Trivia for
Der Name der Rose (1986) More at IMDbPro »

• William of Baskerville is amazed when he discovers a book by "Umberto of Bologna" - a reference to Umberto Eco, who teaches at the University of Bologna and is the author of the book the movie is based on.
  
  
• Christian Slater was only 15 years old when he did his nude scene in this film with actress Valentina Vargas who was 22 at the time.
  
  
• "The Girl" (Valentina Vargas) is the only female character in the film.
  
  
• The character of the Venerable Jorge de Burgos, a Spanish monk, is Umberto Eco's tribute to Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, who was also blind, and who wrote "The Library of Babel" which inspired elements of the story.
  
  
• Director Jean-Jacques Annaud was not keen on casting Sean Connery in the role of William of Baskerville, and a large number of actors were considered prior to Connery being cast. Some of those actors include: Michael Caine, Albert Finney, Richard Harris, Ian McKellen, Roy Scheider, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Donald Sutherland, Max von Sydow, Yves Montand, Vittorio Gassman and Frederic Forrest.
  
  
• Jean-Jacques Annaud could not find an existing monastery to satisfy his vision for the film. The monastery in the film was a set built just for the movie.
  
  
• Sean Connery's career was at such a low point when he read for the role that Columbia pictures refused to finance the film when director Jean-Jacques Annaud cast him as William of Baskerville.
  
  
• One of the actors considered for the role of Salvatore was Franco Franchi, popular low-budget slapstick comedian in Italy, notorious for his rubber-face expressions. He refused the role, in spite of the international acknowledgment it brought, because he wanted to stay faithful to his image as a comedian.
  
  
• - Visa d'exploitation en France # 57269 - Italian censorship visa # 81928 dating from October 10th 1986
  
  
• The language Bernardo Gui's guards are speaking is Swiss German. They seem to be mercenaries in foreign service - a common habit of Swiss soldiers in the Middle Ages.
  
  
• Many of the inside shoots were taken in the monastery Eberbach, which lies close to the Rhine.
  
  
• Among the other actors considered for the movie there were John Huston (Jorge), Jack Palance (Malachia), Adolfo Celi or Philippe Noiret (the Abbott), Jean Rochefort (Bernardo Gui) and Michel Galabru (Remigio).
  
  
• Robert De Niro auditioned for the role of William, but director Jean-Jacques Annaud changed his mind because De Niro wanted to have a sword duel between William and Bernardo Gui.
  
  
• During his interview and director's commentary on the DVD for Der Name der Rose (1986) director Jean-Jacques Annaud reported that after 15-year-old Christian Slater had been cast as Adso of Melk, he was asked to read with three actresses auditioning for the role of "The Girl." He read first with Valentina Vargas and was scheduled to read with the other two actresses the next day, but that evening, he sent his mother (casting agent Mary Jo Slater) to tell Annaud that young Christian was so smitten with the 22-year-old Vargas that he didn't want the other two women to be considered. Annaud, amused, complied with Slater's wish.
  
  
• Bernardo Gui (played by F. Murray Abraham) is a historical person who was indeed an inquisitor at the time the story is set - he was quite a hard-working one too, sentencing some 900 people and executing at least 42 of them during his 15 years in office. The real Bernardo Gui, however, was not killed as depicted in the movie - he died four years after the events of the film, in 1331, at the castle of Laroux.
  
  
• The movie took 5 years of preparation.
  
  
• 4th highest grossing movie of its year in France.
  
  
• Jean-Jacques Annaud admitted to casting the ugliest actors he could get because he wanted the characters to appear "real", based on the men in the village where he lived. When he returned to his village, some of the men asked him if he really considered them to be as ugly as the actors, and he said, "Yes."
  
  
• Feodor Chaliapin Jr. (Jorge de Burgos) was the son of Russian opera legend Feodor Chaliapin Sr..
  
  
• Nowadays, according to the director, the only place were manuscripts and books are made with the same techniques and materials depicted in the movie is the abbey of Paralia on Venice. It takes 6 months to a year to create a single page.
  
  
• When filming on the Eberbach monastery, the German police was assigned to protect the manuscripts and books used on the movie. Even with this measures, a key page was stolen; it's the one that appears on a close up on the desk of the missing monk, showing a capital "B". The shot used in the movie was made a year after this incident, the time that took to made a new page, two weeks before the release.
  
  
• The catacombs that appear on the movie are private and belong to a small restaurant that the crew frequented on production. Initially the plan was to shoot on Rome, but filming wasn't allowed.
  
  
• When Michel Pastoureau pointed out that the pigs used in the film could not have pink skin, since there were no such variety at the time, the animals were dyed black, as there was no time to find others.
  
  

• SPOILER: A mix-up in the shooting schedule whilst shooting Jorge de Burgos' death scene almost led to actor Feodor Chaliapin Jr. being killed for real. When director Jean-Jacques Annaud arrived on set to begin shooting the scene, the crew hadn't been informed that that was the scene they were shooting, and so hasty preparations were made to set up the effects for the shots. However, proper safety precautions were bypassed, and at one stage during the filming of the scene, part of the roof of the set gave way, and a large flaming oak beam fell on top of Chaliapin, knocking him to the ground and cutting his head. This shot can actually be seen in the film. After the incident, Annaud immediately raced over to make sure Chaliapin was okay, and the actor dismissed the incident, saying 'I'm 81 years old, I'm going to die soon. Is the shot okay?'
  
  
• SPOILER: During the scene when the library is on fire, and William is telling Adso to leave, Sean Connery caught on fire for real and was only saved due to the quick thinking of Jean-Jacques Annaud, who jumped on top of him and rolled him around on the ground.
  
  

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