Tim J here.
You know… this is just a hair-brained possibility (or is it hare-brained?), and something that I guess is one of the inevitable cultural mutations of the DaVinci Code phenomenon, but it strikes me as plausible, and so though I have no evidence for it, I wanted to run it past y’all.
Heck, Dan Brown works without evidence all the time.
I watched one of the longer DVC trailers on TV this past weekend, and it struck me as oddly… innocuous. I mean, it depicted all these supposedly mind-wrenching, earth-shattering events, but it came off as rather… frothy – like one of those old Hollywood action serials, where you were supposed to get all worked up about the hero’s predicament, but all the time you knew it was really no big deal.
I haven’t seen the DVC film (and plan to go see Over The Hedge instead, on May 19th), but what I saw of the trailer left me with the impression that the acting is so over-the-top, and the direction so florrid that the film may come off about as plausible as The League of Extrordinary Gentlemen, and about as serious as Young Frankenstein.
I admit, it could be because I already think of the film’s raw material as ridiculous, and so I’m predisposed to laugh.
Except I wasn’t really expecting to laugh. I was expecting that a full-length DVC trailer would leave me irritated, concerned and maybe a little demoralized. It didn’t.
So, is it possible that little Opie Cunningham has directed the DaVinci Code as a farce? Might he have given the subject the cinematic treatment it truly warrants? Is he that good?
Part of me would like to think so, given that he grew up on the set of the Andy Griffith Show, singing hymns during breaks in shooting with Andy, Don Knotts and everybody. Wouldn’t it be great if he snapped up the DVC movie gig so he could give it the subtle lampooning it deserves?
Like I said, I have no evidence except for my own reaction to the trailer… I’m just sayin’, that’s all.
Grist for the continually grinding mill.
Interesting take; however, I thought RH was into New Age. Tom Hanks, screaming liberal that he is, in a speech at an event honoring Ron Howard said, (paraphrased) ‘I’d follow Ron Howard straight to hell.’ Maybe that’s their plan.
That would be great to see “The Da Vinci Code” spoofed in wide-release!
So, would Gene Wilder play the evil Opus Dei priest? Madeleine Kahn would have been a great Mary Magdalene.
As I said on my blog, the reason Ron Howard directed the film was because he thought Opus Dei was Latin for Opie Die.
Roger Ebert once said that it’s not what’s done in a film that matters, but how it’s about it. In other word, as people get worked up on the contents of any film, without proper context, it’s sometimes hard to understand if the film actually endorses the aspects of the story that people find reprehensible. Sometimes the director is winking back at the audience, agreeing with them, fully letting the story go in the wrong direction, just to prove how wrong-headed it is.
That said, the jury is still out, as a trailer sometimes gets the movie’s tone all wrong. But I like your idea a lot.
Trailers can give a wrong impression.
While I agree that movie trailers can be misleading (like the ones that made Chicken Little look funny), one has to ask why would Ron Howard want to lead people to see The Da Vinci Code as a farce. He will make more money if he presents this movie as a possible true story. Tell me there aren’t more people out there who would like to believe the Church is evil instead of persecuted for the Truth. I would like to believe Tim’s supposition, but I think it has more to do with him having an educated understanding of the Church and her traditions rather than Opie’s desire to evangelize. A sure way of knowing would be to get some Protestant and/or American Catholic perspective on the trailer.
I admit I find myself chortling at the trailers–it all seems so overwrought, especially where the image of John the Baptist in The Last Supper is photoshopped.
I very much doubt Howard will direct it even subtly as farce–but it might play that way anyway. A “Battlefield Earth” for the neo-gnostic set.
Ron Howard would have to work hard to present DVC as more ridiculous than it actually is.
On the other hand, he would have to work even harder to imbue it with any credibility and artistic integrity.
Personally I suspect that, once transferred to the big screen, DVC will be revealed as the risible tosh that it really is.
“risible tosh”… I LOVE that!
I doubt Ron Howard has consciously and deliberately directed the DVC as a farce, but in his heart of hearts, maybe he recognizes the preposterousness of the whole thing.
Hanks has had the privilege of acting in some well-written films. I expect it was a bit tricky to make it through these scenes and mouth these lines with a straight face.
I don’t worry too much about it. Remember how many people thought Fahrenheit 911 was a serious film with lasting consequences? It also set records. Remember how The Last Temptation of Christ was going to Change Everything?
If the trailer is representative of the film, then I think it could actually have the effect of letting the air out of the DVC balloon.
I still won’t see it, if only to keep my money out of Dan Brown’s pocket.
