A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The Da Vinci Code

Date Viewed: 5/20/06

Details:

Tom Hanks

Audrey Tautou

Ian McKellen

Jean Reno

Paul Bettany

Alfred Molina

Juergen Prochnow

Director: Ron Howard

Novelist (and co-producer): Dan Brown

Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman

Score: Hans Zimmer

Score: +1/2

The Review: Repeat after me: This is a work of fiction. Take a deep, calming breath: This is entertainment.

For the five or six of you who have just been returned after being kidnapping by aliens and who don't know what The Da Vinci Code is, it is an pseudo-intellectual mystery with literary, historical and artistic roots (or pseudo-roots), crafted into a thriller about the nature of, and the search for, the Holy Grail. Mixed up in this puzzle text are secret societies, putative coded messages, and a theory about the bloodline of Christ. Whether you consider this as pseudo-religious mystical bullshit or pseudo-mystical religious bullshit -- and either interpretation is up for grabs -- it pits academic protagonist Robert Langdon (Hanks) and Parisian detective Sophie Neveu (Tautou) against determined and faceless minions in a 24-hour trek across Europe. The compressed (linear) timeframe is typical of Dan Brown novels, and it lends an air of breathlessness to a movie otherwise filled with tons of exposition. Good though!

This is a decent translation onto the screen of a rather dense text, but I must agree with a comment made by a mother to her young daughter in the lobby -- "there's more information in the book than the movie" -- as her (and my) justification for reading (first?) instead of (before?) viewing. One of the more attractive features of another recent literary mystery, Possession, is its nonlinear structure, which became especially suited to the movie adaptation. The flashbacks used here are mere snapshots in comparison; they certainly do not detract from the narrative flow, but it results in a rather traditional cinematic experience.

The score is curious and almost classical. In an NPR interview with composer Hans Zimmer, he talked about the difficulty in scoring a film based on a novel that is so introspective, concept-based, detail- and puzzle-oriented. When Langdon figures out one of the puzzles, there is a fascinating visual effect used in combination with some moody music -- an attempt to put you inside the head of someone thinking, to convey something of what cognition and pattern searching might be to an eidetic mind. The visuals are not as compelling as those in A Beautiful Mind but they do work to convey the process of an intellectual quest and its resolution. The score also lends subtle boundaries to the "historical" subroutines that occasionally intrude into the main plot-line.

A curious aspect of any mystery plot is that once read or seen, the plot turns and denouement are then known, and this might be expected to influence future readings or viewings. That's one reason the release of The Da Vinci Code (the movie) presents a conundrum -- the original novel has sold millions of copies and lived at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for over three years. Much of its (potential) audience knows what happens -- so why see the movie? I would assert that attendance is more likely to be driven by the controversy and the phenomenon than by specific interest in the movie or its individual themes.

Independent of the interest in the movie and of the phenomenon that the novel itself has become, is the reaction by the Vatican to the film. The response of the established Catholic church seems all out of proportion for a work of fiction. Perhaps this has been hyped by biased "news" coverage, but there do seem to be worries in some quarters that this movie will be taken seriously by some of the audience. I've railed before about critics and other cultural icons being unable to accept any particular movie as entertainment and fiction, and it looks like I might have to do it again -- this time without the paranormal bent of my earlier comments. What is there about some ideas that they cannot be explored even as explicit fiction? What is it about a public unable or unwilling or unsure enough to draw a line between fact and fiction? And more to the point, why now?

The themes are not new: the Grail, non-canonical Gnostic gospels, the hidden life of an historical Christ, various Christian heresies, Opus Dei, the Knights Templar, secret societies with centuries-long conspiracies of silence, secret encodings hidden in well-known works of art, claims of unrevealed knowledge, architectural secrets of cryptic buildings (e.g., Chartres, or Rosslyn Chapel) -- these are all ancient and hoary, time-worn and well-explored. The Da Vinci Code is neither the first in this genre, nor the only, nor (to be frank) even the best written (Umberto Eco's novels The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum would be my choices for this category). All these themes have been grist for fiction and non-fiction not just for the past several decades, but in some cases (the Grail and the Gnostics) for centuries. Assembling a bibliography would be a substantial effort, as would be any attempt to catalog the books. Even as I personally enjoy these themes and the sub-genre, I suspect the only novelty here is the combination of (essentially!) all these themes into a single work.

But for some reason, The Da Vinci Code has captured an odd zeitgeist, and is tapping something core to either human or cultural experience. The Catholic church has responded with a debunking website and encouraged a debate in the media. Personally, methinks they doth protest too much. No, I'm not about to claim a conspiracy hiding a unrevealed truth, just making the observation that some people are taking this much too seriously for mere fiction.

After you see the movie, re-examine the title logo used in advertisement. Before the film it merely seems clever, but afterward one discerns meaning. Observe; ponder.

(20-May-06)

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