Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: John Turturro, Rupert Everett, Damian Hardung, James Cosmo, Michael Emerson, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Greta Scarno, Richard Sammel, Stefano Fresi, Roberto Herlitzka, Fausto Maria Sciarappa, Maurizio Lombardi, Nina Fotaras, Guglielmo Favilla, Piotr Adamczyk, Tcheky Karyo, Benjamin Stender, Claudio Bigagli, Corrado Invernizzi, Max Malatesta, Alessio Boni, Sebastian Koch, Rinat Khismatouline, Camilla Diana, David Brandon, Peter Davison.
If life is about having faith, then to tackle a classic novel over the course of several episodes on television and pray that it hits home with even greater intensity than it did in the cinema, then that is devotion and conviction in one fell swoop to the cause of the writer’s pen.
Giacomo Battiato’s in depth examination of Umberto Eco’s clerical murder mystery masterpiece is a dark brooding affair which lays the ground for other novels to finally receive greater understanding than perhaps a two hour film can contain, and whilst the cinematic version of The Name Of The Rose is quite rightly lauded as one of the finest films of its period, there surely can be no argument that it lacked that final and decisive punch in which it deserved.
The difference in the acting styles between Sean Connery, who played William of Baskerville in the film, and John Turturro is one of debate, a very good role for the legendary Scottish actor and one that cements John Turturro’s quiet, smouldering intensity for the rest of his career, and yet they both inhabit an attitude in the role that befits their standing, the difference perhaps being in assurance, the conviction of which brings the character to the audience with greater conviction, and for John Turturro the consistency in his demeanour is startling and faithful.
The Name Of The Rose is epic and yet it frames the isolation required for monastic thought superbly. The very nature of quarantine is to be removed from society lest you infect the populace with disease, it is in this that the murder mystery, and scholarly application of devotion is to be observed, and with the story unfolding to include a greater debate on the nature of women within the walls of the monastery during the period in which it is set, that isolation becomes one of walled-in confinement.
Knowledge is dangerous to the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, and as fear between the two groups of religious orders strengthens, so too does the conviction shown by the viewer, the understanding that they are not just watching any old murder mystery being investigated, but one which deals with the obsession of secrets within the frame of religion.
Aside from John Turturro’s superb performance as William of Baskerville, Rupert Everett stands tall in the role of Bernardo Gui, the animosity of his very soul being wrenched out and thrashing itself against the movement of the times, the enlightenment of thought with absolute gravity.
Shrouded in darkness, yet full of light and constant drama, the television version of The Name Of The Rose lives up to its epic and classic standing with its sincerity intact.
Ian D. Hall