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The Da Vinci Code by SOLITAIRE
Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellan, and Jean Reno
Novel by Dan Brown
Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman
Directed by: Ron Howard
Produced by: Brian Glazer, John Calley
Released by: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Exactly 2 years ago, I was traveling North on the 101 freeway and I was looking forward to sipping some delicious Californian Pinot Noir and tasting the exquisite Pacific Rim cuisine at the Silverado Ranch in Napa. That was when I decided to overture my trip with Dan Brown�s Da Vinci Code on tape. Listening to the book was probably not the proper way to do justice to his mega-bestseller. I also must admit that I have not been that interested in reading fiction for a long time. Upon listening to the book I thought, "What a cunning way to get back at an institutionalized belief system". However, The Da Vinci Code proved to be an enjoyable listen as it made my trip seem short and I didn�t want to arrive before the end of the book. I took it for what it was, a well written suspense thriller and shortly thereafter forgot about it.
Two years later, one day before the worldwide release of the film adaptation, I am riding in a cab from the airport to the Center of the City of Mexico, the Zocalo, and listening to a very heated conversation as to whether this movie could hurt Christianity. Was it really true that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had a daughter and so on and so forth. Did the forgotten Gospels of the Agnostics bring forward this truth? The "ifs" obviously were lingering in the minds of the readers of the book.
The film premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in an out of competition screening. Despite the bad reviews it had received shortly before the worldwide theatrical release, it was a huge box office success. As of this writing it has accumulated $582,481,268 worldwide in just 2 � weeks coming from a reported budget of $125,000,000. The movie has already made 4 � times the budget (meaning it has been completely paid for and is already making a sizeable profit).
I went to see the movie and I liked it. Ron Howard, the director, was not doing the expected thing, making a big thriller. On the contrary, he chose to utilize a quasi-documentary style in order to tell the story. Only the mega star and multiple Academy Award winner Tom Hanks reminded me that we were watching a major studio production.
Since I assume that you have read the book and/or seen the movie, I will not bore you with the synopsis. In my opinion, neither the story told in the book or the film have blasphemous intentions. It is merely a fictional story based partly upon the rediscovered Agnostic Scriptures which had not been chosen by the Roman Emperor Constantine to be a part of the New Testament. It is believed that Constantine called in the Council of Nicaea in the year 325 AD to sample the Gospels into the New Testament to create the basis for Christianity, which was chosen to be the new religion of the Roman Empire.
The Da Vinci Code is a movie I would like to revisit on a cozy evening in front of the fireplace and allow my mind to wonder back to the times that have long since past. Even if it were true that Jesus was married and has a lineage, I don�t feel that this is a disturbing fact. After all, he was born a son of man.
SOLITAIRE
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