The Vatican has led the offensive against The Da Vinci Code, calling for a boycott and even unspecified legal action against both the book and film.Whoops! Too bad the Vatican jumped the gun and gave them all that free publicity.
While the protests have provided studio Sony Pictures with the kind of publicity money can't buy, the reaction at the first press screening in Cannes was largely negative, and loud laughter broke out at one of the pivotal scenes.
"Nothing really works. It's not suspenseful. It's not romantic. It's certainly not fun," said Stephen Schaefer of the Boston Herald.
"It seems like you're in there forever. And you're conscious of how hard everybody's working to try to make sense of something that basically perhaps is unfilmable."
Here's that New Yorker article about how Sony Pictures envisioned religious controversy as a marketing project:
The Sony strategy... was to try to turn the controversy over “The Da Vinci Code” to the film’s advantage. There was no way to stop a Christian critique of [author Dan] Brown’s ideas, but, if leading Christian voices could somehow be coaxed into an association with the “Da Vinci” movie, the criticism might seem less like an attack and more like engagement.
UPDATE: The links to the reviews are currently collecting over at Rotten Tomatoes, which is currently registering 0% positive reviews (out of 7).
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Remember all the criticisms, attacks, defensive speeches, and engagement over "The Passion of the Christ"? Then, all of a sudden, everything just went away. One minute we're in the middle of a hurricane, and then blue skies appear and the sun comes out. I wonder how that happens. Isn't this just a repeat of the same advertising model?
Hello Ann and all,
There's a bit more to the story of the Vatican's reaction than most are yet aware of. Read my analysis below to understand what they truly fear.
Remember, "I come as a thief..." ?
It's not the DaVinci Code or Gospel of Judas per se, but the fact that people have been motivated to seek out the unequivocal truth about an age of deception, exactly when they expect me to appear. The Gospel of Judas and DaVinci Code controversies are allowing people to take new stock of the Vatican/Papacy and the religions it has spawned. It also shines a bright spotlight on the undeniable symbolic content of these texts and traditions and that path leads to the exposure of ages-old religious deceptions. Seek to understand the symbolic significance of my name (Seven Star Hand) and you will have proof beyond disproof that Christians have long been duped by the great deceivers I warned humanity about over the millennia.
It is quite a joke that the Vatican and Catholic Church have the gall to accuse the author of a novel of attacking their fantasies and dogma. Remember that this is the same organization that manufactured fake relics and miracles for many centuries. This is the same group that massacred and tortured people for seeking the truth and having a mind of their own. This is the same group of deluded deceivers that makes more noise about a fictional book and movie than about child raping priests, aids, famine, or even the Holocaust! At what point does the Vatican's behavior go from the absurd to simply purely evil?
It is undeniable the New Testament is framed by symbolism and allegory. The same is evidenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Gnostic texts, biblical apocrypha, and other related texts. All ancient religious, mystical, and wisdom texts have been shrouded in mystery for millennia for one primary reason: The ability to understand their widely evidenced symbology was lost in antiquity. How do we finally solve these ages-old mysteries? To recast an often-used political adage: It’s [the] symbology, stupid!
It's amazing the Vatican still tries to insist the Gospels are literal truth. It is beyond obvious they are replete with ancient Hebrew symbology. Every miracle purported for Jesus has multiple direct symbolic parallels in the Old Testament, Apocalypse, Dead Sea Scrolls, and other symbolic narratives and traditions.
Likewise, the following Washington Post article ( The Book of Bart) describes how many changes and embellishments were made to these texts over the centuries, unequivocally demonstrating they are not original, infallible, or truthful.
What then is the purpose of "faith" but to keep good people from seeking to understand truth and wisdom? It's no wonder the Vatican fears the truth more than anything else. Now comes justice, hot on its heels... (symbolism...)
Revelations from the Apocalypse
Here is Wisdom!!
I must admit, Dan Brown's pompous and outright false statements that it was all true about the art etc., the book was a pretty good each read. I would imagine this movie version might fall into the same trap George Lucas fell into -- movies containing long dialogue or monologue on complex conspiracy theories or political problems (like all of the new Star Wars' talk of political intrigue or mundane public administration babble) is a millstone around a movie that drags it down quickly.
Can't you just hear Tom Hanks go on about symbolology (or whatever the hell it's called) and how he can't believe how "the Church" (cue evil music) has fooled the world all these years, and how he informs every new character about the "sacred feminine", or the Knights Templar, etc.?
My Sacred Momma always said, "Da Vinci paintings are like boxes of chocolate -- you never know what you're gonna get."
And besides he's a professor for God's sake! Besdies Indiana Jones and perhaps Donald Sutherland's Animal House turn, has there ever been a cool professor character in the movies? I'm a prof, it's not the sexiest vocation. Hanks, I wager, is going to "talk" endlessly throughout the movie.
And it should be "Leonardo's Code". but that's just a quibble.
I like Ron Howard and Hanks so I hope it works out for them, but it doesn't look good.
I had two complaints about the book, and without giving too much away, I think the best suspense mysteries leave the reader with some mystery at the end. Some things get uncovered, but the greater sense of the world as a mysterious, dark place remains. I am thinking of Chinatown, The Maltese Falcon, or The Last Wave. The revealing of all mystery brings up my second problem with the Da Vinci Code: Once the mystery was revealed, I thought "huh?". The motivation for hiding information so damning to the church was completely unbelievable.
