In 1986, director Jean-Jacques Annaud embarked on adapting Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose—a book that had already become a literary sensation after selling millions of copies in dozens of languages. The film faced an immense challenge: Eco’s encyclopedic novel, published in Italy in 1980 and translated into English by William Weaver in 1983, was a feast for readers, with its printed page as the proper medium.
Annaud’s film opens with a title card stating: “A palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel.” A palimpsest, defined as a manuscript rewritten multiple times with traces of original text visible, became Annaud’s metaphor for his adaptation. The term, which might seem academic to moviegoers in dark theaters, underscored the film’s relationship to Eco’s work.
The adaptation features Sean Connery as Brother William of Baskerville—a British Franciscan monk who also serves as a criminal investigator—and Christian Slater as his apprentice Adso. Their medieval mystery unfolds within an abbey populated by monks whose behaviors and appearances are described as unsettling, including Salvatore, a hunchbacked character played by Ron Perlman.
Salvatore becomes the unwitting center of a theological debate: Did Jesus own the clothes he wore? This question, rooted in historical inquiry, mirrors the broader clash between popes and princes over how to live according to Christian principles. While Annaud captures these tensions, his portrayal leans toward anti-papal themes less evident in Eco’s original novel.
The abbey’s library—a labyrinth that serves as both an intellectual puzzle and a symbol of societal tension—reaches its climax in a sequence that echoes the book’s highfalutin complexity. Eco himself described such works as “a club sandwich,” with films forced to choose between elements like theological depth or political nuance.
As Eco noted in a 2011 interview: “A book like this is a club sandwich, with turkey, salami, tomato, cheese, lettuce. And the movie is obliged to choose only the lettuce or the cheese.” Annaud’s film succeeds not by capturing all of Eco’s ideas but by conveying the essence of the literary puzzle it adapts.
If the movie succeeds, it’s because this idea comes across, just barely discernible—like a remnant line on a palimpsest.