Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I am wondering how many of you went to see the DaVinci code and how you liked it.
I went opening night, and loved it. It was very true to the book.

Societygirl1892 @ Sun May 21, 2006 2:09 pm wrote:I am wondering how many of you went to see the DaVinci code and how you liked it.
I went opening night, and loved it. It was very true to the book.

I didn't read the book, and I won't watch the movie. Assuming a low audience, it will be on cable TV next year, DVDs, and broadcast TV in 2008. IMO

I read the book several years ago and at the time I enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed looking up some of DaVinci's art work and looking for the "clues." Of course at the time I read the book I was a lukewarm Catholic at best and really didn't know much. The thing about Dan Brown is he wants to have it both ways. The book is clearly FICTION, but Brown does try to claim he did all of this research etc. Well, his research isn't good at all.

Now, some people might claim there's nothing wrong with what Brown does and in a way I agree. The thing is some people read things and then believe them. Years ago a friend of mine, who was a teacher, read a book by Gore Vidal. Can't remember the name but this friend started telling me all of this goofy stuff that Vidal had written about Stonewall Jackson and how he got his nickname. I tried to tell him that Vidal made up the junk but my friend really thought the story was true.

Now,since reading the book I've read other things and now I realize the book is filled with junk. One example is Brown's horrible depiction of Opus Dei. There are NO monks in Opus Dei. It is a conservative catholic group made up mainly of just ordinary Catholics. It is not a secretive group. Heck, I buy books from Opus Dei on-line. Also, they give retreats and as far as I know any catholic can go. They sent me a schedule of their retreats and recollections. Again, hardly secretive.

Now that said, I don't plan on rushing out and seeing the movie. I think over all the movie is harmless as long as you don't take it seriously. For me, I think I might wait until it comes out on video.

Btw, nice to see people aren't out calling for Tom Hanks to be beheaded or anything

Sounds like the kind of film based upon TRUE FACTS! As though there are more than one type of fact in that respect.

I've read the book a few months ago, but, haven't seen the movie yet. I keep on hearing how the movie is getting panned by critics and the audience as well. I have been watching different shows on TV that go into detail about the facts presented in Brown's book that were brought up earlier in a book entitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Really interesting stuff.

Susan @ Mon May 22, 2006 8:52 pm wrote:I've read the book a few months ago, but, haven't seen the movie yet. I keep on hearing how the movie is getting panned by critics and the audience as well. I have been watching different shows on TV that go into detail about the facts presented in Brown's book that were brought up earlier in a book entitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Really interesting stuff.

I would love to know what "facts" your talking about in Dan Brown's fictional book?

Holy Blood, Holy Grail was presented as factual, and I suppose Brown borrowed from that- I haven't read Brown.
We did read HBHG when it first came out- our whole family read it.

Susan, I watched a few of those shows too this weekend. I liked the ones that expanded on Mary Magdalene, the Knights Templar, the Masons, and The Bible Code. I like thought-provoking shows on *history.*

Thank you, Kat, exactly. I know Brown's book is fictional,D.Willy, but, he borrowed liberally from Holy Blood, Holy Grail so much so, that there was a lawsuit brought against his publishers by the authors of HBHG. As Kat stated, HBHG is presented as factual, though Brown took their findings and tweaked them to fit his story. Sounds like another author by the name of Brown that we know.

Actually, I was thinking the same thing, about Brown!
It's weird too, how they are doing 2 Masons shows- with almost the same footage of Washington DC and its ties to Free Masonry and an opposite view of the same story- showing symbols on the dollar bill and the set up of the city of DC as being rather innocuous, nothing *sinister.
~
But there are these zodiacs. The zodiacs are a bit strange. Regardless of the interpretation, there are 53 zodiacs in Washington, DC- more than any other American city.

Kat @ Tue May 23, 2006 1:28 am wrote:Actually, I was thinking the same thing, about Brown!

Maybe its something with that last name that does it?

Those shows are just amazing, so many cool things that they showed, I couldn't keep up with it all! Did you see the one with the churches of the Knights Templar and how the placement of them is based on a pentagram? I forget to what degree that these buildings lined up, but, according to history, they weren't supposed to have had that kind of knowledge to do this then. Simply amazing.

