Professor Robert Langdon, the fictional character created by author Dan Brown and played by Tom Hanks in the movie versions of Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code and the just-released Inferno, is a Harvard University professor of religious iconology and symbology (a made-up discipline related to the study of historic symbols). Based on the mythologist Joseph Campbell, Brown has said Langdon — the world’s foremost expert on deciphering cryptic symbols embedded in great works of art — represents the “man he wishes he could be.”
On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to be Ove, the recently unemployed curmudgeon who is the focal point of the other movie opening this week, the Swedish dramedy A Man Called Ove. Widowed and cut loose from the railroad where he worked for 43 years, he spends his days hissing at cats and cataloging his neighbors’ indiscretions. But then one day ….
In this Friday’s Style section in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Pier Marchant deconstructs the former while Philip Martin takes on the latter. We’ve also got Piers on his encounters with the stars and Karen Martin on the latest in home movies.