Glass Onion: The Meaning of The Mona Lisa Painting In The Final Scene (This Is How It Connects With Helen)
Daniel Craig returns as Detective Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery to solve a murder case during a private party on the island paradise of billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton). In the film, in addition to the fact that the characters are based on real-life people, each member of the colorful group of friends is considered a suspect. Within the film’s story, the Mona Lisa painting plays a big role in the case. This painting appears in Miles’s mansion after the millionaire took advantage of the pandemic to rent it to the Louvre Museum. But the famous portrait also known as La Gioconda and which was painted in the 16th century by Leonardo da Vinci, in Glass Onion serves to represent the fate of two of its main characters.
Glass Onion: The Meaning of The Mona Lisa In The Final Scene
Since Miles receives his guests at his house, he boasts that he not only invented a new form of fuel called Klear but that he wants to be remembered for eternity for his creation, just as they talk about the Mona Lisa. Then he shows his guests and detective Benoit Blanc that he has Da Vinici’s original painting in his house and that he can circumvent the protection system to appreciate it without any kind of filter. At the end of the film, Helen Brand (Janelle Monáe), who posed as her twin sister to avenge her death, gets Blanc to expose Miles as the murderer and also uses the Klear to set the Mona Lisa on fire.
In an interview for Netflix’s Tudum on December 27, 2022, director Rian Johnson explained why he used the Mona Lisa and not any other portrait or historical object.
“She’s a sacred cow, but she’s almost more famous for being famous. It’s so ridiculous that the audience will ‘jump in’ and get the joke. Unlike burning the Bible, for example, or a flag, something that could be offensive. There’s something about the Mona Lisa that’s in the popular consciousness where it still has all the weight to make you think, ‘Hell, that’s the Mona Lisa!’”.
In the final scene after the painting burns in slow motion, Helen Brand’s face is zoomed in and set to the song ‘Mona Lisa’ by Nat King Cole, she seems to smile in the same way as the famous portrait.
The director told Tudum that this parallelism is intentional, just as the painting has for years been praised for using a technique in which it depends on the viewer to appreciate whether or not they are smiling.
“I knew the end had to be her (Helen’s) victory. But she wanted an element of ambiguity. She wanted the same kind of ‘Is he smiling? It is not?’ time for the end. Everything Miles said while talking to everyone about the Mona Lisa smile applies to this person we’ve spent the whole movie with”.
Thus, the director abounded for The Wrap on December 27, that while Miles wanted to be remembered as the Mona Lisa, being the culprit of burning her got his wish, although it is not the glory he was looking for. He also said that the painting connects to Helen because the twin sister represents everything Edward Norton’s character mentions when talking about the Mona Lisa, plus by burning it the Mona Lisa now lives in Helen.
Glass Onion: How Much Is The Mona Lisa Worth?
In the film, the director wanted to make the production and cast feel as if it were the real Mona Lisa and only had one painting for the entire filming, so they could only do the final shot once. The director told Tudum that the scene where the famous painting is burned was the last shot of the entire film, which puts the value of this reproduction of the portrait on film somewhat close to the unrivaled value of the original.
In reality, the Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo da Vinci is declared by UNESCO as part of the intangible material value of humanity and does not have an official price as it is not for sale. But according to the French businessman, in words for ABC in May 2020, the work could be valued at more than 50,000 million euros, in addition to other estimates that put it at more than 713 billion dollars.
