The Name Of The Rose

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The Name of the Rose (original title, Der Name der Rose) is a German-French-Italian 1986 film, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, based on the book of the same name by Umberto Eco. Sean Connery is the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Christian Slater is his apprentice Adso of Melk, who are called upon to solve a deadly mystery in a Medieval abbey.

William of Baskerville and his apprentice Adso of Melk (narrating as an old man, it later transpires) arrive at a Benedictine abbey where a mysterious death has occurred ahead of an important Church conference. William, known for his deductive and analytic mind, confronts the worried Abbot and gains permission to investigate the death – a young illuminator appears to have committed suicide. Over the next few days, several other bizarre deaths occur, and the two discover that not everything is what it seems in the abbey.

The two also make the acquaintance of Salvatore (played by Ron Perlman), a demented hunchback who spews forth gibberish in various languages, and his handler and protector, Remigio da Varagine (Helmut Qualtinger) who, as events prove, also has a shady past. William quickly deduces that Salvatore had once been a member of a heretical sect and infers that Remigio likewise had been involved. He suspects that they may have been involved in the killings.

Investigating and keen to head off accusations of demonic possession (which nevertheless eventually leads to the burning of two innocent men at the stake) the protagonists discover and explore a labyrinthine medieval library, constructed on multiple levels in the abbey's forbidden principal tower. It becomes clear that the only remaining copy of Aristotle's Second Book of Poetics is somehow related to the deaths. William deduces, thanks to a scrap of parchment with hastily written notes, that all of those who died under mysterious circumstances had read the book. His investigations are curtailed by the arrival of Bernardo Gui of the Inquisition, summoned for the conference and keen to investigate the deaths. The two men clashed in the past and the zealous inquisitor has no time for theories outside his own: that The Devil is responsible – and torture will reveal the truth.