I put about as much stock in the DaVinci Code as I do in The Loch Ness Monster, magic bullets and the Tooth Fairy.

Reporter: "What were you doing when you saw the Loch Ness Monster?"

Eye Witness: "Drinking a Scotch."

Its' sad that people actually believe this DaVinci stuff. But then those people are probably the same ones who bought those Pet Rocks. Go figure.

By the way, did I tell you I saw Elvis yesterday? No, really I did. No, honest... No, I'm just kidding. No, honest...

-1bigsteve (o:

I Love Nessie- and Champ, and Ogopogo and...

About two maybe three weeks ago I was watching "The O'Reilly Factor" and Bill O'Reilly interviewed Michael Baigent. Baigent is one of the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and he is the author of The Jesus Papers. Baigent made it pretty clear that while some of the things he writes about are facts many of his other assertions are merely theories not facts. He does a lot of "This could have happened" type of history. Which O'Reilly took him to task for. Now, I haven't read The Jesus Papers yet, (I'm going to) but I did check out some of the reviews and apparently there is some controversy about Baigent making a claim to having seen a couple of letters he alleges were written by Christ. He says a private collector has them and he can't reproduce them for critics to view.

I totally agree that the Da Vinci Code is just pure entertainment and fiction. While it's based on a non-fiction book called Holy Blood Holy Grail, it must be recognized that the entire foundation of HBHG rests upon a small incident in a French Village called Rennes La Chateau during the late 1890s and early 1900s. A village priest called Sauniere (who the curator of the Louvre is named after in Da Vinci Code) caused a scandal during his mission there and decades later, a bunch of French and English writers exploited facts and speculations about Sauniere that led to the whole Holy Grail thing.

Recent research has shown that the belief that Sauniere had discovered cipher manuscripts that led him to the highly secretive Priory of Sion and their preservation of the Christ bloodline was nothing but a hoax created by some French guy (Plantard) who claimed to be the blood descendent of Christ. There has been some confessions about forgeries of manuscripts and suspect documents deposited into the French national archives.

As a result, the finding of Holy Blood Holy Grail have been dismissed by most serious historians. The speculation about Christ is still up for debate, but the connections with the Priory of Sion is very dubious.

It's obvious that Dan Brown read HBHG and thought it would make a killer action novel (which it did), but he really chose to go with the "whole hog" so to speak, taking the most paranoid and extremist vision of the "conspiracy" and fictionalizing it.

As far as I'm concerned, beleiving that the Priory of Sion was a hoax and that their blood connection Christ is just hogwash is something I just take for granted, after reading several good books on the subject. However, the historical reality of Christ is a totally different issues. Disproving that the Priory of Sion was a hoax does nothing to change any speculation about Christ. It just makes the entire foundation of the Da Vinci Code story a very unstable fable.

It's also interesting to note that the HBO series CARNIVALE was also leading in this direction. In the episode where Scutter is being tortured by a super secret evil society, he is asked, "Where is the Sauniere manuscript?" and Scutter's response is, "Rennes Le Chateau!!"

The series was cancelled two episodes later but it looked like the whole Holy Blood Holy Grail thing was going to be incorporated into the plot line of Carnivale, had it survived.

I do plan to see it this weekend. I look forward to it. I also read the novel twice and got the book-on-tape from the library. So I do find it amusing and entertaining.

There was a magazine put out by the Worldwide Church of God in 1983-84 which outlined the history of the Church and Europe. It discussed history and predicted the unification of Europe including many quotes from Dr. Otto von Hapsburg (who supposedly is a Merovingian descendent) and passages from Revelation. The idea is not just to reunify Europe, but after it is reunified, the intent is to make way for the reintroduction of a Holy Roman Emperor and the formation of a church-state.

Do you think Dan Brown is paving the way?

That Brown's book is a work of fiction, very loosely based on known facts. One known fact is that DaVinci created this painting to decorate a monastery cafeteria, like the last table in the room. It was DaVinci's imagination.
Does this remind you of the failed movie that sought a treasure based on the Constitution and a picture on the back of a dollar bill?