Feature
Da Vinci Conspiracy
When Dan Brown's infamous book was made into a film, the church reacted just as we'd expect. Mary Palmer reports.
Homicidal monks. The lineage of Jesus Christ. Tom Hanks' mullet. Ron Howard's 2006 film The Da Vinci Code courted controversy for a number of reasons. Based on Dan Brown's novel of the same name, the film follows the theory that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene and that their descendants now live among us, and are subject to a ferocious Vatican cover-up. All of which, of course, the Vatican strenuously denies.
The big-budget mystery thriller is estimated to have grossed $758,239,851 worldwide - thanks, no doubt, to the huge campaigns encouraging cinema-goers to stay away. It certainly wasn't because the film was a good one. No, The Da Vinci Code is marked by poor acting (specifically the ludicrously hammy turn from Sir Ian McKellen), a dull script and a confused sense of history and truth. All cannot be blamed on Howard's decision making. He stood no chance from the offset - Dan Brown's novel is not good. Most of it is speculative fluff, and the rest is poorly spelled and grammatically horrific. It is not the ground-breaking, myth-busting opus it claims to be. It professes ownership of religious conspiracy theories that have been around for years and frames them in one-dimensional 'good guys' and even less credible villains.
And yet, despite all this, the novel was deemed an interesting and exciting enough basis for a Hollywood film. Certainly, Howard had all the right elements: a strong cast of famous faces, the breath-taking backdrop of la Cittą eterna and potentially one of the most explosive storylines in cinema history. Indeed, many Catholic officials took the media, the streets and their pulpits in easily one of the biggest religious campaigns against a film since The Exorcist (1973). Howard was accused of "ridiculing and blaspheming" Christian beliefs by deliberately presenting fiction as fact. The Catholic Church took specific offence to the suggestion that Mary Magdalene - a prostitute, according to the Bible - had born the son of Christ, as well as the depiction of Opus Dei members as blood-thirsty, self-flagellating deviants. Senior church figures - including cardinals and monsignors who worked inside the Vatican - called for both book and film to be boycotted on the grounds they were "slanderous and offensive" towards Catholicism and those of faith. Further outrage was caused when a poster promoting the film was plastered on to the scaffolding of a church in Rome, only to be removed when several complaints were made.
In the Philippines, home to Asia's largest Christian population, the city council of Manila passed a resolution banning the film in local cinemas. Greek authorities banned the film for viewers under the age of 17, saying it touched on "religious and historical questions of major importance that a minor is not able to evaluate." An Athens court did reject a religious organisation's petition for an outright ban. The film's release in India was postponed while government officials considered complaints from the Catholic Bishops' Conference. Bishops across South America also spoke out against the film, while leaders of China's official Catholic church called for a boycott, although the country's notoriously strict censors allowed the film to be released uncut. In France, Monsignor Jean-Michel di Falco Leandri said he found it a "grotesque" portrayal of history and Christian belief. In Russia, the Orthodox Church denounced the film as a "dangerous provocation" and warned of a possible violent backlash from Christians. A Catholic lay group in the United States plan held rallies outside 1000 cinemas across the country, calling the film "an insult directed towards God."
Columbia Pictures, which distributed The Da Vinci Code, lapped up the controversy. It was just the type of mania needed to sell a film to the cinema-going public. Anything that is in some way forbidden or deemed too provocative must be seen, right? The driving forces behind the film loved that priests and religious groups were whipping up a media storm, tossing around words like 'immoral', 'scandalous' and 'blasphemy'. The danger and excitement so inextricably associated with these words secured excellent box office takings. There were reports of queues that filled entire streets upon the film's opening weekend. The more people were told not to see it, the more they wanted to. The Da Vinci Code also received a poor critical response. Critics saw through the religious controversies and saw Howard's film for what it is: a patchy, melodramatic piece of cinema with a storyline spread so thin it was too much effort to care who had murdered who or what painting meant what. Someone somewhere obviously decided that littering the film with religious iconography and well-known paintings leant it gravitas. It didn't.
The Da Vinci Code needed the furious reaction of the Catholic Church. It thrived on it. Without it, it would have been just another big-budget flop. Watching it does not make you privy to anything special or taboo. It is just another set of conspiracy theories seized upon by Hollywood. Nothing less, and certainly nothing more.
Mary Palmer
