RSS 2.0The Da Vinci Code (2006)
After the raving success of Dan Brown’s book -almost 50 million copies sold- many have been eagerly awaiting the adaptation to the big screen. I enjoyed the book, but for me there was little news to it, as I have been reading extensively about the book’s subject for many years. I was disappointed to hear that Tom Hanks would play Robert Langdon and with Ron Howard at the helm my enthusiasm further dwindled. For I am not a particular fan of Howard’s work, which I deem too straightforward, going for easy sentiment and overall ball-less, overproduced drivel. Apollo 13 was bearable due to the story itself, but his last two movies with Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Man, were annoying and pretentious. When I heard that Jean Reno and Ian McKellen were on board, my mood changed somewhat and I was up for an enjoyable screening. But I did bring my critic hat!
For those who have read the book, the movie holds no surprises: Howard baffles us with an adaptation that is so straightforward and linear, that you can even recognise the chapters of the book. I am prepared to let Howard off the hook a little here, because the book’s storyline is very dominant and there is a lot to be told. Nevertheless, Richie Cunningham could have at least put some effort in it to give it a twist. But he didn’t. So we follow the book page by page and chapter by chapter until after almost 2,5 hours we get to the ending; which he manages to bollocks up. And I am not done slagging yet. The 125 million dollars he had to his disposal to turn this into an ocular orgasmatronic experience, was laid to waste. It is difficult to shoot the Louvre badly (granted, they rebuilt and repainted pieces of the famed museum) but I wasn’t treated to the eye candy that this could have been. It could have used a dash of Gilliam or Burton.
But what about the movie I hear you say? Well, besides the fact that it was long and brimmed with information -which might have been too much for people that didn’t read the book- it was not too bad; but it wasn’t too good either. As stated before, the storyline is very dominant and Howard wasn’t able to give his cast some leeway for proper acting. So we see everyone going through the moves, from stiff and robotic (Hanks and the lovely Audrey Tautou), to adequate and reliable (McKellen and Etienne Chicot) to minutely adventurous (Paul Bettany). The only little indulgence Howard allowed himself, was a super-fast cameo of Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, the authors of books like The Templar Revelation and The Turin Shroud. Don’t blink, you might miss it; see if you can spot them (if you know who they are, that is). In some countries the ending of the movie has been censored, because Christians might be offended by the final “big” conclusion. It just shows that we still find religious intolerance everywhere and in all ranks.
Prior(y) to the release of the movie, Dan Brown was accused of plagiarism by the writers of the infamous book The Holy Blood & The Holy Grail. They claimed that he based his theory of Jesus as an ordinary man married to Mary Magdalene mainly on their book, since they were the first to come out with this explosive story. And Brown did, of course. That is why the name Teabing is an anagram of Baigent, one of the writers of THB&THG. Nevertheless, he won the court case against the plaintiffs, they had their renewed publicity for their book and Brown was home free. A lot has been written about this particular subject and the secrecies that surround it. Brown’s book has been called a work of fiction, but if you study the subject more closely, it is obvious that the catholic church has suppressed a lot of the knowledge around Jesus and his following. This came to attention recently with the translation of the Gospel of Judas, which sheds a different light on how the church manipulated historic events throughout the ages.
Therefore I am curious to see how religious society will react upon all these theories that now come in the wake of Brown’s book and the movie. Then again, faith is not called faith for nothing, as it seldom requires proof or truth.
paco (89 posts)Certified movie phreak and conspiracy theorist.
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It kinda makes me proud I read the book before the hype started. The source material is rather predictable and poorly written, despite being a real pageturner. It is even pretentious for the fact it reads like a screenplay. Choosing Howard was a safe thing to do. The first half is dull and Langdon’s extensive explanations keep the pace out of the story. The little flashback side plots are annoying and so is the slavishly adaptation of the book. Hanks is boring, McKellen and Bettany fantastic.
Comment by Arjan — Sun May 21, 2006 @ 1:15“Then again, faith is not called faith for nothing, as it seldom requires proof or truth”
Interesting that you paraphrase Dan Brown, considering that the so-called “Gospel Of Judas” requires also a huge leap of faith. Ancient gnostics, whose teachings were rejected by early Christians as heretical, generally taught that material creation is evil, entrapping what belongs to the divine or spiritual realm. Souls (spirit) are imprisoned in human bodies and are released (thus saved) and ascend to the spiritual realm through knowledge (gnosis). They wrote the “Gospel Of Judas”, not Judas Iscriot himself. Nobody disputes this.
