Although
a sequel to The Da Vinci
Code (2006) and also directed by Ron Howard and written in part by Dan
Brown, Angels & Demons
(2009) stands on its own as a narrative and thus as a film in its own right.
Although the relationship between science and religion undergirds the film’s
dramatic tension, the more fundamental leitmotif running throughout the film is
the sheer ambiguity involved in whether a given character is more like an angel
or a demon. An implication is that we mere mortals should not presume to judge
the religiosity of other mortals; that’s God’s job, for we so lack the divine
attributes of omniscience and omnipotence.
The
film’s plot centers on the protagonist, Robert Langdon, a professor of
religious studies at Harvard. Although an avowed academic atheist, he
immediately heeds the plea of the Vatican police to come to Rome to help the Church.[1] A hired assassin seemingly
of the Illuminati, a secret brotherhood that historically consisted of Catholic
scientists including Galileo, has kidnapped four Cardinals, known as the preferati,
for they are the favorites to be elected the next pope during the conclave soon
to be underway. The kidnapping is only outdone in significance by assassin’s
theft of a case of highly explosive anti-matter, which is somewhere in the
Vatican and set to touch matter and therefore violently explode at midnight;
the Vatican would be consumed in light. The irony of such evil as light is also
in the film, The
Ninth Gate (1999), in which bright light accompanies the presence of
Satan as Dean Corso approaches the castle in which the demonic being is waiting,
for Corso has figuratively and literally unlocked to door to being able to see
Satan as it is, whereas Boris Balkan, an evil man, has ironically failed. Such
irony and its associated ambiguity also apply to some of the principal
characters in Angels & Demons, for it is not so easy for mortal
viewers of the film to assess how angelic or demonic those characters actually are
in the film.
To
begin with a rather minor example, Vittoria Vetra, a physicist who is
instrumental in the successful “creation” of a small but significant amount of
anti-matter made in the CERN lab in Europe, is also seeking to discover the “God”
particle, which gives mass its mass. The film was obvious made prior to the actual
scientific discovery of the Higgs particle. In the film, the Caerlengo, the
priest Patrick McKenna, scoffs at the scientific pursuit of something called
the God particle—how audacious of humans to discover God in physics! Of course,
the nomenclature itself is erroneous, for a particle that makes a bit of energy
have mass can hardly be said to be God. A photon might as well be called the
God particle, given that Jesus Christ is said to be the Light of the World (Phos
tou kósmou) in the Gospel of John. Vittoria does not do herself any favors
with respect to the Vatican when she rips off a page in a small booklet written
by Galileo when she and Langdon are examining the page in the Vatican archives.
Just as her scientific efforts to “create” anti-matter cannot be said to be “creation”
and thus usurpation of God’s prerogative as the Creator, for the anti-matter is
made rather than created in a religious sense, she rips the page from
the pamphlet so she and Langdon can hurry to stop the assassin from killing the
next Cardinal, for the page contains vital clues as to the location. As in all
of the Dan Brown films, a veritable “treasure hunt” based on clues is in Angels
& Demons. Vittoria is no demon, even though she has seriously breached
Vatican rules in ripping out a page in a rare book.[2] In fact, she steadfastly
stays with Langdon as both of them rush from church to church to stop the assassin
from killing the kidnapped Cardinals ostensibly in retaliation for the Catholic
Church having literally branded four Catholic scientists with hot-iron crosses and
killing them for having violated religion by their scientific pursuits in the
seventeenth century.
Another
irony involving the Vatican archives is that Langdon has tried six times to get
the Vatican’s permission for access so he could finish his book on the historical
Illuminati by examining Galileo’s third pamphlet—the very one that he and
Vittoria examine to find clues as to the probably locations of the upcoming murders.
