is says that this film is filmed in italy and france by a french director and a italian writer. baskerville sounds british. its so confusing! what ethnity is william of baskerville supposed to be?
shareThe character is English, both in the novel and in the movie. For anyone who has read the novel, the author Umberto Eco makes it quite obvious from the physical description (and this is given near the beginning of the story) that "William of Baskerville" is intended as an homage to Sherlock Holmes. And, of course, the very name "Baskerville" makes this point even more explicit.
shareYes, in the book and in the movie, William of Baskerville is supposed to be English. He mentions studying with Roger Bacon at Oxford, and sighs with nostalgia when Adso finds books by Bede and other English and Irish authors ("my islands!").
shareIf Connery were here he'd no doubt point out, "Of course, I'm Scottish myself." And possibly give a chuckle and a wink.
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Right. Well, I have to - I have to go now, Duane, because I, I'm due back on the planet Earth.
Catholic orders exist in most countries. Italy, Spain, France, Germany, England (Scotland). Here, we have a meeting of some of them.
And can someone named William of Baskerville be anything other than British?
in the novel, it is made clear that monks from different monastaries go to other monastaries (often in a different country), to stay there for a couple of months while they copy a certain book, and take that copy with them to their own monastary in their own land. That is how a monastary gathers books from all over the world.
William of Baskerville does come from england and goes to italy for the debat.
Adso of Melk is Austrian (holy roman empire in those days, i believe)He is actually not a franciscan monk in the novel but also a benedict monk like the others.
Adelmo of Otranto comes from ... Otranto if you believe it, that's in italy
Jorge comes from Burgos, i believe that is in Spain. He is called Jorge of burgos in the novel (again logical :-))
Berenger, the assistant librarian, is called Berengar of Arundel so i guess he is english too.
Malachias, the librarian, is a german, he comes from Hildesheim
Severin, the herbalist comes from Sankt Emmeram, that is in bavaria
In the novel there is an important character, Bengt of upsala, who is left out of the movie. He comes from Sweden.
I believe the rest of the monks mostly come from somewhere in italy
In the novel Berenger and Malachias have a sexual relationship but Berenger secretly fancied Adelmo, and malachias was jealous because of this
Thanks! This is good trivia.
shareIf I remember correctly from the book, William of Baskerville comes from what is now Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England ('Novum Castrum super Tynam' or 'Novum Castrum' in the book). And very conveniently it is quite close to the Scottish border which might explain William's accent in the film :)
shareIf I remember correctly from the book, William of Baskerville comes from what is now Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England ('Novum Castrum super Tynam' or 'Novum Castrum' in the book). And very conveniently it is quite close to the Scottish border which might explain William's accent in the film :)
Are you thinking of Adso's statement that Hugh of Newcastle (Ugo di Novocastro) had an accent similar to William's? Or am I forgetting some more explicit statement?
Either way I think you're right; I just don't recall that William is ever specifically said to be from Newcastle. But I could easily be forgetting something.
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Lazy + smart = efficient.
There's certainly a reference to him being from "between Hibernia and Northumbria".
shareThe abbey was in Italy, but William was going there for a church conference including people from across the Christian world. Remember, the Catholic church was essentially the feudal equivalent of a multinational corporation (it still is, though less feudal now), it spanned the breadth of Christendom. It was the main unifying aspect of medieval Europe. Christian priests, monks and so on could be from anywhere; they didn't have to be in their home region, they would go where the church sent them or where they needed to study or engage in whatever other tasks they did. The director was conscious of this, and included actors of many nationalities for the characters in the abbey, including Germans, French and Italians, among others.
William of course was British (I want to say English, as the character's home is evidently in England rather than Scotland, but as Sean Connery is Scottish, it doesn't feel right to call him English even if the character was meant to be so), but he was only traveling there for the papal debate (which, incidentally, he doesn't seem to have participated in, at least in the movie, due to his preoccupation with the murders).
He's William of Occam. Occam's razor. He's from wherever you want him to be from.
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