I have written about the continuing greatness of “The Sopranos” in this space before. It may be a surprise then to learn that my other favorite television program is “The Andy Griffith Show.”
The reverse of Tony Soprano?s New Jersey, Mayberry is the perfect expression of American optimism. Some say that such an idyllic small-town America never really existed, or that it never included some people because of who they were or how they looked. Both criticisms have some merit.
But watching Mayberry reminds us that we once didn?t have to lock our doors. It reminds us of a time when the police actually kept the peace instead of chalking off bodies.
Try and think of a more endearing and innocent character than Opie Taylor.
That?s why it?s weirdly disheartening to see a grown-up, balding Opie ? film director Ron Howard ? now emulating the disingenuous style of Oliver Stone and Michael Moore. There are good conspiracy movies ? “Three Days of the Condor” and the original “The Manchurian Candidate,” for instance ? but “The Da Vinci Code” is not one of them.
In spite of its pointedly outrageous plot, the long, lagging film inspires much more boredom than outrage. The actors don?t talk to each other, but to us. They have lots of excruciating historical detail to expound and only two-and-half hours in which to expound it.
There are many lies and distortions, enough that historical figures like Sir Isaac Newton, the emperor Constantine and Leonardo himself could probably win a libel action against Dan Brown. But there?s just enough truth in the tale to make things really confusing.
The film?s most exciting scene has Forrest Gump and that old English dude who played Gandalf debating just when it was that the Catholics ? or was it the pagan Romans? ? declared a long-dead Jesus to be God.
Howard edits this scene expertly. It?s almost as good ? and every bit as deceptive ? as the scene in “JFK” when Donald Sutherland tells Kevin Costner why Kennedy got shot. The argument comes rapid-fire, while the images steer you to the designed conclusion. If you register doubt, one of the characters exclaims, “But that?s what they want you to believe!”
There?s lots of that, and lots of people chasing each other in dimly lit churches and museums. Halfway into the film, mobile phones started to flash through the theater like lightning bugs over a cornfield as people checked the time. Not even Audrey Tautou, from “Amelie,” could make this enjoyable.
Moviegoers these days usually carry on as though they were in their living rooms, but this crowd was reverent. They read the book, so they had to see the movie. Their sense of obligation was palpable, and not too different from the Opus Dei devotees caricatured in the film.
Many people have told me that they never read books, but that “The Da Vinci Code” is a great read. How would they know what a good book is if they never read any? And why would anyone want to read Dan Brown when they could read Ernest Hemingway or Raymond Chandler, to name just a couple of American writers who work in uncomplicated English?
But conspiracy will always be a popular, quick substitute for actual wisdom. There will always be that one guy at the party who thinks that Paul Wolfowitz attacked the Pentagon with a missile and that the plane is really in an Air Force hangar somewhere in Ohio.
When challenged on the facts, both Brown and Howard retreat to the hey-it?s-just-fiction defense. But both book and movie flatly and repeatedly state that his disciples and the early Church did not think Christ was divine.
Many books have already been written to refute this and the rest of Brown?s yarn, but the strongest rebuke seems to be this: Why would all those early Christian martyrs have suffered and died for someone they thought to be only a man?
Aaron Keith Harris writes about politics, the media, pop culture and music and is a regular contributor to National Review Online and Bluegrass Unlimited. He can be reached at [email protected].
