The Name
of the Rose (1986) is a film which delves into the inner workings of a medieval
abbey in the midst a crisis. Set in 1327, the
film follows Brother William, a monk of another order played by Sean Connery,
and his apprentice as they investigate the death of a young monk to calm the
minds of the frightened and superstitious local monks. These two were summoned in preference to the
ever-frightening, torturous, stereotypical walking death sentence that is the
Holy Inquisition. Almost Immediately,
the two logically deduce from analysis of the scene that the cause of death was
simply suicide, but they soon find that something more complex is happening as more
deaths continue to occur. The story begins
to twist itself into a Sherlock Holmes-esque scenario as the protagonists leapfrog
between clues and the potential criminals, but no understanding of motivation
save for knowledge of the existence of a certain mysterious Greek book. It culminates with a three party stand-off
between the abbey's monks, William, and the Holy Inquisition in which this book
must be found to truly answer who is to be rightfully punished.
The
movie finds great success in many aspects of the film though some Hollywood flair
managed to sneak its way in. Particularly
great was the entire presentation of the abbey's internal affairs, environments,
and occupants. Parts of the film were
filmed outside of a castle which had
many features we might come to expect from studying Joan. The sides of this, however, were not circular
and instead consisted of many sharp angles, but this film was set nearly 100
years prior to Joan and perhaps these defenses were not state-of-the-art. The monks themselves had clothing which, in
general, was drab brown earthy robes and had the pious unkempt horseshoe
haircuts. On the arrival of the
inquisition, more extravagant clothing consisting of white and red became prevalent
as we would expect from the holiest of clergymen. These men lived in buildings of stone and
wood which the production crew lit appropriately with dim torches and gave
subtle noises of creaking wood or footsteps which would be much more readily
heard then than now. The lifestyle of
independence is made clear early in the movie as an animal is graphically
butchered as a self sufficient people would have to do.
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| The protagonists investigation of the initial death in front of the castle. |
Not
everything about the presentation of the monks is entirely believable. A few characters of note are the hunchback
and the creepy, pale, Uncle Fester look-alike.
Both appear as though they were put into the movie for nothing but
misdirection of the audience and don't offer any historical value. They're the slightly "off"
outsiders which, to be fair, were grounded enough that they could be based off
real people, but they were put in a context where they would sneak in and out
of the scenes menacingly to give the protagonists someone obvious to point
finger at. The last of the
non-conforming character base was the actual man who ran the abbey who was
apparently blind in both eyes and adamantly faithful to the point where he
refused to allow laughter in their work area. Of course, with any of this character set, he has
a pivotal role in the movie which, without spoiling the ending, doesn't make a whole
lot of sense.
The
film has some historic value which coincides with the Joan of Arc primary trial
sources. We see from Brother William a
logic and reason based approach to answering the question at hand. He does not ask question nearly as much as
Joan's inquisitors, but instead relies most heavily on physical clues which he
finds through searching. Here we even
get to see some possible cool old technology such as secret writing using lemon
juice. Many of these clues, as seen by
other scribes of the time, were written in classical languages, specifically Greek. Even with the reason as an integral part of
the investigation, superstition still finds its way into the search. Brother William at one point claims they are
experiencing "Death by the book which kills or for which men kill",
leading us to believe that it may be up in the air whether people are dying in
a logical manner or if something more sinister and metaphysical is happening.
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A great library is found during the investigation and
this appeared to be a form of the "wounded man". |
Upon
the arrival of the Inquisition proper, the central theme of the movie shifts
into a court-like manner where the inquisitors are accusing and seeking
information through a "trial".
Just as with Joan, however, techniques were used to lead out answers
which they sought. Perhaps because the
case had little political weight behind it, this team of inquisitors were much
more inclined to gain answers through fear, pain, and torture rather than
weighted questions and confusion. In
both cases though, there was a jury like construct to oversee the trial and
some sort of ruling judge. At one point
there was even some sort of allusion to a higher court which unresolved issues
could be brought to.
They finally
sentence to death multiple people by means of a burning pyre. One of the individuals sentenced was a peasant
woman accused of witchcraft. This
character, and those she represented and lived with, might have been the least
believable part of the movie. There was
a brief side story of romance between her and the apprentice, but her limited
ability to speak or even act in a human manner made it both awkward and
confusing. Her cognitive skills as a
peasant were apparently equivalent to that of an infant or well trained
dog. While initially I thought she was
another challenged character, comments were made suggesting she was simply one
of the poor and uneducated peasants which lived outside the abbey in mud huts. We learn through Joan that, at the very
least, this character is not a good representation of much of the peasant
class. Joan was an articulate, spiritual
and powerful peasant of which none of these traits were seen in any of the
'poor' class in this movie.
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In the few brief moments we see the local peasantry, a chicken defecates in this woman's eye.
She then hits her head on the ceiling.
Classic.
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Overall,
I think the movie is a wonderful Hollywood suspense or thriller for those who
liked The Da Vinci Code or even something like National Treasure. I do think it has more to offer than sheer
entertainment value as the effort to create historical accuracy was obviously
put forth. In many ways this movie went
above and beyond most others in building an interesting story in the confines
of a not-so interesting place. The end,
to me, was not so brilliant with my take away for the primary motivation of the
killer being something like, "When we laugh at god, the world descends into
chaos", but the journey there was valuable and everything else wrapped up
in a satisfying manner.
4/5 voices in my council approve.
In the spirit of Halloween I choose to take a little bit of a darker turn for this blog post and question the act of being burned at the stake. When thinking about someone burning at the stake who or what groups come to mind? For me, two groups of people come to mind: witches and heretics. Both were groups with long histories of being burned at the stake as punishments for their sins and crimes, mostly against the church doctrine. In relation to our class for this week, we have finally reached the point of our class where we are discussing Joan's sentencing and her death.
This second film clip is from The Messenger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzYa4B8R6yY. You'll have to skip-forward to around the time 2:22 to get to Joan's burning. This clip brings up several questions also. First, this film choose not to shave the prisoner's head-was the act of shaving one's head who was to be burned true? Secondly, was it "standard practice" to tie one's hands to the stake as well as shackle their feet to the stake as well? We have read several sources that detail Joan being shackled in her prison cell so I am curious to as what you all think about this film choosing to show Joan being burned at the stake but also shackled to it. Do you think this was only used in Joan's case because the English were so "fearful" of her?