Also, another leap of faith is Dan Brown’s work (or borrowed work) for it is proven to be a work of fiction, and let’s go though some of them, briefly:
*In “The Last Supper,” Leonardo da Vinci allegedly painted Mary Magdalene seated next to Jesus.
It’s supposed to be John. who is often portrayed slightly feminine in art because he was young. This is how he was painted in the Renaissance art pieces at the time.
The Priory of Sion, which looms large in the novel, was created in 1099 by the Knights Templar.
The Priory of Sion was created out of whole cloth in 1956 by a French anti-Semite con man, Pierre Plantard. In 1975, documents were found in the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris that allegedly proved the Priory is as old as 1099, and that Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton and other luminaries secretly presided over it. These documents were proved to be fakes.
Brown cites mostly Gnostic works for the basis of his facts, such as the ‘Gospel Of Phillip’.
Gnostics at the time would be repulsed by the idea of physical relations between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, and marriage in genral. Dan Brown, who treats the Gnostic gospels as history, missed the pointto the Gnostics themselves it was irrelevant what actually happened when Jesus was on earth.
On page 256 in his book, Dan Brown writes: “History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history booksbooks which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe”
Let’s take this a bit further. In WWII, the Allies won. If Brown’s statement is true, then the losers of the second World War has a lot of of stories that were pushed under the rug. I wonder what Nazi Germany really had to say. What do you think they would say? Does it make it true? No, it does not.
The New Testament is based on fabrications
The New Testament is based on eyewitness testimony. At any time after Jesus’ death, anyone could have challenged the claims of the ressurection. Nobody did. It should have been easy to do. Also, if Christians corrupted the New Testament, wouldn’t unflattering episodes about Christians have been removed from the New Testament?
Brown’s novel claims that a key evidence for Jesus getting married is found in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip. This document, Brown claims, indicates that Mary Magdalene was the companion of Jesus, and Brown says that in the Aramaic, “companion” means “spouse.” Hence, Jesus must have been married.
The problems here are the Gnostic gospel of Philip dates back to 275 AD; the text was written in Greek, not Aramaic; it is incomplete.
Now, armed with these facts supported by even secular non-Christian scholars, how can I think for one minute that Brown’s book -as well as the film on which it is based- is entire fact?
“It just shows that we still find religious intolerance everywhere and in all ranks” Freedom of expression, maybe, but not religious interolerance. Also, the way I feel about it, it is kind of stupid for someone to allow an entire screening of the film just to lop off the last ten minutes. Yes, the film is long. But, whatever, an extra ten minutes isn’t going to hurt if you stayed with this snoozer for that long.
And..yes. The Snoozer. It seems that while I can watch the film as an adaptation and work of fiction, I can therefore sit back and not be offended as I regard it as fiction, nothing more. This also allows me to have an open mind. There is also the possibility that some of Brown’s flimsy evidence could be backed up better, but instead, there is an overwhelming amount of exposition, some of it forced. Some scenes simply may have been better off if actors kept thier mouths shut- and the viewer can make discoveries visually without being told every little thing.
It’s an interesting film, I liked Jean Reno’s part. But…I was hardly on the edge of my seat. I didn’t expect the movie to play out like an audio book.
Comment by Darren Seeley — Sun May 21, 2006 @ 3:55This is an endless debate: much of the proof for the holy/royal blood theory comes from different sources and interpretation is always a tricky part. Many parts of the bible and gnostic scriptures have been translated badly and a lot have been rewritten/censored in the ages afterwards. It’s obvious that the untouched stories are more authentic than the re-editted ones. Dan Brown does make a strong case however about the recycling of religious stories throughout the ages. That alone is proof that things did not happen as they were supposed to have had
Pierre Plantard may have been a fraud, seeking his own personal gain and posing himself as a descendant of the Merovingian Grail kings, but he did point to interesting matters. Artists like Botticelli, (his pupil) Leonardo and the French painter Nicholas Poussin have put many references to an alternate story about Jezus. And then there are the writers like Chrtien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach who put ample references in their Perceval stories.
