Glass Onion's One True Disruptor
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- As it turns out, nobody wants you to break the system itself. But that's what true disruption is.
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Neelesh Rathi, "Glass Onion: A Materialist Mystery": / glass-onion-a-historic...
#glassonion #knivesout #videoessay
Timestamps:
0:00 Helen is Glass Onion's one true disruptor...
6:26 ...but so what?
7:11 Re-evaluating disruption theory
12:30 Unpacking Helen's disruption
14:39 Reading the ending
17:09 TabForACause and conclusion
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (titled onscreen as simply Glass Onion) is a 2022 American mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson and produced by Johnson and Ram Bergman. It is the sequel to the 2019 film Knives Out, with Daniel Craig reprising his role as master detective Benoit Blanc as he takes on a new case revolving around a tech billionaire and his old friends. The ensemble cast includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista. In Glass Onion, tech billionaire Miles Bron invites his friends for a getaway on his private Greek island. When someone turns up dead, Detective Benoit Blanc is put on the case. 
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Yo can you do a video on the critical drinker’s review of glass onion. It was stupidity at best
How does tabforacause compare to ecosia? A chrome web extension I've been using for a few years now, wonder if one is better than the other if you can't use both at the same time?
@@reedsylvier5250 You can use both - all TabForACause alters is the new tab screen. As far as I know, if Ecosia is your default search engine, every time you *open a tab*, you're generating TabForACause revenue, and every time you *search*, you generate some for Ecosia
I wish TabForaCause worked on Firefox :(
Glass onion having a a teacher who works through a pandemic run circles around a group of rich jackasses who call themselves geniuses is the most satisfying story of the decade
Yes, yes it was. Don't mess with teachers.
I hope one day teachers get paid what they deserve. What a great way to show their potential
That is such a great observation and I love it.
@@nailinthefashion so you are for pay cut for teachers?
@@horseman3222 I am for pay raises for anyone who makes 60k or less across the board regardless of profession, actually, but also specifically for teachers
Helen is great. A teacher dealing with a bunch of overgrown children and punishing their ringleader felt so satisfying to me. Janelle ATE
I loved her in Antebellum too!!!
@@LilyPeregrine what an underrated movie. It was so much more than just slavery content but media literacy is dying so people reduced it to the most cliche parts
My one main problem with this film is honestly that her existence was a bit of an ex machina in how she wasn’t very well set up and it is a bit weird that no one knew about her
@@m4z3n90 I do not agree at all. Any setup of Helen herself would ruin the twist and in my mind, Andi being secretive about her former life in Alabama, and not telling or reinforcing the knowledge of Helen's existence to most of the Disruptors is perfectly in line with Andi's character and demeanor and the information we know about her.
@@m4z3n90 the setup for the imposter element was the game of Among Us btw. Or did you really think the point of Among Us being included in this film was just for the cameos? Food for thought.
The ties to Greek mythology are too good. Andi’s full name is Cassandra, after the prophetess cursed to never be believed. And Helen, of course, for Helen of Sparta, who brought the whole city of Troy - ie Miles and Alpha - to destruction. Her identity itself is the Trojan Horse, she’s posing as Andi but is really Helen.
omg mind blown
Pillar of Garbage actually wrote a small essay about this on his patreon
Great link!
The face that launched a thousand ships. The common knowledge is that Helen of Troy started a war because of who she loved. Helen in the movie has her twin sister's face and the cops showed up in boats at the end because of her actions, which she did out of love. I adore the symbolism of this movie.
There's a double meaning to Helen's name too. The mythical Cassandra had a twin herself, Helenus. Helenus was a seer and warrior - one who was believed. Like the mythical counterpart, she is the one who will go on to be believed, after her sister never got the same. And of course, a warrior - one who literally fights the system.
Such a good analysis again. I love how the movie shows that rich guys love talking about breaking the system, but when actual breaking happens, they panic. Portraying upholding status quo as anti-establishment is one of the greatest trick of elites.
Agreed Like with both the BLM and Capitol Riots. Just folks in power getting scared by those they rule over. Pretty metal.
So basically more woke BS? Literally nothing original 😂
@@rozodezo2000 what would be original to you?
Nothing to do with the topic of the video, but I love that elementary school teacher Helen calls on the shitheads to speak up by asking them to raise their hands.
Holy crap... I never even noticed that...
