MovieChat Forums > The Name of the Rose (1986) Discussion > is Ubertino da Casala also supposed to b...

is Ubertino da Casala also supposed to be gay?

posted 14 years ago by student_points
6 replies | jump to latest

In the beginning of the movie, he invited Adso to kneel before the statue of the virgin mary. And he begins to stroke his hair and can't seem to take his eyes of him. You see William with a strange look on his face. And before he says to william that he needs to take Adso away because the devil is throwing beautiful boys (like Adso) out of windows.
He creeps me out. Specially his voice and theeth :-)
So is he gay? , because he seemed to recognise "the eyes" of Adelmo as that of a girl who had intercourse with the devil (in a way he did: he had intercourse with a man=>girl and you could think of beringer as the devil).
Was he gay in the book?

[–] marcigabrielle 14 years ago

More an erastes than a gay man.

In the ancient world, it was common for an older man to take a young man as his apprentice. The role of mentor/teacher sometimes involved the romantic, even the sexual. In such relationships, the older man, who was the teacher, was termed erastes; the younger one, who was the pupil, was the eromenos.

In the monastic tradition, of course, those relationships were not supposed to exist, but they often did. Since the boys entered the monastery when they were very young (around 10 to 13), then it wasn't unusual for an old monk who had suppressed his appetites to see the boy as a woman, to lust after him, and to seduce him. Which often was purely Platonic, since they were afraid of sin.

Ubertino was a passionate man, who was a natural teacher, due to his erudition. But he also gave the impression of being a possible erastes. In today's world, he may have ended up in jail as a pedophile or ephebophile.

The real Ubertino da Casale, as far as I know, was more into politics than into mentoring young Franciscans, one way or the other.

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[–] berzelmayr 14 years ago

I read the book many years ago, I'm not toally sure, but I think that Ubertino wasn't like that in the original story, instead of that I remember that Adson (the narrator) admitted that later as an older man he was oggling the young novices in his monastery. So i guess they transferred that from Adson to Ubertino in the movie-script.

[–] Spifflock_Holmes 14 years ago

I remember that [Adso] (the narrator) admitted that later as an older man he was oggling the young novices in his monastery.

I don't recall that, and I've reread the novel within the last year or two. That doesn't mean it's not there, of course, but if it is, I've forgotten it.

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[–] rosarypliers 14 years ago

Yes, it's in the novel. Old Adso writes that when looking on a young beardless novice they look like young women to him.
Ubertino is not gay in the novel. It is hinted that he may or may not have been involved with female mystics in the past.

[–] student_points 13 years ago

in the movie they made him almost a pedophile

[–] 13 years ago

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