Out of curiosity, does any money from the sale of tickets go into the author’s pocket? Maybe if he is also the screenplay writer. I would have thought that once the rights were bought that was the end of the author’s involvment monetarily speaking. Although, I guess stipulations could be made as part of the “rights selling” agreement that would allow for a percentage of the profits. Anyone know for sure?
Rose:
Re: sale of tickets, aka “gross”: varies by contract, but with a book this successful, and a moderate amount of professional competence on Brown’s agent’s part, it seems like a given that Brown would get some cut of gross. Not as big as the Hollywood people but some.
Re: Ron Howard and Trailers: with a few oddball exceptions like Hitchcock, film directors usually don’t assemble the trailers for their movies or have much input into the marketing of their films.
Derringdo and Benedict are right, trailers can be do horrible damage to a film’s potential. Both the Wizzard of Oz and The Princess Bride were fantastic movies that were ruined because of bad marketing. If you have the DVD of Bride, there is considerable time given to how the trailers destroyed that movie with lots of comparison to the Wizzard of Oz.
With that in mind, there may be an assassin Opus Dei monk working in Sony marketing with the goal of ruining the film before it releases.
I was kind of surprised how the commercials show one of the climatic scenes of the book: Langdon throwing the cryptex into the air and tricking Teabing into diving for it — thus saving Sophie from his clutches in a tense hostage scene. Now everyone who sees this scene setup at the end of the film will know what Langdon does: toss the cryptex. This is about the only moment with any real sense of suspense and the previews ruin it.
Not to mention the fact the movie does look dreadfully dull. Many artists in the media today can really embrace an arch-anti-Christian and anti-Church attitude because of their adolescent views towards authority. But those emotions are much more subdued among film reviewers and I can imagine a greater number of them really not caring at all about what Dan Brown thinks about Christ’s divinity. With the central tension thus already defused, the movie may suffer from indifferent reviews.
I think the plot is coated with a thick enough layer of bathos to ensure its immediate downfall. I have always thought the movie would tank and I still do — even though everyone else believes the movie will be one of the biggest hits of 2006. (But really, given the competition and the state of Hollywood these days, would even THAT be considered a success?)
Also, it is in Howard’s best interest not to lampoon his own movie, given the possibility it would make him look like a buffoon.
Herman Melville’s Pierre and the Ambiguities comes to mind…
Take the Exorcism of Emily Rose, for instance. Positioned it as a horror flick when it’s a courtroom drama rife with metaphysical speculation.
We can dream, but we have to be prepared for the wake up.
Hey Ron Howard has directed many good movies and won awards so LETS GET OFF OPEY. As far as DVC..Its a work of fiction and we need toremind people of it. But I doubt any Protestants woth protest it as long as it puts us in a bad light. They were quick to condemn Mel’s movie but missed Brokeback Mountain!
“So, is it possible that little Opie Cunningham has directed the DaVinci Code as a farce?”
I’m thinkin’ not. RH is a didactic director, he likes to teach the audience & can’t resist the inclination to directly indicate the most important moments in a film (usually with gimicky FX & camera work that shout “pay attention, folks, here’s the theme!”) & tends to rely on stereotypes v. actual character development. This, frankly, is why he’s perfect for DVC, since RH’s ability as a director is in league with Dan Brown’s as a writer. This is not to day I’ve not enjoyed any RH movie – I can name one that I very much liked & 2 that were entertaining while I was viewing them. I simply think his reputation as a Hollywood A list director is totally undeserved.
“Might he have given the subject the cinematic treatment it truly warrants?”
Highly unlikely. H’wood tends not to do things like this. Since it’s about making money, why would they risk alienating the 40 million + DVC readers by making it a farce (as much as I’d like to see that done)? If the film plays like a farce, it’d be either totally unintentional on RH’s part or a testament to Brown’s crummy story or RH’s directing abilities. Or both.
“Is he that good?”
No. The awards that Mark points out RH has won, such as those given out by the Academy of Motion Picutre Arts & Sciences, are only very, very rarely based on merit. Usually, it’s a popularity contest. A small percentage of the films that win best picture truly deserve the accolade, including Brokeback Mountain. (Ang Lee was far more deserving to win for his work on The Ice Storm or even Sense & Sensiblity that BM.)
Finally, I really need to take issue with Mark’s portrayal of DVC as a “work of fiction” & that we need to remind those who read the book or see the film of that fact. Brown included a fact sheet as the first page of his book & claims on it that all depictions of art, architecture, secret rituals, etc found in DVC are accurate. He himself very much wants people to believe DVC is based on fact & volouminous research. Which we all know it is not. Saying DVC is fiction won’t make it go away or stop folks from believing it & Brown’s claims about the Church.
