" hard to watch and hard to become involved with for several reasons.
For one thing, the movie is too episodic. There seem to be pages torn from its plot, just as some of the illuminated manuscripts featured in the movie are in danger of having pages torn from them or expurgated. For example, the scene that includes the quote "the name of the rose" and that might have illuminated the intended spirit of this movie - got left on the cutting room floor.
To be fair though, this deletion might have been in keeping with Eco's own intentions. Eco said he had randomly cast about for a title for his book, one he thought would be diffusely evocative. He ultimately took his title from a classic quote that perhaps actually referred to "Rome" rather than to a "rose." Either way, the gist of the quote was, "When a thing is dead and gone, all we are left with is its name."
True to the book, other literary references abound in the film. Sean Connery's lead detective character is from "the Baskervilles" - echoes of Sherlock Holmes. The monastery librarian is named after Jorge Luis Borges, the famous Argentine writer who was himself a blind librarian.
However, there are just too many characters and too much ground to cover here. The viewer is jounced from scene to scene, as if being dragged up and down those long flights of stone steps in the monastery maze - those stairways that look so much like an Escher painting - those stairways leading nowhere.
The viewer doesn't get to know any of the characters well enough. They come and go; they steal in and out of the monks' inglenooks and cubbies. And so many of them are made to appear so aggressively ugly.
We know the 14th century was in fact probably a grimy, beleaguered time, and perhaps Annaud should be congratulated for not sprucing up the actors, for allowing the nitty-gritty of this parade of repulsiveness. But he went too far. Most of his players are so bizarre-looking, they seem to be from another planet. They actually seem as if they would have been better cast in Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space." Annaud calls these weirdly tonsured, disproportionate faces "strong" and says he searched many countries to find just such unique, expressive faces.
I wish Annaud's valuing of distinctively freakish faces extended to women as well. While most of the men in this film constitute a gallery of grotesques, the one woman in the film, underneath her smudging of dirt, was required to be conventionally pretty.
The only monastery resident who, in my view, transcends the caricature of ugliness he was impressed into - is Ron Perlman's simple-minded character. His mildly quizzical, good-natured attempt to puff out the flames lapping up from the pyre around the stake - is the scene that will most affectingly stay with me from this movie.
In summary, this film isn't for casual entertainment. It was something of a chore for me to watch - like a homework assignment. Annaud's DVD Commentary is interesting, literary and enlightening - worth the price of admission alone. But the movie itself might only be enjoyable to those who are fans of some members of this international cast or to those interested in 14th century history - its monasteries, milieu, and theological debates.
DVD Review: Great period film and more entertaining than the novel.
Summary: 4 Stars
Umberto Eco's novel, of the same name (which the script was pretty closely derived from), is a tedious, bloated, manuscript, that can't decide whether it's a murder mystery, a treatise on the state of European and the Catholic Church societies and politics of the early 14th century, or just a way for Eco to show off what a great scholar he is, and how proficient he is in latin. (If you read the book, have an Latin-English dictionary handy - or just skip a lot of paragraphs and/or pages, as I eventually ended up doing.)
The film, on the other hand, is a marvelous murder mystery, set in a prosperous abbey in northen Italy in 1327. The atmosphere is dark, the production design, costumes and make-up, excellent. The cast is international and they all deliver. I highly recommend this film.
DVD Review: Holmes and Watson in midevil times
Summary: 4 Stars
While a bit slow moving, this midevil thriller was quite good despite its flaws. The flaws, I think, were brought on by the fact it occured in midevil times and the world is a very, very different place. Still, this was a great movie in its challenge to the subject matter and the thinking of the time.
Sean Connery plays William of Baskerville who has recently arrived at a remote abbey with his young novice Adso, played by a young Christian Slater. Some strange events at the monestary have the others convinced that they have been touched by the devil, in that some monks have met some mysterious ends. In a midevil Holmes and Watson crime solving (if Connery's moniker is not the dead give away then what is?), William determines that these monks did not meet their ends so easily and that there is a very human force behind their deaths rather than the work of the devil. Eventually representatives from the Inquisition come and single out the odd or trouble makers, in the traditional witch hunt mentality.
The make up jobs they did on the monks are reason enough to give it such high marks (have you ever seen such ugly people on screen?!), but this movie succeeds in that it tackles such a foreign world to us. Imagine living back then with only a small percentage of the popultion literate, having people really believe in witches and the forces of the devil having a direct effect on their lives, and without modern technology. The movie portrays how monks lived in religious communities very well from their spiritual needs to their mundane. This might seem odd to movie goers, but it was a truly unique experience.