"has there ever been a cool professor character in the movies?"
troy, that is a great question!
Let me think .... maybe Charles W. Kingsfield in Paper Chase?
Wow, Seven Star Hand is like the religious version of Quxxo!
Misquoting Jesus? Anyone who seriously says, "In Matthew, Mark and Luke, you find no trace of Jesus being divine; in John you do," is either willfully stupid, uninformed, or dishonest -- sort of like Dan Brown. But it's a great way to sell a lot of books, that's for sure.
On a serious note, I am curious about libel law. If you write a "fiction" book and accuse an actual, existing Catholic group of murder, aren't you open to libel? I know the Roman Catholic Church wouldn't pursue legal remedy, but isn't that libelous? Or can you get away with it by calling it fiction?
I agree about the "shocking truth" about Da Vinci.
I went to the advance screening last night.
I was underwhelmed, and several critics (including me) chuckled out loud at the biggest "revelations."
Really, it was kind of dull and occasionally quite silly.
I posted my review on my site, Scribe Life.
Seven Star Hand lists his occupation as "Messiah."
Who needs the Vatican when you have Matt Lauer?
***
You can libel someone in a work of fiction. Some hard questions of fact are presented. Who, specifically, is accused of murder? A fictional character? The church is a big conspiracy in the book, presumably. But that doesn't mean anyone is libeled.
What I find more interesting is just that so many people are in search of a religion that excites them the right way, with little regard for whether it's actually true. And they like the titillation of a big secret in the center, even if it's a big lie.
***
Was Kingsfield a "cool professor"? I don't think so. He was sadistic and full of thinly veiled hostility. Professors are usually the antagonists for other characters that we're supposed to identify with, so the tendency would be to make them uncool.
Cool professors?
Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. Though was Sam Neill a professor or just a paleontologist?
I hate to say this but it reminded me of Nancy Drew.
Now either Nancy Drew was really good or-
The Da Vinci Code sucks....
OK, I withdraw KIngsfield for Rupert Giles from Buffy.
Nancy Drew had a much more exciting wardrobe than the Code's main character.
I have a friend who dislikes the book because of its inauthenticity. Sophie appears in her first scene wearing a fisherman's sweater and thick, woolen tights. Mais, non! My friend, who lived for years in Paris, no Parisian woman would be caught dead in that outfit.
I read it, and it is as someone said, "a page turner," but it has several problems. The puzzles aren't puzzling. I was about to detail some, but that would be a spoiler, yes? Sorry. What sums it up for me is that whenever a narrator assures me that a character is brilliant, just beyond smart and much more brainy than anyone else in his field, or in the book, or the universe, I know we're in for disappointment. Only a really brainy author can keep up with such a character, and while Dan Brown's got millions of reasons to call himself smart, well, there's smarts and then there's smarts.
I'm going to the movie, though. It's sure to be visually pleasing.
When I picked up the Da Vinci Code, my bookseller warned me that I would be disappointed. He was right, the book absolutely sucked. Poorly written, two dimensional charcters, bad plot.
But, and here's the big thing, it did make me curious about the origins of the christian face, enough that I sought info on the internet and struggled through some scholarly works.
I won't be going to see the movie, though. I love Ron Howard, but pass on Tom Hanks.
Cool professor? How about John Malkovich in Art School Confidential?
Cool professors... Jurassic Park yes... Kingsfield was sadistic.
"...the basis of which has been proven to be a hoax perpetrated by a couple of drunk Frenchman."
Wait -- are we talking about "The DaVinci Code" or 20th century French philosophy?
Cool Professors?
The coolest professor without a doubt was "The Professor" on Gilligan's Island.
When I hear "The Professor," I think of this movie.
Pastor Jeff raises an interesting question. Can an institution be libeled?
Suppose a writer, with lucrative book and film contracts, comes to me for advice on whether his new book will open him up to a libel case.
The plot of his book runs something like this: For the last 100 years or so, a named prestigious east coast law school has actually been a front for the headquarters of a world wide cabal that creates and markets child ponography. The entire faculty and administration are involved. Law review articles written by the school's professors are actually elaborate codes by which information is communicated to other members of the cabal. An attractive female law student uncovers the plot and finds herself in great danger from members of the fictional law faculty who stop at nothing in trying to eliminate her. She seeks help from her boy friend, a graduate student in philosophy, and the adventure begins.
What advice do I give this writer? Couldn't actual faculty members at this law school make a credible argument that they were libeled and held up to ridicule even though all the characters in the book were fictional? Is the law school itself without any remedy?
alaskajack's scenario reminded me of a book in the same general vein as DaVinci Code, but much more enjoyable: Gospel: A Novel, by Wilton Barnhardt. He's a wittier writer than Brown, his characters are stereotypes, but more engaging than Brown's, and his scholarship is better. It's a mystery of sorts, with a grad student and her aging mentor on a round-the-world search for missing 1st century gospel that will challenge some core beliefs of Christianity. The Holy Spirit has some good lines. If I recall correctly, it's about renewing and rediscovering faith, after digging through the layers of history and human distortions.
Rotten Tomatoes has a message board where people are actually arguing that this is a Christian conspiracy to spike the movie.
Bwaaaahahaha!!
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