Tim J makes the point above that films like Last Temptation of Christ was supposed to change everything & ended up . . . not. It is my deepest hope that this will happen to DVC, that it’s just a fad & we’ll all be over it in 10 years or less.
But then I recall an early 1960s play called The Deputy, by Rolf Hochhuth. Even now, after multiple books have proven Pope Pius XII was not, as some claim, a Nazi sympathizer & that he actually did work against Hitler, Amazon has this description of the book:
“First staged in 1963, The Deputy stirred up more controversy and caused greater repercussions than any other postwar work. Based on Rolf Hochhuth’s research into Vatican activities during World War II, the play’s treatment of Pope Pius XII — the “deputy” of Christ on earth — and the Church during the Nazi persecution of the Jews made it the object of impassioned praise and violent denunciation. It is a powerful, shocking work. This new paperback edition includes an appendix about Hochhuth’s research.” (Linked below.)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801856531/qid=1146688789/sr=1-12/ref=sr_1_12/104-4127176-8847926?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Sound familiar? Phrases like “research into Vatical activities” are standard regarding this play &, even though it’s all been proven to be lies, folks still believe it! (Just read some of the comments! One reviewer goes so far as to strongly intimate that Catholics are in denial regarding this play because of their faith.) This could be DVC in 40 years, folks. Because it is a visual & emotional experience, film has the power to impress ideas & images upon a viewer’s mind in a more lasting & permanent way than a book ever could. And millions more will potentially see DVC film than will ever read the book. This is the frightening potential of DVC.
I hope & pray the movie is really bad. But if it’s even halfway decent & makes the books points in even a fairly convincing way, there could be a whole lot of fallout from it.
Criminey. I blew it on the link. I still don’t understand HTML!
I really got to remind myself to read back further. Some really good comments get put in after my two cents!
Gene, you took the words right out of my mouth. The book Anti-Catholicism the Last Acceptable Prejudice is a must-read for anyone going toe-to-toe with Dan Brown. Brown himself admits his material is unoriginal but does he know where this comes from?
The same myths get recycled over and over again. It all follows that Hitlerian idea of a big enough lie told often enough gains the credence of a truth. I have even mused that it would be worth it to make something up myself (like say, the Vatican’s 200 year old project to create an army of giant fighting robots) just to see how long it takes for the myth to circulate its way to the evening news.
In conversations with the “it’s just fiction!” crowd, I find it remarkable that not believing in God can lead to not believing in Truth which leads finally to not believing in fiction.
Fiction is real. Fantasies are true. Myth is true. Dan Brown denies all of this. To him, religion is just a metaphor — which is another way of imposing his idea that religion is limited to the realm of the mind. This is philosophical idealism.
But it is not true. He puts the cart before the horse, so to speak and is driving bass-ackwards. For him, religion is not based on reality but on whim. For a writer, this is suicide.
As a gnostic, he can only create stories that end up hopeless and self-defeating. In the DVC, all of the good guys live happily ever after, but their ideas fade into utter insignificance by the end.
In a Christian tale, all the good guys can die horrible deaths, but their ideas have eternal life.
There is no dark fade to pointlessness at the end of Fr. Maximillian Kolbe’s concentration camp death because his is a saving sacrifice. In Flannery O’Connor’s stories, you get the sense that no matter what happens to the characters, something deeper is moving within their souls. The true plain of human significance is the realm of the supernatural. Stories that deny this connection ultimately ring false.
Recently, I have been offering up my prayers to famous yet non-canonized Catholic authors like Tolkien, Shakespeare, and GK Chesterton. I wish they could be here to answer Dan Brown. Even though we never walked the Earth at the same time I have to admit that in a weird way I miss them.
Wow… if the Catholic Church had even put HALF of the energy they’re putting into bashing some guy’s silly book, towards the problem of priests raping little kids, I might care about what they have to say on this. Until then, to me, catholicism is just organized and sanctioned child molestation.
I’ll check back in with you guys when you get your priorities straight.
Good luck.
And yet another living, breathing example of invincible ignorance.
Well, at least we agree that The DaVinci Code is a silly book.
Unfortunately, a lot of silly people actually take it seriously and become deceived, which is why it is a worthwhile project to debunk its screwed-up history.
Just like a lot of silly people will believe anything that they read in the papers, as long as it makes the Catholic Church look bad.