Omg hahahaahahahahahaha so good
omg that’s true i love that
I was wondering why she wanted them to raise their hands lol. Makes sense now
Helen and Marta being both working-class women of color who see through the smoke and mirrors of privilege and hierarchy to ultimately win out in the end speaks to a level of intersectionality in both Knives Out and Glass Onion that’s interesting to see in the context of our current popular culture. I would love to see a critical analysis of both characters and their respective arcs through the lens of feminist theory. Especially as both characters could be seen as agents of disruption when it comes to systems of oppression and power.
This comment is genius. Need someone to make this video asap.
not to mention the detective who helped them win was gay. and the best part is, not a single damn thing about these movies are feels like a forced agenda. they are legitimate characters who has personalities and arcs.
It's not just Helen and Marta, these two movies are genuinely fantastic at first tricking the audience into overlooking and writing off side characters that would often be similarly written off in real life due to their working class/marginalized status and then giving us little moments that show their inner depth/capability.
Great Nana Thromby is the obvious one since Blanc basically spells it out for us.
Fran would've basically solved the first movie, no Benoit Blanc required, if Ransom's first name hadn't happened to rhyme with "you" for the sake of murder mystery contrivance. Whiskey is inititially treated as a prop/sexual object in the first half then we get to see the actual depth of her character and the way she's deftly manuvering people/systems that exploit her for sex/status later. Duke's mom being a better puzzle/stem-bullshit solver than any of the shitheads initially feels like a throwaway gag, but is actually core to the shared themes of both movies.
Even the moment with Blanc smoking with the random stoner bro we were literally told to ignore as Helen destroys the glass onion feels oddly powerful in the context of these movies. Whereas without changing the content of the scene at all, it would probably function as a meaningless end gag at best in most movies.
Truly fantastic stuff, I can't imagine ever getting sick of movies like this.
Feminism is so sexist, a tacky cliquey over used in hollywood to the level that in the near future it will be seen as a faux pas in cinema history.
...Marta is not a woman of color. Ana de Armas is a white woman, she's just from Cuba.
I really would have liked if there had been a post credits scene where everyone turned out to have gotten COVID.
It would be funny if it only showed Benoit with Covid in his bed. And then his husband comes and says: "I told you not to go to Greece". And Blanc says: "F-ng rich people"
That would've been the cherry on top 😁
Oh my god I laughed out loud. After the little spritz and the confidence, it actually was another glass onion. So good
I bet he took the covid vaccine and turned it into a spray.
Seems like a smart idea, but is actually dumb
@@genericname2747 that would have been HILARIOUUUUSSSSSSSSSSS
The mona lisa really works on so many levels in this movie that I didn't realize until looking back on it, and none of the reasons have to do with the actual painting itself lol. Miles almost certainly only worships the painting so much because it is famous. Its gotten to the point where it's only famous for being so famous, and he wanted to emulate that ultimately meaningless fame, instead of actually appreciating it for the value of the art itself beyond some basic surface level qualities. It's the one thing that nobody wanted destroyed as pointed out in this video. And ultimately the entire reason it got so famous in the first place also had nothing to do with the artwork itself, but because it was stolen and the news story was so big that it ended up becoming a worldwide story when it was returned, which resulted in its current status. So just like Miles, the only reason it got to the point it was at, was because of circumstances that happened around it rather than because of any actual merit of its own.
And these are all reinforced by other scenes of Miles in the rest of the movie. As some have pointed out some of the other art in his house is upside down because he just cares about the notion that rich people have lots of art. He dresses up as Steve Jobs because he wants to emulate his success. And he spends the whole movie doing everything in his power to hide the fact that he had nothing to do with how he got to where he is today.
Some of the art is upside down???? How can such a masterpiece of a film keep revealing such perfect strokes .... is this what true art is... I mean, wow
@@nailinthefashion to be fair it's the abstract art that's just some colors as opposed to like a portrait, so nobody would really notice unless they actually knew the original piece, but it still plays into Miles' personality perfectly
@@BlazeMakesGames but that's the point, I'm poor and uneducated, I wouldn't know even if I wanted to, it would just be abstract art-- but he is the one buying it, living in the world of it, he SHOULD know but still either does it on purpose bc he thinks he knows better or, the more likely option, he's just really stupid.