In his office, Commander Richter, whom Inspector Olivetti describes as “a deeply
spiritual man,” rubs the six rejections in Langdon’s face as the professor, who
is there to help the Vatican, requests permission this time not for his
private benefit, but, rather, in order to find clues by which he can anticipate
and thwart the murders of the four kidnapped Cardinals. Richter knows that
Langdon, an atheist, is trying to help the Church, but rather than having compassion
for his “enemy,” he makes fun of him! How “deeply spiritual,” not to mention Christian,
is that? Later, speaking to Langdon, Richter brags that his Church helps the sick
and hungry. “What does your Church do? Oh, that’s right. You don’t
have one.” Ouch! That Langdon is there to help in spite of no being
formally or officially Christian even amidst such vitriol renders him an anonymous
Christian, whereas Richter’s conduct befits the Antagonist rather than the Paraclete.
Camerlengo
McKenna is an immeasurably more interesting character than Richter. Officially
the antagonist of the film, McKenna is behind the plot to kidnap the Cardinals and
steal the anti-matter to make it seem like the Illuminati scientists are
attacking religion. The payment to the assassin from the Isle of Man is an
early, subtle clue that the Irish priest is behind it all. McKenna has poisoned
the pope because the latter was reaching out to science to reconcile it to the Church,
whereas McKenna saw science as needing to be held back—held in check—by the
Church. McKenna makes it seem to everyone that he has literally saved the night
for the Vatican by flying the ani-matter canister upward in a helicopter and
then parachuting down to hopefully be unanimously pronounced the next pope by
the Cardinals meeting in the Conclave. Richter has secretly had his altercation
with McKenna recorded—with the latter admitting his central role in the
criminal plot and then setting Richter up to be shot by Inspector Olivetti—and Langdon
is able to find the video and share it with Cardinal Strauss, who is running
the Conclave. Called to the Conclave thinking that he would be celebrated and asked
to be the next pope. McKenna is instead greeted by the Cardinals as if he were
an alien from another planet. True to Jesus’s teachings, they do not disparage
or attack the new-found enemy from within, and Strauss even tells the Vatican
police to be gentle in pursuing the fleeing McKenna before he burns himself up
at Peter’s tomb.
As
sordid, even evil as the demonic priest, the Camerlengo, is, a bit of the
angelic is also revealed in the man as he questions Langdon before giving him
permission to access the Vatican archives. “Christianity’s most sacred codices
are in that archive.,” the priest tells the professor. “Given your recent entanglement
with the Church, there is a question I’d like to ask you first, here, in the
office of His Holiness.” He walks slowly but with determination to Langdon. “Do
you believe in God, sir?” Langdon replies, “Father, I simply believe that
religion—” The priest who is also behind the murderous plot counters, “I did not
ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believe in God.” The
priest’s tone of voice conveys a sincerity and the high value he puts on the
living God as transcending what people have said and written about the deity. McKenna’s
distinction is valid, given Augustine’s likening of revelation coming to us as though
through a smoky, stain-glass rather than lucid, transparent window. Even in
terms of receiving divine revelation from the Source, it behooves us mere
mortals to have some humility, rather than to presume to have knowledge rather
than belief. That we are weak as judges of the souls of other mortals should
go without saying, but the film makes precisely this point anyway.
