28
Popular Culture Review
Discussion
The four elements to be discussed in this novel-versus-film paper are (1)
conspiracy, (2) relativism, (3) divinity, and (4) the sacred feminine.
Conspiracy
First, one of the main reasons for the novel’s popularity is that “everyone
loves a conspiracy,” to quote a line that occurs twice in the novel itself (169,
381). In The Da Vinci Code, some seek to protect the ancient truth, some seek to
destroy the ancient truth, and some seek to expose the ancient truth. Director
Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (with input from executive
prqducer Dan Brown) stay fairly close to the novel as the different conspiracies
develop and intersect on screen. Overall, the film tends to streamline the
conspiracy storylines. The film gets rather quickly to the Priory of Sion and the
“so dark the con of man” motif. The church’s conspiracy to destroy the ancient
truth and Teabing’s determination to reveal the same truth clearly represent the
“evil forces” in the film. Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu represent the value
of the individual as they both search for personal faith amid the conflicting
conspiracies.
Although in the novel, Silas (the monk) is a brutal, unthinking killer who
blindly follows his orders from Bishop Aringarosa (the leader of the religious
conspiracy), in the film, Silas also illustrates the film’s emphasis on each person
struggling to find an individual belief in a greater power. Silas kills because he
believes he is doing God’s work by following orders from the bishop. Paul
Bettany projects an innocence in Silas, and at the end of the film, when Silas is
shot, he becomes a somewhat sympathetic victim of the conspiracy because he
has never had a way to judge what he has been told.
Robert Langdon starts his journey in the film as more skeptical, more
claustrophobic, and less sexy than in the novel. On screen, Sophie Neveu’s face
appears similar to the face shown several times through flashback on the
sarcophagus of Mary Magdalene, stressing their common lineage. At Chateau
Villette, Sir Leigh Teabing, an expert on Grail history, enthusiastically explains
the ancient secret of the Holy Grail through special visual effects, and Langdon
voices a good deal of skepticism at Teabing’s conclusions. At Rosslyn Chapel,
the docent who is also Sophie’s brother in the novel becomes just a docent in the
film. And while the novel promises a future romantic “date” in Florence for
Langdon and Sophie