It's such good writing like... hundreds of layers to this onion
It's certainly true that Miles only appreciates its fame, and that's why it's a great choice for the movie, but I disagree with the interpretation of the Mona Lisa itself. It's a genuinely extraordinary painting, especially if you get the chance to see it without the crowds around it. It's not the only art whose qualities have been 'discovered' after a long time (van Gogh was famously unappreciated in his lifetime; even Shakespeare's gone through periods of unpopularity) - that phenomenon is not especially rare. Plus, da Vinci's The Last Supper is just as famous without having been stolen, so it's a stretch to say that ML is only famous for having become news. Your take also implicitly accepts that Miles, who is stupid about everything, is instinctively right about the Mona Lisa - that his way of appreciating it (for its fame) is closest to the right reason. I think that runs against the argument of the film.
@@khpa3665 To be fair I didn't mean to say that the mona lisa has zero merit on its own as a painting. Obviously it's still a very good painting. But the ML went from a painting that warranted so little security that someone could just walk up and take it off the wall, to the world's most famous painting, pretty much overnight.
Like the Mona Lisa is a good painting sure, but is it the greatest painting of all time? I think that's harder to argue when actually viewing it on its own merits. Again by no means is the painting a bad work, but "Greatest of All Time" is a pretty big label to put on anything, and the ML seemingly only gained that label due to a big controversy surrounding it. It would be pretty easy to argue that people have painted more complex works or meaningful works or whatever different qualifiers you want to say are important in a painting. But it has just become ingrained in our society that the ML is just *the best* to the point where if you went up to a random person on the street and asked them what was considered the best painting in the world, they would just say the ML, even if they couldn't tell you why.
Which is in turn very much an allegory for people like Miles Bron where we often (though it seems thankfully not as much anymore these days) idolize the ultra rich has having been the most successful and intelligent people of all time. And by all means most of them had to have done something right, you don't become a multi-billionaire by accident. But this notion that they were automatically deserving of their praise as the richest people on the planet is false when in fact their fame and wealth are almost certainly due to some lucky circumstances that they were able to capitalize on.
Sure the ML got famous because it was stolen, but yes it probably only was able to maintain that fame because it was also a good painting on top of that on its own. But that doesn't change the fact that it only became the most famous painting in the world because it was stolen. Both aspects play into its fame, and the mistake is more about assuming that it only became famous because its a good painting and for no other reason.
On the subject of myth: Cassandra was a seer who foretold doom and was ignored. Helen is the reason the Trojans headed to Greece with a deceptive plot.
I’ve got a little mini-essay up on my Patreon page talking about this angle, as it happens!
@@PillarofGarbage in myth, Cassandra has a twin brother Helenus who in some telling she taught prophecy. Where Cassandra wasn't believed by the masses, Helenus's were. The story plays into the Trojan wars. Not sure if you covered that element. On my way to find out!
I never even noticed that.
Nice touch.
Thats so thought out, an while helen gets unjust blamed in th story i think, here them getting to turn on each other, is a good thing, so its a good use.
One thing I myself noted is that, while the Disruptors always boast about themselves as changers of the status quo, none of them have any end goals that need that disruption. They just wear the name around to seem cool.
Claire only wants a seat in the Senate for the power, and cares not for the virtues she extols and the things she pretends to stand for. Lionel is a genius, but is also a spineless yes man who never questions his boss' orders, and does nothing when he does have reservations. Birdie thinks of herself as someone who speaks the truth no one wants to hear, when she actually just says stupid shit she never thinks through. Miles only cares about becoming famous, and doesn't care what type of change he makes to get it.
Duke, surprisingly enough, he actually comes pretty close to being a Disruptor. He has an actual goal, to make people follow his macho man, right wing ideals, and he even tries to break through Miles' influence by blackmailing him into silence. Unfortunately he's also a spineless coward who can't live up to any of his ideals. He tries to pimp out his own girlfriend to get his way, and even blackmailing Miles meant he would have kept quiet about his murder of Andi should he have played along. He would have stopped breaking things at shifting his personal relationship with Miles, and he ends up dying for his troubles.
Helen, on the other hand, never boasts about being a Disruptor. She thinks the name is stupid and just calls the group shitheads. She doesn't care about power or influence, but she does have a goal, something that requires a change to the status quo, breaking something that no one wants to, or would ever think of breaking. Miles' reputation. Either by exposing him as her sister's killer, or by showing the world how dangerous and stupid the man is, she wanted to avenge Andi's death, and she did so by breaking something no one wanted to break. That's why she's the one true Disruptor.
