does anyone here know what eco's response was on the movie after watching it, that is if he was able to watch it.
im a bit disappointed since it didn't include many events and subjects that were shown in the book..i understand its just a film adaptation, but still..
im a bit disappointed since it didn't include many events and subjects that were shown in the book.
Well, honestly, that would have required a twenty-hour miniseries. I love the book (and I read it before I saw the movie -- before the movie was even made, in fact) but this is one of my three personal favorite movies of all time despite its changes and omissions. (Feodor Chaliapin Jr. is so cool as Jorge that I even forgive them for making him Russian and pronouncing his name wrong. )
I do wish at least it had been possible to work the full secret of the labyrinth in there; the whole bit about the finis Africae was lost, and the navigation of the labyrinth trivialized a bit, and I think it would have been fairly easy to retain it. But the movie works on its own terms, even if it's not a full (or perfectly faithful) adaptation of the novel.
I don't know Eco's opinion; in fact I don't know whether he's ever expressed one.
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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
The book is exceptional. Very rarely, if ever, can a movie do full justice to a great work. In fact, it is almost inevitably the exact opposite.
So no, this movie is not as overall as satisfying as the book it is based on, which takes many hours to read. But the movie is itself excellent and comes closer to the book it is based on than most do (having Connery didn't hurt...one of his best perfomances).
Great post, Spifflock. (A long time ago now, but even so, I agree with all you've said.)
I too wish the film had devoted more time and focus to the issue of the labyrinth, and all it entailed. Clearly Annaud wanted to focus on the mystery of the deaths and the missing volume of the Poetics, and I think he did it very well, but the film feels truncated and the ideas a little slight.
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
If he was dissapointed in this movie, the guy must be real hard to please (which may help explain why he's such an exceptional author).
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It is claimed that he called the film of The Name of the Rose a travesty, but that seems unlikely. He says only that a film cannot do everything a book can. "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. I was told that a girl entered a bookstore and seeing the books said: 'Oh, they have already made a book out of it.'" More laughter.
Umberto Eco. an Italian who does not like food and women?? So that's why - I a had such a fight getting through the novel;-D
(my defence: 16 years of age, at the time) ergo;-) women ruled my world..
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