Posted on 05/28/2006 11:29:54 AM PDT by fgoodwin
The Awfulness of The Da Vinci Code
http://www.americanheritage.com/entertainment/articles/web/20060519-movies-da-vinci-code-catholic-dan-brown-religion-tom-hanks.shtml
http://tinyurl.com/zsuuc
Posted Friday May 19, 2006 12:30 PM EDT
In art as in life there is nothing so powerful as a bad idea whose time has come. Every decade or so a craze comes out of nowhere that inexplicably grabs hold of a portion of the public’s imagination, whips it into a frenzy, and then dissipates, leaving future generations wondering what the fuss was all about.
The first such craze of the twenty-first century is, as you can’t have avoided hearing, a silly novel by a writer named Dan Brown called The Da Vinci Code, which took a swarm of half-baked ideas from Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a book by three pseudo historians—Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln—about a conspiracy by the Catholic church to cover up the real life of Jesus Christ.
I’m tempted to call The Da Vinci Code and the cottage industry that has built up around it, including the new film (directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks), Harry Potter for adults. But in truth that’s an insult to J. K. Rowling, who in comparison with Dan Brown writes with the complexity and sophistication of Vladimir Nabokov.
I call The Da Vinci Code a novel, but in truth it fits more into an odd subgenre of literature that might best be called novelization. Back in the 1960s it was common to run across a “novelization” of a popular movie, often written under a pseudonym by a genuine novelist who needed the money. As more and more popular books came to be written for the movies, the line between novel and screenplay began to dissolve, and books written for the purpose of being made into films were written as if they were the novelizations. The most successful novelizationists in that sense have been Mario Puzo, Stephen King, and Michael Crichton, but none of them were as successful or as wretched as Dan Brown.
There is simply no point in trying to pin down the reasons why The Da Vinci Code and the books about The Da Vinci Code and the books that supposedly reveal the truths or untruths about the books about The Da Vinci Code and the thousands of magazine, newspaper, and Internet articles about all of the above have excited so many people. The book is so insubstantial that analyzing it is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall, and criticizing it is like punching foam rubber. Pointing out one of its errors is like killing one of a swarm of gnats; by the time you’ve used the energy to kill it, there are so many more buzzing around that you wondered why you bothered. Nonetheless, I’ll take a quick stab at what I think are two of the larger reasons for the book’s success.
One is the always good-for-a-conspiracy-theory presence of the Knights Templar, who have provided us with the basis for such popular entertainments as The Maltese Falcon and, more recently, the lightweight but enjoyable Nicolas Cage thriller National Treasure. Curiously, the most serious examination of the real Templars and their detrimental effect on the Crusades and thus world history, last year’s Kingdom of Heaven, fell flat at the box office. Templar buffs and their legion (at least two new fictional accounts of the Templars have been released this year) want their fodder heroic and shadowy. (I’m told that associations of Templar fans share many members with that other large pool of paranoids, Kennedy-assassination buffs. I don’t doubt it.)
My other major candidate for what fuels the Da Vinci Code phenomenon is quasi-feminists who aren’t ready to accept any radical political manifestoes but who find it empowering to hear that the whole of Christianity as we know it is a plot to suppress the feminine influence and to hide the true story of Mary Magdalene. For all I know this may be true, but those who seek their evidence in something as noodle-brained as The Da Vinci Code would be well advised to rethink their premises.
What is truly offensive about Brown is the portable pedestal he climbs on whenever his book is attacked. When its historical veracity is questioned, he claims in effect that it’s only a novel, yet he has on numerous occasions defended its factual foundation. One might write off a conspiracy novel that includes Walt Disney cartoons as clever, but Brown seems to believe his own nonsense, and the man who can find elements of a conspiracy in the cartoon version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid can find conspiracies in anything. (Brown even drags Martin Scorsese into his camp, for the radical interpretation of Judas in the film The Last Temptation of Christ. Brown seems blissfully unaware that Scorsese’s film was taken from a novel by the renowned Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis.)
The film version is a lead-footed clunker that follows the book’s main story line so closely that you wonder why anyone thought the novel was cinematic in the first place. There are no characters; Tom Hanks’s Harvard professor Robert Langdon is used mostly as a device for dispensing long tedious explanations of the plot, and Audrey Tautou’s Sophie seems to function as nothing more than a stand-in for the audience. I can scarcely recall a single scene when she wasn’t staring incredulously at Hanks. There is no chemistry at all between the two major stars, but then the script gives them virtually nothing to build on. The only actors who seem to understand that they’re playing pulp material and have the instincts to ride with it are Jean Reno, as a modern caricature of Hugo’s Javert in Les Miserables, and, especially, Ian McKellen, as the pretentious Holy Grail scholar Teabing. McKellen’s performance is so subversively sly and energetic that he undermines the idiotic solemnity of the entire production. He’s the high priest of schlock.
