Monday, May 22, 2006
Da Vinci Code - The Movie
I saw the movie last night. I mostly enjoyed it, although I enjoyed the book more. What made the book interesting to me was the thorough development of the controversial ideas - that Jesus wasn't considered divine until the time of Constantine, that he was married to Mary Magdalene and they had a child, that the Priory of Scion and Opus Dei were locked in mortal and secret combat, etc. All false, of course, but postulated and described in a believable and enjoyable manner. The movie touched on all of these, but I wonder if someone who hadn't read the book would have been able to make anything of it. The movie was carried along not by the ideas but by the action and the actors. There is no surprise in that, but I enjoyed the book more. I guess that is why I read more books than I watch movies. In fact that was the first movie I had seen since Mel Gibson's ode to sadism, The Passion of Christ. And that was one of the worst, and violent, pieces of fiction I ever seen.
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I'm one of the handfull of people who went to see the movie The DaVinci Code without having read the book first (I started--knowing I wasn't going to finish it in time on Wed. I got about 1/4 through the bood before going to the movie yesterday, but I plan to finish it because I want to read more of the historical "faction" that was hard to get from the movie). Although it was harder to follow all the historical and/or fictional nuances without the benefit of having read the book first, I still enjoyed the movie.
What I didn't like about the movie (and I won't like this about the book either) is that it brings more pop culture attention to the personal and societal violence perpetrated in the name of God and Christ. This is all stuff that makes me want to run as far away from organized religion as I can get. I'm suspecting it will also make others want to run far away from it--and why the Catholic Church hates it so much. Although some of what is protrayed is totally fictional, some of it is true. And the truth is definately scarier than the fiction! (Take for example Silas' masochistic scenes. People really do that stuff to themselves because they think they have to suffer to be closer to God?!?!)
I also didn't like all the "Hollywood drama sequences" of extended chase scenes. Many of these scenes were necessary to the story line, but not in the length they were given. Some of the "video explainations" of how things got accomplished also seemed akward. For example why did Howard find it necessary to go back and show us how they got off the plane into the truck? Or how the scroll got out of the box?
What I really did like were the half dozen "requotable lines" that I'm assuming the script writer placed at crucial places in the movie. (I don't know whether they were in the book or not.) You know, the "Make my day" type lines. One of them in The DaVinci Code movie occurred when the French secret police officer realizes he'd been duped by the Opus Dei member as he was getting placed into an ambulance on a stretcher. The officer expressed his rage about being used in the scheme, to which the priest answered back, "God uses us all".
Perhaps the thing I liked best about the movie The DaVinci Code--and what I presume the critics will like the least when I get around to reading some of their reviews--is that the relationship between Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu was totally platonic and never consummated. There was a moment there when it became clear to both Robert and Sophie that Sophie's true identity was the the descendent of Jesus. They had to decide what to do with that knowledge and they pondered that out loud. (And I thought to myself, "Well, just take her now on the cathedrial floor and keep the blood line going!") At this point another great line was spoken by Sophie which unfortunately I can't remember well enough to quote it verbatim-- but it had to do with helping oppressed people and listed a bunch of the minority groups that the church had committed violence against over the ages.
The fact that Langdon and Neveu parted as people who had faced life and death situations together and parted without more than a kiss on the forehead was, to me, a significant--and brave--choice in today's Hollywood. By making this choice Howard (?and Brown?) allow(s) us to have people in our lives that we connect with on a deeply personal, emotional, and spiritual level totally platonically. Presumably none of us will ever be in mortal danger because we are the last of a Holy Bloodline or expert iconographers, but we will all have times in our lives when we will need a person who can help us or we can give help to during a difficult period. The DaVinci Code, if nothing else, shows us that we can relate to each other deeply as we help each other study the mysteries that are our lives!
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