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The recently released Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery on Netflix, which has received plenty of love and positive reviews, has an iconic shot where Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, Mona Lisa, gets burnt to ashes.
In Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, the Mona Lisa is temporarily owned by tech billionaire Miles Bron, who is portrayed by none other than American actor Edward Norton. When the Glass Onion catches fire, his coveted possession is initially protected by a security device, but Helen makes sure that the painting gets destroyed along with his mansion.
Which brings us to a pertinent question: What is the significance of this historic painting in the film?
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers from Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
The Mona Lisa serves as a mood board for Miles Bron's life in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
In the film, billionaire Miles Bron revealed that he had made a deal to borrow the Mona Lisa from Louver while the museum was closed due to the pandemic. Throughout the film, the painting is shown as a silent jury to all the events taking place in the Glass Onion.
The Mona Lisa isn't merely a painting but a celebration of a legacy of over six centuries, with several wealthy owners. Every billionaire aspires to do just one thing. Creating history and leaving behind traces of their legacy. And owning a painting of this stature is considered a mark of greatness.
Many billionaires rely on massive amounts of intergenerational wealth and privilege and also step on the less fortunate to get to the pinnacle of success. Miles Bron was no different. He wanted his name to be immortalized by launching the dangerous "Klear", a hydrogen-based alternative fuel made by his company.
With the burning of the Mona Lisa, the dangers of alternative fuel could be revealed to the world. When the painting went up in flames, Miles' hopes of being remembered in the “same breath as the Mona Lisa”, went down with it.
In an interview with The Wrap, the director of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson, commented on the iconic shot by saying:
"That kind of gelled fairly early, the connection between the two of them and also the notion of seeing something and then squinting a little closer and seeing something different was baked into the structure of it. I had a great conversation with the Daniels [“Everything Everywhere All at Once” filmmaking duo] recently and they’re also big structural writers, and they put it in a really beautiful way, they say the meaning of the movie is contained within the movie’s structure."
He continued:
"And to me this is very much reflecting that, and everything Edward says when he’s talking about the Mona Lisa, in front of everybody, suddenly fusing that up to this character of Helen at the end. And you know, she burned the Mona Lisa but the Mona Lisa lives on in Helen"
Leonardo da Vinci's greatest creation, the Mona Lisa, is an artistic masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance. It has often been described as the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, and the most parodied work of art in the world.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is streaming on Netflix worldwide.