DVD Review: The Name Of The Rose
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been looking for this movie for 2 or more years. I have seen them on VHS but wanted it on DVD. It is an excellent movie that you want to watch over and over. There is a good love scene in the movie and is very unexpected to an unsuspecting subject. The plot has twist and turns in it and that is what makes it a movie you want to see several times. This movie has all the elements, greed, lust, deceit, politics, and oh yes more than several deaths. Was it murder, if so, who did it? Each time I watch the movie I see something that I missed which helps to fill in the blanks and makes it a wonderful evening of entertainment.
Description of The Name of the Rose
"The Name of the Rose" is a gothic medieval mystery thriller set in a 14th-century Italian monastery. Franciscan monk William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) and a young novice (Christian Slater) arrive for a conference to find that several monks have been murdered in mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his wit and intelligence.DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Commentary by Director Jean-Jaques Annaud
Documentary:Vintage making-of documentary - The Abbey of Crime: Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose"
Featurette:All-new Photo Video Journey with Jean-Jacques Annaud
Scene Access
Theatrical Trailer
Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose is a flawed attempt to adapt Umberto Eco's highly convoluted medieval bestseller for the screen, necessarily excising much of the esoterica that made the book so compelling. Still, what's left is a riveting whodunit set in a grimly and grimily realistic 14th-century Benedictine monastery populated by a parade of grotesque characters, all of whom spend their time lurking in dark places or scuttling, half-unseen, in the omnipresent gloom. A series of mysterious and gruesome deaths are somehow tied up with the unwelcome attention of the Inquisition, sent to root out suspected heretical behavior among the monastic scribes whose lives are dedicated to transcribing ancient manuscripts for their famous library, access to which is prevented by an ingenious maze-like layout.
Enter Sean Connery as investigator-monk William of Baskerville (the Sherlock Holmes connection made explicit in his name) and his naive young assistant Adso (a youthful Christian Slater). The Grand Inquisitor Bernado Gui (F. Murray Abraham) suspects devilry; but William and Adso, using Holmesian forensic techniques, uncover a much more human cause: the secrets of the library are being protected at a terrible cost. A fine international cast and the splendidly evocative location compensate for a screenplay that struggles to present Eco's multifaceted story even partially intact; Annaud's idiosyncratic direction complements the sinister, unsettling aura of the tale ideally. --Mark Walker
General DVDs
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Bestsellers in General DVDs
Babette's FeastRelease date: 2001-01-23; DVD
Best price: $6.41
Price in other shops:
Babylon A.D.Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2009-01-06; DVD
Best price: $12.86
Price in other shops:
The Red Balloon (Released by Janus Films, in association with the Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2008-04-29; DVD
Best price: $8.08
Price in other shops:
Transporter 2TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2006-01-10; DVD
Best price: $7.31
Price in other shops:
The TransporterRelease date: 2003-10-23; DVD
Best price: $7.36
Price in other shops:
Paris, Je T'Aime (Paris, I Love You)Paris; Release date: 2007-11-13; DVD
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
AmelieTAUTOU,AUDREY; Release date: 2002-07-16; DVD
Best price: $11.24
Price in other shops:
The Dreamers (Original Uncut NC-17 Version)Release date: 2004-07-13; DVD
Best price: $4.93
Price in other shops:
I've Loved You So LongSony; Release date: 2009-03-03; DVD
Best price: $16.99
Price in other shops:
La Vie en Rose (Extended Version)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-11-13; DVD
Best price: $9.77
Price in other shops:
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
The Year of Living DangerouslyWarner Brothers; Release date: 2000-06-06; DVD
Best price: $5.43
Price in other shops:
Memphis BelleWarner Brothers; Release date: 1998-05-27; DVD
Best price: $4.12
Price in other shops:
Secondhand Lions (New Line Platinum Series)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2004-02-03; DVD
Best price: $3.74
Price in other shops:
The Lion in WinterRelease date: 2001-06-19; DVD
Best price: $5.27
Price in other shops:
AmadeusWarner Brothers; Release date: 1997-12-17; DVD
Best price: $10.81
Price in other shops:
The Key to The Name of the Rose: Including Translations of All Non-English Passages (Ann Arbor Paperbacks)by Adele J. Haft, Jane G. White, Robert J. White
University of Michigan Press; Published: 1999-10-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.74
Price in other shops:
ExcaliburWILLIAMSON,NICOL; Release date: 1999-09-21; DVD
Best price: $2.72
Price in other shops:
The Man Who Would Be KingWarner Brothers; Release date: 1997-11-19; DVD
Best price: $7.98
Price in other shops:
The Wind and the LionWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-01-06; DVD
Best price: $4.89
Price in other shops:
The Name of the Rose: including the Author's Postscriptby Umberto Eco
Harvest Books; Published: 1994-09-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Price in other shops: