Films: The Da Vinci Code

In the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom said, quite simply,“There is nothing worse than blas­phemy.” But the Church has not al­ways known how to deal with frontal attacks against her doctrine, especially in more modern times and democratic societies, and the “Da Vinci phenom­enon” has made that abundantly clear. At first glance, it might seem fortunate that Ron Howard’s long-awaited film version of Dan Brown’s blockbuster pop novel, The Da Vinci Code, is a thud­ding bore, but it could also, unfor­tunately, make Catholics even more complacent about the very real chal­lenges of blasphemy in our society.

But first, the film. Even setting aside for a moment the insidious her­esies that underlie the film’s story- line, Howard’s cinematic adapta­tion fails on every level. It’s a bor­ing “thriller” with a plodding pace and interminable expositions. These long-winded explanations are of­ten accompanied by herky-jerky, washed-out, and computer-gener­ated “historical” flashbacks that are not only silly but totally confusing. Except for the fundamental premises of the narrative—that Jesus was hu­man, that He married Mary Magda­lene who was the intended director of His church, and that the self-serv­ing Catholic Church maliciously di­vinized Christ and suppressed the truth—it’s hard to see how anyone who hasn’t read the novel will be able to follow the film’s confusing and ludicrous exposition of 2,000 years of Christian history.

Another problem is the already- shallow characters of Brown’s novel, who have here been further dimin­ished into mere ciphers of explication. The main character, Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of symbology, has no past (except for falling into a well as a child), no present, no family, no children, no wife, no friends, and no discernable interests except anagrams and the “sacred feminine.” Portrayed with zombie-like ponderousness by Tom Hanks, Langdon never tran­scends being Tom Hanks the actor. As he struggles to solve the “code” and a related murder in the Louvre, Lang- don is thrown together with Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), introduced as the Paris police department’s “cryp­tographer,” but the two protagonists seem incapable of creating any kind of romantic chemistry. Tautou, whose accented English is often indecipher­able, reveals none of the charm she exuded in the overrated Amelie (2001). Finally, there’s Sir Ian McKellen in an exquisitely hammy performance as Langdon’s windbag colleague, fur­ther proof that aging English stage actors are now required to come to Hollywood, overact, and make lots of money.

These performers are, of course, hampered by the dreadful script adapted by Akiva Goldsman, who previously wrote Howard’s A Beautiful Mind, a film that consciously deceived its audience and misrepresented the real John Nash, and the more recent Cinderella Man, which didn’t man­age to suck all of the life out of the powerful story of Catholic boxer Jim Braddock, although it intentionally distorted and maligned the character of the heavyweight champion Max Baer (no relation).

While Howard, one of Holly­wood’s most puffed-up but well- connected directors, has made a film that’s confusing, dull, and pretentious, it’s useful to remember the unheralded but very entertaining 2004 adven­ture, National Treasure, that also dealt with codes and conspiracy. Yes, its backstory was rather ludicrous, claim­ing that Benjamin Franklin and other Freemason founding fathers somehow acquired the treasure of Solomon and left the directions to its location on the Declaration of Independence. But the film, starring Nicholas Cage and Di­ane Kruger, was fun and entertaining in spite of its historical nonsense, in the tradition of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Da Vinci Code, however, is not about some historical fun, and despite its cinematic flaws and confusing pre­sentation, it still succeeds in claim­ing, over and over, that Jesus Christ was only human, that Christianity is a hoax, and that the Catholic Church is the evil perpetrator of the deception.

Brown, of course, has always in­sisted that these claims are true, and his novel even begins with an errone­ous section labeled “FACT.” The countless errors in the book, many of which also appear in the film, have been addressed in many formats, in­cluding three useful books: The Da Vinci Hoax (Ignatius), The Da Vinci De­ception (Ascension), and De-Coding Da Vinci (Our Sunday Visitor). Brown, a failed songwriter and prep-school teacher, had written three earlier genre novels with mediocre success before he turned his hand to blas­phemy. The Da Vinci Code, although just as routine and poorly plotted (with numerous plot holes and con­trivances) as his earlier novels, has become one of the most popular bestsellers of all time, and Brown has already made an estimated $250 mil­lion from the book. Like the fourth- century Arius, another denier of the divinity of Jesus, Brown, apparently raised a Catholic, has learned that blasphemy is extremely lucrative.

But is it dangerous? Could anyone believe the nonsense in the book or the film? Many Catholic commenta­tors have taken the rather superior position that it’s just too stupid for anyone to believe, but that belies the reality. Countless Americans now be­lieve that St. Mary Magdalene was the wife and heiress of Jesus Christ, that the Catholic Church is an elaborate sham, and that Opus Dei enlists assas­sins within its ranks. While it’s inevi­table that heretics come and go, their hateful ideas are always with us.

In 1965, another blasphemous bestseller, the “non-fiction” The Pass­over Plot by biblical scholar Hugh J. Schonfield, speculated that Yeshua (Jesus) was a Jewish zealot who came to believe that He was the anticipated messiah and that His death and resur­rection would lead to the end of Ro­man rule in Palestine. Thus, Jesus, according to Schonfield’s admittedly undocumented speculations, plotted to fake both His death and His resur­rection. With the help of a few con­spirators, one of whom drugged the wine at the cross to knock Him un­conscious, Jesus planned to survive the three-hour crucifixion, but the plot went wrong when the centurion used his spear, and Jesus later succumbed in the tomb. All the reports of Jesus’ resur­rection and subsequent appearances (more than 100 references in the New Testament) are cavalierly dismissed as inaccurate or falsified by the Church.

So who could believe such non­sense? John Lennon, for one, who admitted, “My views on Christianity are directly influenced by a book, The Passover Plot by Hugh J. Schonfield.” The impact of Lennon on his genera­tion is undeniable. The names of Arius, Schonfield, and Brown may eventually fade into the labyrinths of history, but the perniciousness of their ideas con­tinues to damage people’s lives.

Older Catholics will still recall standing at Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and taking the Legion of Decency pledge, vow­ing to boycott any films condemned by the Legion as morally unaccept­able. In its heyday, the Legion had a tremendous impact in Hollywood_; but in the wake of Vatican II, the Legion was gradually marginalized, the oath disappeared from December 8 Mass­es, and the organization was finally disbanded in 1975.

Is it naïve to hope that the Church might once again find bold ways to challenge the media’s relentless at­tacks on Jesus? Perhaps. But when the industry demeaned itself in the 1930s, Amleto Cardinal Cicognani made a call for the “purification of the cin­ema,” which led to the formation of the Legion of Decency. And 16 cen­turies earlier, when the world had, as Jerome described it, “awoken with a groan to find itself Arian,” Athanasius stepped forward.