The Da Vinci Code on Film

I saw the movie version of The Da Vinci Code yesterday, and came away with mixed feelings -- mostly positive. Because Brown did not describe the characters in deep detail, the movie helped give some flesh and blood to them. With the exception of Tom Hanks in the role of Robert Langdon, the characters came across as quite plausible. Paul Bettany's Silas was especially strong in my opinion, capturing the sadness, brutality, and fanaticism of the albino monk. I also liked Audrey Tautou as Sophie. She is quite attractive without being drop-dead gorgeous, which would have been a distraction. Ian McKellen gave a polished performance as Teabing, although he doesn't fit the book's description of that character, who was plump with bushy red hair.

Tom Hanks, of course is a good actor, and he didn't completely fail with Langdon, but he seems too much of an "everyman" to fit the mold of a Harvard professor. He doesn't convey the air of intellectuality that would seem to go with that role. When I first heard that The Da Vinci Code was going to be made into a film, I thought that Guy Pearce (Memento, LA Confidential) would be a good choice for Langdon. Were he not too old (close to 60), Peter Weller (RoboCop, The Naked Lunch) would also be a good choice for Langdon, not least of all because he is an actual professor of art history at Syracuse University.

Until the end, the movie follows the book fairly closely. Even some of the dialogue comes directly from the book. There is condensing -- an inevitable step when a 450-page book is turned into a two-plus hour movie. For example, there is only one cryptex in the film, as opposed to two in the book. A number of minor characters, such as Langdon's editor and the librarian at King's College, are dropped. There are also fewer flashback sequences in the film. The biggest digression from the book comes near the end of the film, when the action shifts to Rosslyn Chapel and Sophie discovers the true nature of her family.

As my daughter and I left the theater, we noticed one or two people protesting the movie. To be sure, the content of The Da Vinci Code is controversial. The notion that Jesus was a mortal man who had a wife and child strikes at the traditional view of Jesus as the one and only son of God who was as eternal as the message that He preached. But it is a novel; a work of literature that has elements of truth in it, but that ultimately has to be placed on the shelf with other works of fiction. Brown starts with facts taken from history and then distorts, exaggerates, and twists them in order to create an intriguing, semi-plausible story that has the added dimension of bold impudence. And I believe it is this bold impudence -- along with the never-ending popularity of conspiracy theories -- that accounts for the success of Brown's book. Because whether we admit it or not, we have a fascination and very often an admiration for the rule-breaker. For the kid who sticks his tongue out at the teacher, for the student who publishes an underground newspaper, for the rebel who defies the orders of his king. We may not like the rule-breaker; may oppose the cause he champions. But still we give him our attention, if only because he makes life more interesting. And it seems that the more powerful the authority, the more established it is, the more attention we give to those people who oppose that authority. And there are few authorities anywhere more powerful than the Catholic Church or more pervasive than the Bible, both of which portray Jesus quite differently than Langdon and Teabing. Perhaps that's why Mr. Brown has made millions and has achieved a level of fame that has forced him to put up a fence around his home to assure his privacy.