Duke isn't a disruptor either. He is just parroting other people with his views and playing the role he thinks he needs to in order to fit in and recieve praise from his chosen tribe. He is, in every sense, a conformist.
i originally thought that “the disrupters” were meant to be a group of people who ended up being morally wrong in the eyes of radical leftists (a lá the definition of the word?).
Actually, Distupter is a term the left have for themselves.@@arcsballss
I remember someone describing a tech entrepreneur's concept of disruption as thus: they walk into a store and see someone working and think to themselves - what if this guy didn't have a job anymore?
I'm not adding anything to the literary analysis here, but I just want to appreciate the amount of variety that Helen puts into the smashing. Until others start joining she breaks each thing in a different way (and then once they stop starts the variety up again). Personal favourite is the one she taps the top, stands ramrod still and stares ahead as it falls and then gives a tiny little nod.
That one was my favourite too. So sassy. "Here's to you, Miles"
It’s fascinating to me that, during Helen’s rampage, the Disruptors begin breaking stuff as well, because it really does say their priorities while also revealing an ugly truth. The Disruptors are all sick of Miles by this point, only sticking by him for their own selfish reasons, yet, when they begin breaking stuff, this dislike finally becomes apparent. The Disruptors all start breaking glass statues that, while they are expensive, are things that Miles can ultimately replace. It demonstrates that the relationship between them and Miles is purely transactional. They DO believe Helen and want to defy Miles, but they don’t care enough to do anything actually destructive against him.
And Miles seems to understand this on some level, but is so secure in himself that he even breaks his own glass (which is something much cheaper than the glass statues, which says something). Up until he is confronted, he seems to genuinely want people to be his friends, and even comments to Blanc that he wants honest people around him, not the fakes that just want his money. Yet, he knows all of his “friends” are only with him for his money, and knows that they are powerless to defy him. So he treats it like a game… anyone interpreting Miles as a sad, lonely man isolated by his money are brought back by the reality that he uses his money to manipulate people because his accumulation of his wealth was ALWAYS exploitative.
Not sure how people could read the movie as having a “not all billionaires” philosophy when Helen basically called her sister a rich bitch and shithead in the same scene she was looking for justice/revenge. I’d imagine that’s partly why Monae and Johnson decided to have her do two different accents, to differentiate between the working class hero and rich bitch shithead. And if Andi, who was clearly the most “heroic” of the group, was a shithead, what does that make the others? What does that make Miles?
Remember, there's no good billionaires. Billionaires cannot get a billion dollars through ethical means
I’m not sure if you have ever had a sibling but you can have a complicated relationship with your sibling
@@83croissant That was not the point of the comment.
@@genericname2747 genuine question, how about millionaires?, like if your content or merch gets viral, and you happen to make a lot of money from streams, concerts, merch, is that ethical?
@@ar-yj8lb Yeah, that's ethical. Normal people can become millionaires through luck, or really hard work
You forgot there were actually 5 people who untied the Gordian Knot:
Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, Buford, and Baljeet
They tied it, but it was ultimately eaten by Candace before they untied it. Great reference though!
@@burningcole2538 Thanks for filling in my knowledge where it obviously slipped and finishing the reference. Now we get hype for the next 40 episodes
love how they really wanted to make a movie saying "i know i said i hate billionaires in general before but i also want to emphasise that i hate Elon Musk specifically"
I also like this little note: Cassandra rejected Miles's power when she refused to allow his stupid hydrogen fuel. Though she was killed, Miles still loses to Andi in the form of Helen literally and metaphorically drinking deeply from Andi's cup: she rejects his power and goes the full mile to destroy his plan.
I feel like it's a small thing, but notable nonetheless; you mention that the Louvre wouldn't have loaned out the Mona Lisa if they knew his house was a walking gas bomb, but that's not the entire thing. We see in the end, they had planned for that, the protective frame successfully protects the painting from the burning house around it. They trusted Miles with it, under the circumstance that their "foolproof" protection would account for the margin of error for negligence and such.
