The Da Vinci Code Online

The Da Vinci Code movie arrives in cinemas later this week. In Sydney, Australia, the Anglican Church has been anticipating this moment through the screening of its own light hearted cinema advertisment.

The 20 second ad begins with an adaptation of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. In Monty Python style the focus moves around the painting. On the left we have Dan Brown talking with two fellow guests. The voiceover asks, “Has the Church been lying for 2000 years?”. The camera moves to a lip sticked woman, sitting in the place of the ‘beloved disciple’. “Is this Mary? Did she bear Mary’s child?” On the right 0f Jesus we have Templar knights. “Has someone guarded this secret for centuries?” The view switches to Jesus, who is reading his own copy of The Da Vinci Code. “Is this all news to Jesus?” “Hmm?”, says Jesus. The tagline, “FIND THE TRUTH”, is connected with a web site, www.challengingdavinci.com.

I’ve written the story up at Duncan’s TV Ad Land, including links to downloads for the cinema ad.

Sir Leigh Teabing is one of the key characters in The Da Vinci Code, the novel by Dan Brown recently interpreted as a movie.

In the book, Sir Leigh is a historian, an English knight, suffering from the effects of polio. In the book he’s described as follows:

“Portly and ruby-faced, Sir Leigh Teabing had bushy red hair and jovial hazel eyes that seemed to twinkle as he spoke. Despite the aluminium braces on his legs, he carried himself with a resilient, vertical dignity that seemed more a by-product of noble ancestry than any kind of conscious effort.”

In the movie Sir Leigh Teabing is played by Ian McKellen, who couldn’t be described as portly.

Leigh is an obvious reference to author Richard Leigh. Teabing is an anagram of Baigent, the last name of Leigh’s co-author Michael Baigent.

Leigh and Baigent, together with Henry Lincoln, wrote “Holy Blood and Holy Grail”, a book speculating on theories associated with the Priory of Sion hoax. In the television documentaries preceding the book, and in the book itself, the three authors speculated that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had one or more children. They proposed that the children of Jesus and Mary Magdalene settled in northern France and established what came to be known as the Merovingian Dynasty. The Priory of Sion supposedly was established to protect the secret of their existence.

Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln founded much of their work on the proposal put forward by Pierre Plantard. Plantard developed a conspiracy theory around the revelation in the 1950s that the town of Rennes-le-Chateau had been bankrolled by a mysterious priest called Bérenger Saunière.

The obvious references to the names and work of Leigh and Baigent in The Da Vinci Code are what led to the recent court case between them and author Dan Brown.

Chateau Vilette is used in Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, as the setting for Langdon and Neveu’s first meeting together with Sir Leigh Teabing.

Chapter 52 begins:
“The sprawling 185-acre estate of Chateau Vilette was located twenty-five minutes northwest of Paris in the environs of Versailles. Designed by Francois Mansart in 1668 for the Count of Aufflay, it was one of Paris’s most significant historical chateaux. Complete with two rectangular lakes and gardens designed by Le Notre, Chateau Vilette was more of a modest castle than a mansion. The estate had fondly become known as la Petite Versailles.”

The Da Vinci Code movie was shot on location at Chateau Vilette. It is owned by an American real estate broker and is hired out through French tourism agents such as Au Chateau and A Taste of France. The seventeen deluxe bedrooms were remodeled recently. As you can expect with 185 acres, there is plenty of room for guests to jog, ride bicycles, hunt, play tennis or relax in or around the swimming pool. The chateau is flanked by a chapel with adjoining reception room, as well as horse stables and a greenhouse.

The chateau has been the setting for fashion shoots and the Jaguar ‘Gorgeous’ automobile commercial. See my post at Duncan’s TV on the Jaguar Gorgeous ad.