Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and Jean Reno in the Ron Howard movie ‘The Da Vinci Code’

Released as a movie in May 2006, the adaptation of the 2003 Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code became the Ron Howard directed movie The Da Vinci Code (2006). With screenplay writing credit for Akiva Goldsman, the movie focuses on “art history, Christianity’s origins, and arcane theories,” as mentioned here.

(Jean-Pierre Marielle as Jacques Saunière in the Ron Howard movie The Da Vinci Code).

The movie begins with the pursuit if Louvre Museum curator Jacques Saunière, as portrayed by Jean-Pierre Marielle, in the world famous Paris, France art museum by Roman Catholic, albino monk named Silas; Silas was portrayed by Paul Bettany. Saunière, while coming out of the exchange dead, leaves clues amongst the artwork of Leonardo da Vinci, the namesake for the movie, the book, and the clues embedded in the art around the museum that lead the police to summon renowned Harvard University symbologist Robert Langdon to the case.

(From left, Paul Bettany as Silas and Alfred Molina as Bishop Aringarosa in the Ron Howard movie The Da Vinci Code).

Robert Langdon, as portrayed by Tom Hanks, initially is suspected of the murder of Jacques Saunière, by police captain Bezu Fache, as portrayed by Jean Reno. Police cryptologist Sophie Neveu, as portrayed by Audrey Tautou, disagrees that that Langdon should be suspected of her grandfather’s, that is Saunière’s, murder; Neveu and Langdon shake Fache’s pursuit and deduce that Saunière was a grand master of the French founded Priory of Sion.

(From left, Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu and Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon near the Louvre Museum in the Ron Howard movie The Da Vinci Code).

Silas, meanwhile, works for an anonymous to him person he calls The Teacher, which has links to the Bishop Aringarosa led Opus Dei. Aringarosa, as portrayed by Alfred Molina. Circumstances send Langdon and Neveu to Sir Leigh Teabing, as portrayed by Ian McKellan.

(Jean Reno as Police Captain Bezu Fache in the Ron Howard movie The Da Vinci Code).

It was Teabing, a purported expert on the Holy Grail, who introduces a theory contrary to accepted religious canon about a relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, which motivated much of the subtextual mystery functioning in the movie. Charlotte Graham portrayed Mary Magdalene in The Da Vinci Code.

(Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing in the Ron Howard movie The Da Vinci Code).

The thriller aspects of the movie, along with the intrigue underpinning the mysteries animating the story for the movie, largely worked. That the resolution went in the direction it did was a bit provocative for my taste, though that does not mean the fiction did not work. I give The Da Vinci Code as directed by Ron Howard 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, March 23, 2024

The Year 2018 in Reading 33 Books (The Silver Books)

Reading is one of the benefits that comes with long commutes to and from work. Through the year, I averaged reading slightly more than eight (8) books every three months. On a rating scale of 1-star to 5-stars, Matt with Matt Lynn Digital rated the 33-books read mostly as worthy reads. We shared the nineteen (19) bronze books on Saturday, December 22nd.

The eight (8) books collected into this remembrance of 2018 are ranked as 4.00. Simply follow the links for a fuller review of any particular book. The silver rated books with 4.00 stars in 2018 are shared here:

(Find A Way by Diana Nyad).

•Find A Way by Diana Nyad

•Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want by Beverly Kay and Julie Winkle Giulioni

•I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

•Theft By Finding: Diaries 1977-2002 by David Sedaris

•Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

•Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ by Daniel Goleman

•Can Such Things Be by Ambrose Bierce

•The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

(Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson).

The biographical look into Leonardo da Vinci offers a look into the European world at a time when Christopher Columbus of Spain was sailing the Atlantic Ocean and landing in the Caribbean. Ambrose Bierce and Maya Angelou gives us a sense of the emerging American Literature canon of the 19th and 20th centuries.

(I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou).

Look for the remaining gold listing of books on Saturday, December 29th.

Matt – Wednesday, December 26, 2018.

Walter Isaacson’s biography of ‘Leonardo da Vinci’

The interesting and robust biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson takes a look into the history of the man, as much as possible, based on the notebooks and contemporary sources of information as could be done by a scholar publishing a work on the influential painter, inventor, and polymath. The book Leonardo da Vinci was published in hardback form in the fall of 2017.

(Leonardo da Vinci biographer Walter Isaacson)

My journey into reading Leonardo da Vinci began with the awareness that he was an Italian Renaissance painter influential largely from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century famous for such paintings as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. I had some sense for his larger influence into more scientific inquiries, which led to the Vitruvian Man drawing, though not much else.

(The Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo da Vinci)

Isaacson takes us into a review of Leonardo da Vinci  that explores not only the facts and relevance of the man, but as much as possible into how he thought and experienced the world. The portrait of the man comes through, likely as much as is possible from roughly 525-years after much of the history for the man began.

(The Last Supper painting by Leonardo da Vinci)

Da Vinci, as an illegitimate son of a Florence legal notary. Da Vinci largely self-taught in early life, having also been alienated from much of the legitimate offspring of his father for much of his adult life. That the influences for becoming a Renaissance painter was less about returning to past forms of high art in his time through an appreciation of the past was largely an accident. The patronage opportunities and shifting sense of timing and loyalty shifts for da Vinci were parts of his genius.

(The Vitruvian Man drawing by Leonardo da Vinci)

Independent wealth was never a largely comfortable proposition for Leonardo da Vinci, though he did find ways to have intimate relationships through his adult life. One of the earlier known relationships was with an that later became an intimate named Salai. Salai was the name used throughout the Isaacson biography, though the name itself was a nickname that loosely to thief, liar, glutton, and other less than flattering terms. Upon death, half of Leonardo da Vinci‘s estate was passed to Salai.

(A Salai drawing by Leonardo da Vinci)

Much of the further biography delves into how Leonardo da Vinci explored curiosities to the point of obsession. Much of the knowledge that da Vinci explored could have made the man significant and memorable in its own right, even if the heavily famous and significant paintings included within this review never occurred. In part, the fame of da Vinci owes itself to these obsessions and their expression in the painting Mona Lisa.

(Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson)

The innovation of the polymath da Vinci were well expressed and clearly understood to me as I read this biography of the man. The level of detail probably isn’t for everyone, though I personally took no exception to the investigation and analysis. I feel that I am the better informed and more appreciative for this experience. I recommend the reading of the book Leonardo da Vinci.

My overall rating is 4.0-stars-out-of-5.

Matt – Sunday, September 9, 2018