"a full-frontal assault on Christianity, explicitly suggesting that the world would be a better place if Christian faith collapsed...yeah! That's the ticket!
Posted on 05/22/2006 11:29:05 PM PDT by L.A.Justice
Some observers wonder why there’s been so much controversy regarding the movie version of THE DA VINCI CODE, but having finally seen the film I’m astonished that there’s so little.
This very long (2 and a half hours) and very somber exercise amounts to a full-frontal assault on Christianity, explicitly suggesting that the world would be a better place of Christian faith collapsed, and blaming the church (the supposedly deluded faith in “one true god”) for racism, intolerance, sexism, brutality and fanaticism.
In ideological terms, it’s a far more radical film than “The Last Temptation of Christ,” and even more deserving of public objection and condemnation. The argument that it’s just “fictional entertainment” falls apart in face of the movie’s gratuitous and inflammatory preachiness: director and co-producer Ron Howard could have offered an eerie, conspiratorial thriller without repeating the book’s outspoken indictments of Christian orthodoxy and shameless promotion of paganism. At the conclusion of the movie in particular, the lead characters (played by Tom Hanks and French Star Audrey Tautou) speculate on the liberating, peace-making, altogether beneficial impact on humanity if they someday succeed in rebutting the lies of authoritarian, traditional Christianity.
Could anyone feel sincere surprise at the indignant reaction by those of us who believe that today’s Christian faith represents a blessing rather than a curse to this troubled planet? By an large, the film follows the twists and turns of the book though one of the most engaging elements of the novel falls entirely flat on screen.
For readers, Dan Brown provides all sorts of tantalizing, fascinating, arcane historical and theological details -- many of them utterly bogus, of course-- that nonetheless come alive on the page. In the movie, much of this trivia coalescences into large, gooey, indigestible lumps of dialogue and exposition that not even a great actor like Sir Ian McKellen can put across.
As a matter of fact, all the considerable acting talent in the film is wasted, with superbly capable performers like Tom Hanks, Alfred Molina, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno and especially poor Paul Bettany (asked to play a murderous, self-torturing, albino monk) assigned to characterizations that remain pathetically underdeveloped, one dimensional, and feeble. We know, for instance, that Hanks’ Harvard “Professor of Religious Symbology” is a world famous academic star, but unlike the book there’s no hint as to whether he’s got a wife, or girlfriend, or boyfriend, or lovable sheepdog waiting for him back home in Cambridge. Again in contrast to the book, there’s no love scene between the two main characters and the presumably inevitable attraction between them never materializes in any sense.
The plot begins with a murder, of course: with a Louvre curator shot by a Catholic fanatic but left with enough time as he bleeds to death to arrange his nude body in a provocative style, while writing coded messages partly in his own blood, partly with invisible ink. Hanks and “police cryptographer” Tautou begin investigating the death (the victim, it turns out, is her grandfather) but the tough French detective (Jean Reno) assigned to the crime tries to arrest them before they get away. Eventually, they make their way to the lavish estate of a crippled scholar (McKellen) who reveals the connection between the rampage of violence in the “biggest cover-up in human history”: a Catholic attempt to suppress the knowledge that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, that she bore a child whose descendants live on in Europe to the present day, and that the keepers of this sacred secret will someday restore the true male-female balance to Western religiosity. McKellen also insists that Jesus was merely human, and that early Christians began persecuting pagans in ancient Rome, ruining the more enlightened, more sensitive world of the Empire.
The ominous visual style and generally energetic pacing keep the movie purring along, with less tedium than you’d expect in an epic of such conspicuous length. The plot twists and sudden reverses, however seem silly, arbitrary, and entirely contrived --- never growing organically out of the story-line or the thinly sketched characters.
As a piece of cinema, THE DA VINCI CODE is just barely competent enough to influence some gullible audience members to question the ancient story of the Gospels. If the movie represents the beginning of that questioning process, it could spark a religious awakening in some viewers, but director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (who did such wonderful work in last year’s superb “Cinderella Man”) offer smug, supercilious conclusions, not vital or vigorous challenges. RATED PG-13, for disturbing violence and gore, some (male) nudity, and fleeting sex references. TWO STARS.
Christians who don't attack this movie and think it's a matter for "discussion" and "exploration" are spineless wimps who deserve what's coming to them, and their families.
I agree about the film being less insulting than I expected (and I have not read the novel). Maybe some viewers will ignore the characterization, but the villain is the one who is arguing against the divinity of Jesus, and the Tom Hanks character argues for the divinity of Jesus.
I admit it--I'm nosy. I wonder why he got/is getting divorced? I was a little surprised when he announced it. I wonder what she was like.
I'll ask again...have you read the book?
Someone's gonna git a whuppin'
I dunno. I liked the book as a rollicking good thriller. I'm told the movie drags a bit, but I think I'll see it any way.
Darn--I was hoping you had some inside information:) He has an older son with his first wife--I think his name is David. He is in college. And he has one adopted son with his second wife named Aaron. I think they tried for a while but didn't have any luck having one naturally. His second wife also has an adult daughter.
The book never makes that claim.
It does however, expound on the claim that Christ survived crucifixion, married The Magdalen, and bore children with her.
This is not a new notion by any extent.
The plot of the book is built around a group of people who believe this to be true. This group believe that it was Mary Magdalene, not Joseph of Arimathea who brought the Holy Grail to Europe, and that the Grail, rather than being a dish or cup (as described in the Grail Romances), is the actual bloodline Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
The book is about the actions of such a group, and a historian's race to...
Read the book if you want to know the rest.
In other words, The Da Vinci Code does little more than build a yarn about beliefs that have existed for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
It's not much different than an Indiana Jones movie.
France.
The ideas Brown weaves in his book have been around for a long time, but I don't think the Priory of Sion in its 20th century form was around prior to the mid 20th century. Brown asserts in his book's forward that it was formed in 1099.
Why?
As far as I know, there are references to God as female in the OT, such as Wisdom being referred to as female.
There is probably information out there at Ashtarte, Ishtar, ancient Hebrew worship, etc.
Probably not. The Jews were nothing if not monotheistic. In fact, God is referred to alternately as male or female in the OT. Of course, since God is pure spirit, He is neither male nor female. The significance of male imagery of God is that God stands outside creation; He is separate from His creation as an earthly father is separate from his progeny.
Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible cannot be mistaken for the contemporary pagan pantheistic ideas of God.
"a full-frontal assault on Christianity, explicitly suggesting that the world would be a better place if Christian faith collapsed...yeah! That's the ticket!
That's not Brown's assertion.
Some have the Priory being the society behind the formation of The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, A.K.A. The Knights Templar.
It's hard to pin down the exact date of formation of a secret society.
Gaul...to an existing Jewish community.
"Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."
I'll ask yet again...
Have you either read the book or seen the movie?
Paragraph 239By calling God "Father," the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father.
They had to have been pretty busy over 1973 years... that number is 32.x28 descendents... merely assuming 2 births per female... 32 followed by 28 zeros...
The Priory of Sion was a complete fabrication, a hoax of the past 50 years.
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