Even though McKenna is severely flawed in terms of his character and values and has clearly committed a mortal sin (that of murder), a respect for holiness that transcends us and our realm is also evident in the man; he is not abjectly evil, in spite of the horrendous nature of his crimes. McKenna’s piety is also palpable when Langdon returns to request access again to the archives. Langdon is wearing a lent black suit of a priest because the professor’s original short was bloodied when he and Vittoria were desperately trying to save the life of one of the Cardinals in Vatican Square. McKenna asks, “Professor, would it surprise you that those clothes suite you?” Langdon answers honestly, given his atheism, while almost laughing at the thought of him as a Roman Catholic priest. “It would surprise the hell out of me,” he replies with a smile. The priest’s insight into the professor’s obvious benevolentia and related compassion in endeavoring unrelentingly to help the Vatican and its four kidnapped Cardinals is shared by Cardinal Strauss in the last scene of the film in which the Cardinal, Langdon, and Vittoria are watching the newly elected pope, the Cardinal whom Langdon has physically rescued underwater in a public fountain. That pope has selected the name Luke—the first pope to be so named—to symbolize the compatibility of science and religion. “The world needs both,” Strauss explains to Langdon and Vittoria, two intellectuals. McKenna has not succeeded in placing the Church as a skeptical check on the progress of science; ethical injunctions without express divine command are firmly in the ethical domain anyway, and the Church has more than enough on its plate theologically. Wisely, Strauss shifts the conversation from science to the theological matter of whether God has sent Langdon to help the Church. Putting a hand on one of Langdon’s shoulders, the Cardinal says, “Thanks be to God for sending someone to protect his Church.” Langdon demurs. “I don’t believe he sent me, Father.” Not missing a beat, Strauss says with a smile, “Oh, my son, of course he did.” At that point, the new pope, now fully vested in liturgical garb, nods favorably to Langdon. Were the moment of being dressed to be presented to the world as the next successor of Peter not so august and hopefully even humbling, the new pope would doubtless be effusive rather than so reserved in thanking the atheist who had immediately jumped into the fountain to save that Cardinal’s life even though none of the other bystanders did so until it was almost too late.
The
deluded paid-assassin and Commander Richter are portrayed in considerably less
ambiguous terms than Langdon and even McKenna, yet even they are shown to evince
some piety. Richter values the compassion expressed institutionally by his Church
to the poor and sick, although such compassion is less important than that
which is directed to a person’s detractors and enemies given the selflessness
in such compassion. As for the utterly uncompassionate, callous, and even cruel
assassin, at least he is aware that God will not be happy with what he is about
to do—namely, brand and kill the four Cardinals. Even though McKenna is behind
the squalid plot, at least the assassin does not have the hubris with which to
commit his spirit to God after having branded and murdered three men. Just
before setting himself on fire, McKenna prays to God, “Father, into thy hands I
commit my spirit.” Good luck with that. That line doubtlessly works for Jesus
in the Gospels, as his preached and demonstrated ethical compassion is rooted
in theological agape, which is selfless love.
McKenna
is not without piety, however, both in genuinely asking Langdon whether he
believes in God and in valuing the role of the Church as a check on the hubris
of Man; the priest’s delusion is in believing that his means justify this end. The
reproachment of the dead pope, whom McKenna has poisoned, with scientists does
not justify murdering that pope, and so it is fitting that the new pope selects
the name of a physician (Luke). McKenna’s foiled plot to become the next pope in
order to keep the Church as a check on, rather than an accomplice to scientific
progress as if it were inherently at odds with the dignity of humanity—as if
this were a religious rather than an ethical concept—is also unjustified both in
religious and ethical terms (which are distinct).
McKenna
is likely mistaken in assuming that God will accept his spirit, but such a
matter is not for us mere mortals to know. Even though we can have more confidence
that the assassin correctly anticipates rejection by God for what that man is
about to do, we do not know how God would treat that man’s humble acceptance of
being damned. The same attitude is expressed by one of the criminals being
crucified alongside Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. We deserve our fate, the man says
to the other guilty man being crucified, whereas Jesus has done nothing wrong. “We
are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man
has done nothing wrong.” (Luke 23:41) In the film, the assassin is in the
likeness of the penitent thief, whereas McKenna, a priest, is the main culprit behind
the murderous plot and yet presumes that God will take his spirit. Meanwhile,
Langdon is an atheist whose compassion to a religious organization is
unrelenting while Commander Richter is a “deeply spiritual man” who repeatedly
insults Langdon even when he is pleading to help. “Hey, fellas, you called me,”
Langdon says in utter astonishment at Richter’s formidable pushback. The
film, by the way, is in color rather than black and white, as is the human
condition itself.