With luck, Ron Howard’s movie will be a bucket of cold water dumped on the coals heating The Da Vinci Code weenie roast. The film stretches out the paper-thin material for nearly two and a half hours—or nearly the time it would take the average airline passenger on a coast-to-coast flight to read the book—and it contains scarcely a single lyrical or exhilarating moment. A smart director might have seen the satirical possibilities in the book and aimed for something sly and arch in the manner of Hitchcock’s fifties thrillers, or at least like the Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn vehicle Charade. Howard, with help from Hans Zimmer’s oppressive background score, plays the material literally and seriously, though Akiva Goldsman’s screenplay, no doubt to widen the film’s appeal, hedges on the book’s blatant anti-Christian theme.
Regarding that aspect of the movie, I’d be much more tolerant toward Brown and Howard if there were the slightest indication in either the book or the film that anyone cared a whit about the divinity of Christ one way or the other. This is a movie about a Christ conspiracy devoid of either Christ or the devil. Fans of either would do well stay at home this weekend and wait for the release of X-Men 3.
—Allen Barra is a contributing editor of American Heritage magazine.
All these posts about the film have convinced me to go see it tomorrow.
And I usually don't go to the movies.
I suffered through two and a half hours yesterday of this incredibly stupid piece of balderdash. Anyone who has the faintest knowledge of the New Testament, Church history or art history would not be able to take this over the top story seriously. Unfortunately, there will be many, probably who have a beef with the Catholic Church to begin with, who will embrace the film's false depiction of history and its cardboard caricature of the Catholic Church. As anti-Catholic propaganda, it is so crude and unbelievable, just like old Soviet propaganda films by Eizenstadt, or stories about the Jews' killing children. The Church has apparently been spending 2000 years killing off people to protect the "secret" that Mary Magdalene is the true God-man, not Jesus Christ. The Church has spent 2,000 years persecuting women to cover up the "sacred feminine" (odd how the veneration of Our Lady is not mentioned, particularly as that is something anti-Catholics usually use against us).
The movies has it that supposedly the canon of the Bible was imposed by Constantine at the Council of Nicaea, even though it was adopted earlier at the Council of Carthage which was approved by the Pope as the result of a process of discernment and sifting through books included in various local canons based on the criteria of apostolicity and antiquity. Contrary to the movie, Constantine did not declare Jesus the Son of God at Nicaea. Christ had been called the Son of God at least since the time of Paul, as his epistles attest. Arians would not have disputed that Christ was the Son of God, but just that He was not God but a lesser divine being. Nicaea clarified the doctrine of the Trinity as being three persons in one substance. These ideas are present in scripture, but the authoritative teaching office of the Church clarified exactly what the Scriptures meant on the nature of God. One has to understand the struggle with the Arian heresy and the clarification of doctrine at Nicaea in the context of the whole notion of apostolic teaching and the authoritative teaching office of the apostles and their successors, the bishops in union with the successor of Peter, the pope. Paul in his epistles already evinces a desire to preserve the pure apostolic teaching and warns of false teachers who will teach something different than what he preached from the beginning. This desire to preserve and clarify the orthodox apostolic faith is behind all the struggles with the early heresies.
And the idea of Sir Isaac Newton being persecuted by the evil Catholic Church despite the fact that practicing Catholicism was illegal in England of Sir Isaac's day is just one of the many preposterous falsehoods in this "fiction" that Brown claims is based on a factual basis. Going off to church this morning, I told a non-Catholic relative that I'm going off to assassination school, the ridiculous propaganda is so crude. In sum, I don't think the movie is a challenge to the faith of anyone who knows something about our faith, but it will be a danger to those who don't know anything and who will be inclined to think that this "novel" is based on a true historical background, when it is not.
1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
Nobody's asked anyone to take it seriously. That's why its called fiction.
Then why are we seeing letters to the editor and the like defending its historicity or the possibility thereof? Case in point, this exchange with Robert Ebert posted on Amy Welborn:
http://amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook/2006/05/welcome_to_my_w.html
Roger Ebert hears from the Code-philes.
Q. Why did you refer to the novel The Da Vinci Code as a "preposterous" work of fiction, yet fail to label the Bible as such? Do you honestly believe the Bible is a work of non-fiction? Aren't parts of the Bible "preposterous"? If your devotion to institutionalized religion colors your ability to write logically, perhaps you should recuse yourself from reviewing films that require an unbiased view.
