May 2021 | BEST Cinematics Night
Date: May 28, 5-9pm
Room: Z808
Organisers: Ivan Aranzales Acero, Ho Fai Chan, and Benno Torgler
Food: We will provide dinner after the movie but please bring some snacks and nibbles to share.
RSVP: Please contact Ivan if you are planning to attend (ivan.aranzalesacero@hdr.qut.edu)
Plot
In the 14th century, William of Baskerville (Sean Connery), a renowned Franciscan monk, and his apprentice, Adso of Melk (Christian Slater), travel to an abbey where a suspicious death has occurred. Using his deductive powers, William begins investigating what he believes to be murder. During the course of his investigation, several more monks wind up dead. With fear running through the abbey, the church leaders call forth Bernardo Gui (F. Murray Abraham), William’s nemesis, to find the truth. Here you can see the trailer.
Based on Umberto Eco’s book. We have encountered Umberto Eco in our Mammoth Reading Group list in 2018 with his collection of notes and digressions (Chronicles of a Liquid Society). In a previous Reading Group we have also watched his excellent interview (see here). His book The Name of the Rose has sold according to Wikipedia over 50 million copies worldwide. Le Monde’s has it in the 100 Books of the Century List. If you have time, I strongly recommend you to read his book. As for the film Eco pointed out: “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, eliminating everything else – the theological side, the political side. It’s a nice movie”. The book was praised as a wonderful medieval detective story that includes semiotic narrative when constructing the novel. Patricia McManus in her Britannica article: The Name of the Rose asks its readers to share William’s task of interpretation, to respect the polyphony of signs, to slow down before deciding upon meaning, and to doubt anything that promises an end to the pursuit of meaning. In this way, Eco opens up the wonder of interpretation itself.
