The Name Of The Rose | 1986
- DIRECTOR |
- Jean-Jacques Annaud
Medieval whodunnit, which follows Umberto Eco’s plot though jettisoning the novel’s philosophical raison d’être.
Reversing the usual procedure, where real exteriors lead to studio sets, the exterior of the Italian monastery is a vast set which was built just outside of Rome.
The gloomy interior, in which monk William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) and sidekick Adso of Melk (Christian Slater) investigate a series of murders, is a real monastery – but in Germany.
It’s Kloster Eberbach, a 12th and 14th century Cistercian monastery surviving in the Taunus Mountains in the heart of the Rheingau district which, after secularisation in 1803, became a prison and then a lunatic asylum.
During WWI it was a military rehabilitation centre, and is now maintained by the state wine authorities of the Rheingau. You can visit Kloster Eberbach, near Eltville, west of Wiesbaden, to experience appeals to the senses that the unworldly monks of the film would surely not approve of. There’s not only the Rheingau Musik Festival, but wine-tastings in the Cabinetkeller and delicious food in the refectory. The Kloster also brews Pils, its own beer.