Fred Schultz, Dallas
A. The job of a critic is to express an opinion. If critics recused themselves from reviewing anything on which they held an opinion, there would be no criticism. The purpose of my review of "The Da Vinci Code" was not to review the Bible but to review the film adaptation of a novel.
Even doing that made some readers unhappy. Here is Lara Coates of Kennewick, Wash.: "Maybe you should stick to reviewing the movie instead of reviewing and insulting people who might entertain the ideas that Dan Brown suggests. Although Brown's suggestions may be preposterous, as you suggest, there is no way for anyone to know exactly what happened during Jesus' time. I guarantee you that I am of 'sound mind' even though I question the validity of the Bible."
Ebert again: Some of the material on which Brown's book is based did not originate in the time of Jesus, but is a French forgery from the 1950s. "60 Minutes" did a segment about that.
Thanks to my son, David, for passing that along.
This, "the Bible is just as preposterous as DVC" is pretty frequently voiced and not just by Ian McKellan. You've probably heard it as often as I have. Early on, I got this note from Laura Miller of Salon, a response to something I had sent her:
Personally, I can't understand why some people's faith seems to be so shaken by this sort of thing; if you're willing to believe Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, why is it so hard to believe that he never got married or had sex, even though most Jewish guys his age did? It seems quixotic to bring reason and evidentiary methods into the matter at so late a stage.
(Miller, is of course, the author of the excellent "Da Vinci Crock" piece to which I've linked early and often - invaluable for passing on to folks who won't dialogue with you about DVC because you, of course, are "blinded by faith." But let's just say I'd disagree with her on this one. It would be hard to figure out where to start.
"All these posts about the film have convinced me to go see it tomorrow.
And I usually don't go to the movies."
Good for you! It's a free country, for now at least.
I'll just keep complaining that it is a lousy book and it insults my beliefs.
See...we are both happy.
Ya so? I believe the NT is just as preposterous as the DVC. But that wasn't my point. Thee are those taking it seriously and those that don't. It was meant to be fiction period.
Author Dan Brown states in an online FAQ: "...the secret behind The Da Vinci Code was too well documented and significant for me to dismiss" . On the novel's first page one reads: "FACT:.... All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." In an interview for WCVB-TV's "Chronicle" with Mary Richardson, Dan Brown says: "When I started researching Da Vinci Code I really was skeptical, and I expected on some level to disprove all of this history that's unearthed in the books. But after three trips to Paris, and a lot of interviews, I became a believer."
HOW MUCH OF THIS NOVEL IS TRUE?
The Da Vinci Code is a novel and therefore a work of fiction. While the book's characters and their actions are obviously not real, the artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals depicted in this novel all exist (for example, Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings, the Gnostic Gospels, Hieros Gamos, etc.). These real elements are interpreted and debated by fictional characters. While it is my belief that some of the theories discussed by these characters may have merit, each individual reader must explore these characters' viewpoints and come to his or her own interpretations. My hope in writing this novel was that the story would serve as a catalyst and a springboard for people to discuss the important topics of faith, religion, and history.
BUT DOESN'T THE NOVEL'S "FACT" PAGE CLAIM THAT EVERY SINGLE WORD IN THIS NOVEL IS HISTORICAL FACT?
If you read the "FACT" page, you will see it clearly states that the documents, rituals, organization, artwork, and architecture in the novel all exist. The "FACT" page makes no statement whatsoever about any of the ancient theories discussed by fictional characters. Interpreting those ideas is left to the reader.
The Priory of Sion, a 1950's hoax, is not a real organization. Dan Brown's description of Westminster Abbey, as one example, is riddled with errors, as NT Wright describes here:
http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/summer2k5/features/davincicode.asp
And in what you printed, Dan Brown admits that he believes the theories he puts in his book, despite their lack of any factual evidence, and obviously he wants his readers to believe them as well, and uses objectively false statements of history to try and accomplish this. His descriptions of history, as with the Council of Nicaea and Sir Isaac Newton, are objectively false as have been shown by many.
I believe alot of things to be true that may or may not stand the test of time. The problem is you apparently
think others are too stupid to think for themselves.
Do not attribute motives to other Freepers or attempt to read their minds.
I believe that to be his motive. That truth may or may not stand the test of time. He'll correct me if I'm wrong.
Nevertheless I have established the guideline to discourage flame wars.
Fair enough. I'll frame it instead in the form of a question. "Is it that you think others are too stupid to think for themselves?"
That works for me. Thanks.
Congratulations! You just publicly admitted being completely out of touch with reality. It's fiction! It's amazing how many psychotics are out there, and disappointing that so many are supposedly conservative.
Wow. A conservative who will pay $9 to see a liberal attack on Christianity just because another conservative hated it. You must lead a very sad, joyless life.
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