Apparently, the Catholic Church hasn’t forgotten the firestorm of controversy that The Da Vinci Code (book AND film) dredged up a few years ago.
According to new reports, the team behind the upcoming Angels & Demons film adaptation, including director Ron Howard and actor Tom Hanks, have been banned from filming in two churches because the movie “does not conform to our views,” said Monsignor Marco Fibbi, a spokesman for the diocese.
The crew had asked to film in the churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria, two architectural jewels in the heart of Rome that include paintings by Caravaggio, sculptures by Bernini and a chapel designed by Raphael.
Permission was denied in 2007, but the issue [re]surfaced only now that filming is ongoing in Rome, Fibbi said. The Sony-produced film was put on hold during the Writers Guild of America strike that ended in February and is now scheduled for release in May 2009.
“It’s a film that treats religious issues in a way that contrasts with common religious sentiment,” Fibbi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “We would be helping them create a work that might well be beautiful but that does not conform to our views.”
Fibbi acknowledged that the controversy over writer Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” and its blockbuster movie version had weighed on the decision.
The ban won’t extend to the exterior of the buildings, but film crews will not be allowed inside.
Something the church DOES seem to have forgotten is that, by boycotting and otherwise trying to block the release of the movie (and book, for that matter), it only added fuel to the controversy and probably made the franchise THAT MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL. People who wouldn’t ordinarily have read the book or seen the movie were intrigued by something the church was so vehemently trying to squash.
Lesson to be learned: If you don’t want to make a big deal out of something, IGNORE IT. Besides, they obviously haven’t read A&D, because it has nothing to do with biblical conspiracies. The movie’s going to be successful anyway. Ah well.