I’d like to refer to Sir Laurence Gardner and his books about the Grail legend. He meticulously explains the evolution of religious stories and their provenance.
Comment by paco — Sun May 21, 2006 @ 13:12I liked the book, but I think I’m going to wait on the movie version. A direct translation of the book doesn’t sound appealing. Also, Tom Hanks is miscast here. I just don’t buy him as Robert Langdon. If I was Ron Howard, I would swing away and cast Morgan Freeman as the lead.
But Ron Howard kind of sucks anyway.
Comment by Jose — Mon May 22, 2006 @ 23:43Sony has announced plans to make a film version of the first Langdon book, Angels and Demons. It takes place before The Da Vinci Code. It deals with the Illuminati, the Vatican and anti-matter. Here, the work of Italian sculptor Bernini leads to clues of the existence of the Illuminati. It mainly takes place in Rome. In the mean time Brown is working on a third Langdon book that is based on US history.
Comment by Arjan — Mon May 22, 2006 @ 23:58Yeah, I read Angels and Demons too. And it was awful. I’m going to skip it completely and watch Die Hard, which is essentially what Angels & Demons was except it had some historical facts and science mixed in.
Comment by Jose — Tue May 23, 2006 @ 0:42Considering that all the gospels (including the Judas one) were written at least a hundred years after the events, I say the whole point about Browns book being fact or fiction is moot. Just for the record: fiction people, fiction.
Comment by Mariken — Wed May 24, 2006 @ 17:17I am one of only two people I know who hated the book with a fiery vengance, I thought it was a badly written piece of crap. So I am going to forgo seeing the movie on the big screen. I may get round to it on dvd on a rainy sunday afternoon.
But I loved reading your review, Paco, it is excellent!
Since when did you stop knowing me? Make that three. In fact, I thought Angels and Demons was better than The Da Vinci Code. The stuff about antimatter is quite interesting. The Illuminati stuff is bullocks, Akiva Goldman will probably sign up for the screenplay. Whether Hanks and Howard will return is uncertain.
Comment by Arjan — Wed May 24, 2006 @ 19:08One thing that needs to be clarified: The Gospels in the bible were written a hundred years or less after the death of Christ, and like much of the New Testement, are made of eyewitness accounts. The Gospels written by the Gnostics were made up of both speculation and fiction at least two hundred years after the death of Christ, to fit thier own theology, not the early church.
Brown (and the film) suggests the Gnostic gospels were excluded because the early church wanted “the truth” to be “thier Truth” and rejected the Gnostic gospels because they challeged “the truth”.
Comment by Darren Seeley — Thu May 25, 2006 @ 5:21It’s interesting reading, but not once it is suggested that the Gnostic versions were left out because they were rewriting history and that the claims were fictitious themselves. There is also no cover up of these materials. Only the exclusion thereof, and only because the Gnostic gospels had a false agenda. But they were hardly hidden from the public.
“false agenda”?
From which point of view is that? As far as I know they interpreted the teachings of Jesus differently, not necessarily wrongly.
But eventually it all boils down to the recycling of old religious element. Jesus’ teachings were mainly based on Egyptian religion and old Jewish lore. Nearly every religion gets its basis from Sumerian and Egyptian religion.
Comment by paco — Thu May 25, 2006 @ 22:56I read the book and thought it was Fantastic!!!! 100% pure genious!! a work of art!! im 14 years old and i have never read a book (excluding Harry potter) that i couldnt out down i finished it in 3 days and Angels and demons was the same i am now reading Digital Fortress and am hoping Dan Brown will keep on writing!!!! It has truely made me think of the possibilities and i wish people could open their minds to them also. Even though i do not go to church i still believe that people should take the book for what it is about and respect it even if you dont believe in what it is saying! So thankyou Dan Brown for the brilliant books i have completely enjoyed!!
Comment by Lauren Kirk — Wed July 5, 2006 @ 23:58From Lauren kirk
Yep, Ron Howard ate this book and crapped out this movie. Stick to the original source ladies and gentlemen.
Comment by Jose — Wed November 15, 2006 @ 2:00Davinci Code is just another example of: the movie being a big disappointment after reading the book.
The power of the written (or spoken) word still stands.
Deb.
Comment by Audio Book Online Store — Fri January 12, 2007 @ 21:20