The thing is, they didn't consider anyone could be so willfully dense as to install a secret safety disengage in plain sight that could be initiated with a button press (not to mention the fact that he willingly told all his guests where said switch was and how to operate it). I think this (likely unintentionally) ties in with the secondary theming, that Andi died and Helen's evidence was destroyed because they underestimated an idiot. He wouldn't be so dumb as to make himself the most obvious suspect in a murder, he wouldn't be so dumb as to remove the safety measures of the world's most famous painting that had been loaned out to him. Stupid doesn't mean incapable of malice, be it intentionally or not.
Calling the moment the disruption shifts from merely performative to genuinely impactful the "infraction point" was such a clever malapropism that it threw me off for a while. It's precise, delicious wordplay. Because that described IS an "infraction" point, truly crossing the line for the first time to violate a cultural contract, to overthrow the sacrosanct for something new. Infractions of our unwritten codes of conduct are a path to true disruption.
Honestly I’m about to reach my limit of bullshit. I’m sick and damn tired of people and politicians in my own state telling me I can’t live my life the way I want to just because of my gender identity. I just want to go tell them all to fuck off, I want to throw things, I want to make a mess, I want to break all the silly stupid notions and ancient fucking concepts that people take as fact when it’s basic stripped down theory that doesn’t go more than skin deep. The system can’t change, because it was built to only work this way. The only way to achieve real change is to break it entirely.
Miles loves disruption until it happened to him. He likely gave the speech because he believes he’s above being touched.
I watched the movie with my twin sister. We're best friends, so every media or story that has twins being targeted hits hard, and we were cheering Helen on when she found the napkin, only to feel devastated when the napkin burned, and then deep anger when Miles started poking fun at her. We're started to say how we would trash the place if we're in Helen's shoes, so when SHE started the trashing we got LOUD
One little detail about Glass Onion is all of the greek myth it ties into it's characters and plot, specifically with the names of Helen and her twin Cassandra. The story is set on a greek island, and the names of Cassandra and Helen are both from greek origins. The Oracle who after speaking truth to the gods and was cursed to never be believed, and the woman who launched a thousand ships and is (symbolically) responsible for the trojan war, a war that ended with a massive upheaval of power and eventually the rise of the Roman empire through Aeneas. Even "Alpha", the company that Cassandra and Miles founded, is named for a greek letter.
As it happens, I’ve actually released a Patreon Endnote about precisely this alongside the video!
I also like that Alpha the company, bearing the first letter of the greek alphabet, is their beginning but there is also consistent Omega (Ω) imagery throughout, the boat cushions next to Helen where I remember it the most, the last letter showing that she will be it's end. You probably talked about it already,just found it cool
Another good one. Watching this, I suddenly realized how "infraction point" is actually a perfect phrase for what Helen does at the end. So, in context, the phrase is working on three levels at once - there's Miles' intended meaning; there's Benoit Blanc's seeing this phrase as a clue that Miles is pretty dumb; and there's the meta meaning in which the screenwriter is using the phrase to tell us something about the story's future climax. Pretty cool.
He incorrectly pointed where the inflection point is on the graph he showed, idk if that's a disrupter joke but the inflection point is at the y axis where the concavity of the function changes
There's also the detail that Glass Onion was set in May 2020 right before the Black Lives Matter protests- I think Helen's destroying of Miles' house parallels all the conversations of that time about protests versus riots and what amount of disruption is permissible.
"nothing is beyond disruption"
holy shit. it's so obvious and so simple, but that hit so hard.
PS: i, too, started watching your videos because of Glass Onion. i'm glad i did, bc they always leave me thinking and that's the best i can ask of any analysis. thank you for making them, and keep up the good work!!
You’ve made a lot of videos about Glass Onion recently but I’ve been obsessed with Glass Onion recently so I’ll keep watching all the ones you make!
People forget that the film ends the same way as Among Us, the lights go out, a “Murder” was made, the lights come back on, everyone reunites in a room and suspects the real killer. In the end, Blanc was good at whodunnit games like Among Us. Disruption.
and then helen could be considered the imposter because, well, yk
Helen shows that only individuals outside a system have the ability to break the reality of those within the system.
This is a brilliant reading, and a brilliant segway into action. Thank you for that.
I find myself a little heartbroken though that the Mona Lisa was the ultimate victim (aside from Andi, obviously), in the same way that I was sad for how the love of cuisine was the victim of The Menu. Must great art be the casualty of this revolution?
