![]() In 325 AD, he decided to unify Rome under a single religion’ ‘With Dagobert’s murder, the Merovingian bloodline was almost exterminated. Of course Howard and his screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman, will say that they had far more modest aims, that they were merely solving problems of exposition, and trying to speed up the delivery of the pseudo-historical background that takes up so much of the book: ‘Constantine decided something had to be done. No scene without a camera, even in the 18th century, and if he had wanted to Howard could have shown not only the ghosts coming back but the original scene itself, complete with Voltaire taking notes. Of course the scene is inept, and all the sadder for the moviemakers’ manifest pride in its ingenuity. ![]() It’s the greatest cover-up in human history, to quote Ian McKellen quoting Dan Brown.ĭuring the Cannes screening of the film critics are said to have laughed when a crowd of bewigged ghosts shows up for Newton’s funeral in Westminster Abbey, forcing the live characters to elbow their way through the shades to continue their quest for the holy grail. The movies always existed, they were already everywhere, but no one knew it. ![]() There’s the real conspiracy, and the deep symbological meaning of the flashback. In a ruined church somewhere near Cinecittà, perhaps. These are unmistakably moving (and talking) pictures, presumably long buried in some tomb whose discovery might have saved the Lumière brothers quite a bit of trouble. It’s all a little grey and grainy, washed out in places, but then the stock must be very old, and there are some nice splashes of colour, especially the reds and indigos. What we have are inserts of ancient footage of, among other long-gone events, the crucifixion, the Crusades, the fall of the Roman Empire, the massacre of the Templars, and the Council of Nicaea. This time self-reflexivity takes an extra step. ![]() Paranoid delusions in Howard’s A Beautiful Mind were like being in a pretty good spy movie with Ed Harris. It’s a masterly piece of Hollywood hokum, spoiled only slightly by the fact that it appears to be taking itself seriously. The great secret of Ron Howard’s movie version of The Da Vinci Code has nothing to do with murders, cryptology, the Templars, Opus Dei, Mary Magdalene, or the idea that Christ might have been a practising heterosexual. ![]()
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