Seeing this film, I couldn't help but notice the layout of the staircase in the library resembling the art of M. C. Escher.
I was just wondering if this has been brought up here yet.
I'm sure that's no coincidence, but a conscious choice of the production designers.
Here is one of his graphics of stairs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Escher%27s_Relativity.jpg
We're hiding like elephants when they're happy.
i am not sure but i believe the director makes a comment that the staircases are indeed somewhat based on this art
shareThe 1982 Peter Davison 'Doctor Who story "Castrovalva" also uses M.C. Escher's designs as its focal point.
shareAs does the 1986 film Labyrinth.
I think Escher was chosen for The Name of the Rose as he's a sort of visual relative of Jorge Louis Borges who's writings were a big influence on the novel and the character of Jorge of Burgos, the Labyrinth in the book is a rather more conventional series of interconnecting rooms.
The director Jean-Jacques Annaud tells an anecdote in a special feature on the DVD from 2004 called "Photo Video Journey with Jean-Jacques Annaud" in which he says he was visiting Umberto Eco in his apartment in Milan before the film was shot and asked the writer how many room the library had. Eco confirmed it had about 100 (according to Annaud's anecdote) and it was all on one level. Annaud then says Eco had a moment of shocked recognition that such a large library could not be on one level in a tower, the building would be too big. Annaud states Eco disappeared into his study and retrived two books, one on Escher and another of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's prints of imaginary prisons, Carceri. Annaud says he and Eco used these as a basis to create the look of the library in the film, particularly the staircase which is not from the book. The staircase of the labyrinth was a set constructed at Cinecitta Studios in Rome.
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