Rethinking Film Adaptation Through Directors’ Discourse and Auteur Theory: Approaching Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code

Abstract

This article examines the apropos of Dan Brown’s novel - adaptation, The Da Vinci Code, to the director’s discourses around the film adaptation of a literary work. Ron Howard’s stance as an auteur is assessed to gauge him as an illustrator of American filmmaking in terms of auteur discourses and formulate that his work disavows significant portions of the Catholic conspiracies, sidestepping the subject of authenticity, which is at the forefront of contemporary literature adaptation discourses. Despite appearing to be more ‘authentic,’ the film falls short of the fidelity to source material that was an avowedly auteurist vision and is shown to have issues with authorship. This paper proposes the contemporary auteur influence, examining how the concept of directors’ discourse functions in the Hollywood film industry and the director’s stature as an auteur and the works’ creative style in literary, screen adaptation and movie translation.