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>===== Original Message From [log in to unmask] ===== >>what do members think about the book/film The name of the rose ? >> > >Personally, I enjoyed the film although (as is usually the case) it >is far weaker than the book. > >I tried showing the film as an extra-credit assignment to my upper >level medieval history class -- the assignment being to write 2-3 >pages assessing the historical accuracy of the film, on the basis of >what we had learned about the Middle Ages in the course of the term. >Although there are certainly a number of "inaccuracies" and flat out >anachronisms (the apparently seventeenth century statue of the virgin >in the church being the one that stuck in my craw), I like the way it >manages to contrast the strong passions of the intellect and the >gritty, drab reality of the monastery. My students, however, were >unimpressed. I am always surprised how ready they are to reject >movies as being "just Hollywood" and leave it at that. > >Cheers, > >Nicole > >_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. >Nicole Morgan Schulman >Assistant Professor of History, Ohio Wesleyan University Speaking of Hollywood and craw-sticking, I think the most disturbing part of the film version of *The Name of the Rose* was its presentation of Bernard Gui's death as the result of impalement after the peasants push him off a cliff! Pierre Gui, the nephew who wrote a brief life of his uncle, described Bernard's death in 1331 quite differently, and unlike the filmmakers certainly did not believe that Bernard, as an inquisitor, "deserved" a brutal death . This is a good example of the revision of history to suit the accepted template of the dramatic film--in this case, the need of movies to have a hero and a villain who gets his at the end, creating the clearly identifiable and distinct moral "sides" that history supplies so rarely. Christine Caldwell University of Notre Dame [log in to unmask] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%