The Fenomenon Da Vinci

Rating: 5/10 (20 May 2006)

The minor genre of religion-fiction practically appeared with the cinematic adaptation of the novel by Henry Morton Robinson, "The Cardinal", that Otto Preminger took to the screen in 1963. Inspired by the life of the Cardinal Spellman, this tried that its publication was forbidden. Afterwards, the successful version of another best-seller would arrive: "The Shoes of the Fisherman", by Morris West, which Michael Anderson took to the cinema in 1966, and was premonitory of Pope Joannes Paulus II. However, this minor genre consolidated with "The Name of the Rose", by Umberto Eco, that Jean-Jacques Annaud directed in 1986. And now, making use of the phenomenon of sales of a book by Dan Brown (more than 40 million copies, in 44 languages), the industry of Hollywood has seen in such a thriller (like this qualifies it in the cover Mondadori in his last edition) "the kitchen of the eggs of gold".
On the famous North American novelist (born in 1964) 'the portrait' was already made in this by the Spanish journalist Ángel Sánchez, who wrote in 'El Periódico de Catalunya': "He is a brilliant and imaginative professor who, since he was kid, loves the crosswords, puzzle, riddles, symbols, etcetera, facilitated by his father, a mathematician of high level. It is for this reason that he lavishes their novels (because they are not scientific books, but novelizes fables) deciphering secret cabala. 'The Da Vinci Code' is about the secret supposition key of the Christianity: that Jesus of Nazareth married Mary of Magdala and they both had descendants. Although some have seen in Brown a mixture of John Grisham and Umberto Eco, its scarce rigor and his little demanding prose, from a literary point of view, do not do it winner of the two million sold copies in Spain and Latin America." (March 27, 2005). However, the author of the novel holds that what he describes is substantially authentic, for "secret documents" which he makes out that he knows endorse it. Even then, before the critiques that have been done him, Dan Brown has opted to add "a work of fiction" in his web that "The Da Vinci Code is a novel, that is." (January 30, 2006).
In the face of the phenomenon Da Vinci, the professor Massino Introvigne, an Italian sociologist -specialized in estrus, innovatory societies and religion-violence relationship-, has dismantled all the assertions of his North American colleague through a book titled "The Illuminati and the Priorate of Sion. The truth in 'Angels and demons' and 'The Code Da Vinci'" (2005), where he proves the falseness of Dan Brown and discovers the theory of the Great Conspiracy -in which some include masons, Templars and even extraterrestrial ones-; a com-plot that catches the simple people of today, who are so prone to simplify, the complexity of the history, in emergent, but false myths. On her part, the medievalist historian Sandra Miesel says that the book has so many errors that "I surprise myself when in The Da Vinci Code meeting something that is exact".
The company Sony-Columbia, because of the big cinematic business that her provided with the novel, bought the rights of this thriller of religion-fiction in order to carry out a commercial movie that, undoubtedly, can hurt many believers; since the Roman Catholic Church and their institutions remain insulted. With everything, although the Yankee-Japanese major was asked for she put at the beginning of the film -to avoid possible demands for calumny or defamation- of any resemblance with the reality being pure coincidence, has not agreed to do such a warning. Only Jim Kennedy, director of Communication of Sony, declared: "It is a fiction film of fiction, not a documentary. We do not want to offend anybody".
Before the premier of the film, the professor Marc Carroggio, from the Università Della Santa Croce (Roma), would pronounce himself like this: "The problem of a script of this type is that it 'criminalizes' a group of people. It presents the Church as a band of criminals that for two thousand years has been been about everything in order to keep a great lie hidden. Even if it is grotesque, and sometimes a little comical, an odious portrait of an institution ends up being offered, and is it proved that the odious portraits generate feelings of hatred in people that lack critical resources. It seems to me that we do not need more caricatures of any religion. We should be all of the part of the concord, of the tolerance, of the understanding".
Directed with more profession than formal brightness by a worker from Hollywood, Ron Howard (born in 1954), filmmaker of "A Beautiful Mind" (2001) and "Cinderella Man" (2005), with Tom Hanks (for his usual Russell Crowe, Catholic, refused the role) and Andrey Tautou (Amélie) as the protagonist couple, the film follows with quite a lot of faithfulness the tangled original text, but synthesizes the speeches, caricatures and adulterates characters (as that of the inspector Fache, which interprets Jean Reno). Likewise, insists in some violent and morbid passages perhaps also in front to the box-office. With a certain climate of suspense and a vibrating rhythm, in attractive scenarios -as the novel-, recruits the spectator to sell him "cat for hare". I think that the new movie by Ron Howard is a mere product of the series B, without hardly creative category, which soon the film goers will forget.
In a period that in Western we have condemned the caricatures of Mahoma, and some ecclesiastical authorities have already pronounced themselves against this novel and the commercial movie, one may suppose that the historians and specialists will continue disqualifying "The Da Vinci Code" as artistic and literary work for its lack of rigor and null intellectual category. It is more, if the world general public avoided the one viewed of such a film and he did not buy the video games that the Hollywood company announces would abound except these misleading productions.