Cracking the `Code'
GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN
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With drama and controversy surrounding Dan Brown's book `The Da Vinci Code' and Ron Howard's adaptation, the film promises to be a nail-biting experience.
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The Da Vinci Code
Ron Howard's adaptation of Dan Brown's controversial fiction, `The Da Vinci Code' opened worldwide on May 19.
In India, there were protests: the Christian community was offended that Howard's movie not only says that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and the couple had a child, but also that the Opus Dei is a shadowy sect which is trying to conceal some dark secrets of the early Christian church. But the Opus Dei adopted a more positive approach to counter the book and the film. It has been publishing material, both in print and on the web, explaining the aims and objectives of the organisation.
Sony Pictures has agreed to insert a disclaimer at the beginning and in the end of the film and with this the film is likely to be released today.
But the run-up to `The Da Vinci Code,' complete with a legal wrangle that Brown faced after he was accused of plagiarism, the Christian community's anger and the Opus Dei's vehement denials, has been dramatic.
The film has Tom Hanks playing Harvard scholar Robert Langdon, and French actress Audrey Tautou, cryptologist Sophie Neveu. They are asked to solve a murder mystery, whose clues seem to be hidden in the masterpieces of Leonardo Da Vinci.
The `Da Vinci Code' promises to be a nail-biting experience, and its production was no less so.
To begin with, a good part of the movie was shot in Paris's Louvre, where exquisite art had to be protected from the effects of powerful lights, heavy equipment and the trampling of feet, all part of the filming process. A slight slip could have wiped the smile off Mona Lisa's face.
Often, as the cameras rolled — invariably after 11 p.m. so as not to disturb the museum's visitors — it seemed that a real story was unfolding on a silent night with Hanks and Tautou emerging from the shadows to see the shocking sight of a naked body.
The Louvre's curator lies sprawled on the floor, murdered by an albino Opus Dei monk.
The French were unhappy
Parisians in particular and the French in general were not too happy when permission was given to shoot the $125-million Hollywood blockbuster.
Despite the fact, the publicity, both good and bad, surrounding the movie brought a record 7.5 million people to the Louvre, the French were unhappy that Brown's tome was filled with howlers.
He had not got the working of the museum right. He was not even quite accurate about Paris' layout. Seems strange for an author who never failed to say how thoroughly he had researched before keying in his words.
Henri Loyrette, president-director of the Louvre, is not perturbed by what the French think. He told the Press, "this is not the first time a film has been shot here.
`Belphégor, Phantom of the Louvre' with Sophie Marceau was made here. Others too. But we've never had a film as large as `The Da Vinci Code.' It was complicated. It involved enormous preparation. But things worked out very well."
Loyrette said that the restrictions were strictly followed by the movie crew.
The Mona Lisa could not be filmed, and no food and drinks were allowed inside the museum. No blood or mystical drawings could mar the wooden floors.
Blessing in disguise
Howard felt very apprehensive about these limitations, but later realised that they were a blessing in disguise. The dim lighting gave the set the kind of ambience that Brown's words had created.
"In adapting a novel that blurs fantasy and reality, it was a coup to be able to film the book's first 100 or so pages in their original setting, starting when the story's curator, Jacques Saunière, played by Jean-Pierre Marielle, races through the Louvre's Denon Wing before being shot by the albino monk Silas, played by Paul Bettany," he reportedly remarked.
In the end, `The Da Vinci Code' not only had the rare privilege of bringing some of the top stars together, inside the great Louvre, but was also lucky enough to use some of the museum's exteriors, such as the grand courtyard and the glass pyramid.
Howard's work, one would suppose, blends the right degrees of the real and the unreal to give us captivating images moving through a maze of unbelievably fast events.
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