When I toured La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona a few years ago, a part of the building's story involved revolutionaries breaking in and destroying Antoni Gaudi's original plans for the structure, so today, the final building has been mostly created through guesswork. It's still by far the most magnificent piece of architecture I have or likely will ever see. My top priority in Barcelona was to see Gaudi's creations, which I'd only known from art books. I simply had no idea that, since the photos were taken in a book I bought in the early 90s, they'd recommenced construction, and by 2018, it was nearly complete. And yet, the reason that the revolutionaries had destroyed Gaudi's plans were that this money to build the great cathedral, was stripped from the poor to benefit the vanity of the rich. There's no denying the justice of this position. Like every great architectural wonder, La Sagrada Familia was built on the backs of the poor, for a system that oppresses them to this day. Now, it's built on government money, mostly as a tourist attraction. But I see in this a shift, as it attracts people from all over the world not to admire catholicism's power, but as a celebration of its own beauty. I think there's something meaningful in that. It's a shame that we have been robbed of the original artist's pure vision, regardless of the justice of their reasons.
So regardless of the justice of what Helen and Benoit did, it's a shame that one of the world's greatest paintings has been sacrificed, HAD to be sacrificed, to disrupt the capitalist machine, and demand the world question the very notion of it. After all, will this stop the greedy from conning the world out of their money? America itself bombed 3000 year old landmarks in Iraq to enforce our control over the region. And we still lost that control to lunatics even more hateful than we ever were, who're destroying even more world history in their deranged zeal. Art should not be the sacrifice.
In my head canon, the Louvre only lent one of their perfect replicas to Miles, knowing he'd never know the difference. In fact, in the world of Benoit Blanc, that replica could have been commissioned in 1899 by none other than Professor James Moriarty. If you remember your Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty had the original Mona Lisa stolen, and then sold multiple copies as the original, knowing that none of the buyers could ever reveal they owned it or confirm its authenticity. When Sherlock Holmes recovered the original, Moriarty's copies were useless. But Holmes could have gotten hold of them and given them to the Louvre for just such a situation. So I like to think that this was one of those. After all, the French are less trusting of capitalism than America is anyway. Though only mildly so.
Great comment, thanks for sharing :)
*I am loving your series on Glass Onion!!!* Helen's disruption was definitely a great thing. She also brings new meaning to the term *"taking them down from within."*
Knives Out is a critical thinking mystery, one which people, the audience, refuse to solve. The movie offers A solution, not THE solution.
Glass Onion is a lateral thinking mystery, a mystery that solves itself once you break it open.
Both Marta and Helen end their respective movies with a satisfied look on their face, one happy in getting away with murder, the other happy in breaking what was raised up.
In both movies, Benoit Blanc's role as detective is dubious at best, mostly because he himself likes to break things. He's observant, but not exactly on the side of law.
Put it a way, Blanc is more like Mad Max in the later sequels; he's there to support the real heroes, be it the people who guards the oil rig, Savannah Nix and her friends, or Furiousa and the wives. Same goes with Blanc, who supports Marta & Helen, and push their respective arc forward.
Marta didn't "get away with murder", she was never the murderer in the first place. She thought she was because of Ransom's attempt on his grandfather's life through her, but it didn't go the way he planned because he didn't take Marta's aptitude as a good nurse into consideration (with her automatically giving Mr. Thromby the right medicine despite the fact that the two bottles were switched). Mr. Thromby committed suicide (although he did it because he wanted to protect Marta) against Marta's wishes; she even tried to stop him multiple times.
Plus, I wouldn't say that Blanc "likes to break things" but rather he is on the side of objective truth and justice. Blanc is an incredibly good detective because, in Knives Out, he knew that Marta was involved with what happened with Mr. Thromby because of the drop of blood on her show that he saw when they first met. He kept her by his side through the investigation because he knew that there was more to the story since Marta was such a good person. If he was an average detective, just blindly following the law, then he would have just turned her in immediately which would have allowed Ransom to succeed in his plan. Similarly, Blanc helps Helen because he was hired to find out who murdered Andi, not because he wanted to take down some rich a-hole. When he solved the mystery and Miles burned the napkin, he knew that there was nothing else he could do for Helen so he gave her the Klear and gave her some advice. The rest of what happened was because of Helen's own choices. She and Blanc knew Klear was dangerous because of the conversation she overheard between Lionel and Kate, and when she knew that Miles was going to get away with Andy's murder all over again she decided to take him down by exposing his idiocy in a way that could not be covered up.
