My article on Christian responses to The Da Vinci Code is now up at CT Movies. A shorter version will appear in the magazine.
This will probably be my last published item on the film before I see it and review it next week. And yes, this is the article I was researching when I commented two weeks ago on Entertainment Weekly‘s odd suggestion that evangelicals are “planning protests and boycotts” while Catholics are merely keeping “quiet”.
Speaking of which, here are some recent Da Vinci newsbites:
- Cardinal urges legal action against Da Vinci Code
In the latest Vatican broadside against “The Da Vinci Code,” a leading cardinal says Christians should respond to the book and film with legal action because both offend Christ and the Church he founded.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Nigerian who was considered a candidate for pope last year, made his strong comments in a documentary called “The Da Vinci Code-A Masterful Deception.”
Arinze’s appeal came some 10 days after another Vatican cardinal called for a boycott of the film. Both cardinals asserted that other religions would never stand for offences against their beliefs and that Christians should get tough.
Reuters, May 7 - Opus Dei, Ron Howard at odds over ‘Da Vinci Code’
The director of the upcoming religious thriller “The Da Vinci Code” says he sees no need for a disclaimer labeling the film a work of fiction — provoking a rebuke on Monday from Catholic group Opus Dei.
Reuters, May 8 - Ban Da Vinci Code, says Philippine official
The Philippine government should ban the controversial movie “The Da Vinci Code,” a senior official in the mainly Catholic country said on Wednesday, describing the religious thriller as blasphemous. . . .
“I think we should do everything not to allow it to be shown,” said Eduardo Ermita, executive secretary to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, expressing his personal opinion as a “devout Catholic.”
Reuters, May 10 - ‘Da Vinci Code’ Boycott Sidestepped in U.S.
A senior Vatican official has called for a boycott of “The Da Vinci Code,” while the Council of Churches in Jordan and Roman Catholic activists in India want their governments to ban the film altogether.
But what’s notable in the U.S. where the film’s release next week has believers of many denominations nervous and angry is that boycotts are taking a back seat to anti-“Da Vinci” books and teaching sessions about the Gospels.
Associated Press, May 10 - Top cardinals bemoan ignorance about “Da Vinci Code”
Three top Vatican cardinals have bemoaned the religious ignorance they say fuels worldwide interest in the best-selling novel “The Da Vinci Code,” whose film premiere is due on May 17.
Reuters, May 10 - Opus Dei strikes back before “Da Vinci Code” movie
Every time Barbara Falk walks past a billboard for the movie “The Da Vinci Code,” the elegant 50-year-old teacher who has been a celibate member of Opus Dei for 26 years wants to accost people to tell them “I’m normal.”
The Catholic organization is portrayed in Dan Brown’s bestseller as a secretive cult willing to murder to defend a 2,000-year old Catholic cover-up. The face of Opus Dei in the book is Silas, an albino monk with a masochistic streak.
Reuters, May 10 - The Da Vinci Code: bad writing for Biblical illiterates
It’s a good rule in this line of work to respect a hit. But golly, The Da Vinci Code makes it hard. At the start of the book, Dan Brown pledges, “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” It’s everything else that’s hokum, beginning with the title, whose false tinkle testifies to Brown’s penchant for weirdly inauthentic historicity. Referring to “Leonardo da Vinci” as “da Vinci” is like listing Lawrence of Arabia in the phone book as “Of Arabia, Mr. L,” or those computer-generated letters that write to the Duke of Wellington as “Dear Mr. Duke, you may already have won!”
Mark Steyn, Maclean’s, May 10
Meanwhile, director Ron Howard tells the Los Angeles Times:
“It’s very controversial. What Dan Brown did with the novel, we didn’t back away from in making the movie,” says Howard. “I think what a lot of people have discovered — a lot of theologians — is this is a work of fiction that presents a set of characters that are affected by these conspiracy theories and ideas. Those characters in this work of fiction act and react on that premise. It’s not theology. It’s not history. To start off with a disclaimer….” he searches for the right words. “Spy thrillers don’t start off with disclaimers.”
This is, of course, a stupid argument. Dan Brown himself has said that The Da Vinci Code was intended to spread certain ideas about theology and history, and Dan Brown himself has acknowledged that it is the book’s theological and historical ideas, rather than its “thriller” style or plot mechanics, that have made it such a smashing success. Ron Howard, for whatever reason, might want to pretend that the book’s theological claims are just a harmless McGuffin that keeps the “thriller” action going, but it would probably be more accurate to say that all that “thriller” stuff is a Trojan horse for Dan Brown’s rather eccentric set of beliefs.
Incidentally, some evangelicals have also tried to dismiss this controversy by saying “it’s only fiction”, but evangelicals, of all people, are in no position to make that argument — not after spreading their own theological and even political ideas via such novels and films as This Present Darkness and Left Behind.
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