@@leahmoore3226 "Getting away with murder: Step one, set out to make a beautiful pattern."
Writing a good mystery: Start at the ending... and work backwards. Which also works the same for SOLVING them or at least the ones that play fair.
Knives Out plays fair but only if you can accept that the movie's narrative is lying to you. Marta's flashbacks back her innocence but she left in some things she felt don't incriminate her directly but also don't exactly vibe with her story.
Here's a question: Is Thrombly a good person or at the very least, a good judge of character? Marta's story has him as the victim of his own family and left all his property to Marta because she's good.
Thrombly also likes playing Go with Ransom and he's an utter bastard so is Marta telling the 100% truth or just making a beautiful pattern by not saying some things? I thought Thrombly was more a miserable old bastard, the prime example of his family, and he left his money to Marta to spite them. He wanted to see his family's reaction to it so he planned to fake his own death. He saw Marta as a playing piece, one he could easily control and she saw an opportunity.
I love how the only part of the autopsy report to survive was the part proves Marta didn't inadvertently give Thrombly the wrong shot, even while the body and everything else went up in flames. Shouldn't Marta know the difference, shouldn't the process be ingrained to her? You could think that but the movie/Marta doesn't think you need to think that.
Could a nurse cut a drugged man's throat and make it look like he cut himself? Marta doesn't want you to consider that at all.
@@tskmaster3837 Thromby wasn't portrayed as a bastard in the movie and he clearly gave his reasons as to why he didn't put his family in his will, it wasn't to spite them. He left out Linda because she was already successful on her own and her husband was a cheating bastard. He didn't leave it to Joni and her daughter because Joni was stealing money from him and he had no obligation to give it to Meg. He didn't leave it to Walt and his wife and son because he wanted Walt to make something for himself like Linda did. And he didn't leave it to Ransom because he knew Ransom was a spoiled brat who would let it go to waste. He liked Marta and she truly cared about him, plus she would have the most to gain from the money since she is from a lower class. Sure, Mr. Thromby was stubborn and didn't listen to other people's opinions when he made a decision (the movie establishes this) but that doesn't mean he is a bad person; it's just a personality trait.
On the topic of is Marta telling the whole truth, the movie literally shows us what happens when Blanc explains it at the end. Ransom learned he was left out of the will at Thromby's party, after he leaves he comes back a bit later and sneaks upstairs to switch the medication bottles, he leaves, Marta automatically gives Thromby the right medication that night but since the bottle said Morphine she thought she messed up the medication and tries to call an ambulance, Thromby stops her and tells her how she can avoid being blamed for his death (since it is clearly an accident on her part) and slits his throat to make it look like a suicide, during the funeral Ransom comes back to switch the medication back to the original bottles and Fran sees him, the death is ruled a suicide so Ransom hires Blanc to reopen the investigation, during the investigation Ransom forces Marta to tell him what happened (to see where his plan went wrong) and he receives the blackmail letter from Fran which he later sends to Marta, he burns down the Forensics office to get rid of (what he thinks is) the only copy of the toxicology report that would prove Marta's innocence and kills Fran using Marta's medical bag & Morphine, Marta tries to save Fran (while still thinking she is the one who killed Thromby) and goes to tell the family "the truth", Blanc reads the copied report that Fran hid in her stash and stops Marta before she can confess to her "crime", and then tells everyone all the details of the case during which Ransom is tricked into admitting what he did and he tries to kill Marta. The movie ends with Ransom getting arrested for attempted murder for both Thromby and Marta, arson, and the murder of Fran.
I don't know how out of all of that you created this narrative where the whole movie is a lie and it is Marta somehow tricking everyone (despite the fact that she didn't have anything to gain by killing Thromby because she didn't even know she was in the will until after he was dead). I just think it is interesting that despite all your talk about writing/solving mysteries, you suspect the one person with zero motive to commit murder.
@@tskmaster3837 What are you even talking about?..
Kinda got pissed at the critical drinker's review of this movie. Just seems like criticism and contrarian for purely the sake of being critical and contrarian without offering anything constructive.
Loved this however!
I'm fighting the urge to watch TCD's video myself, I've heard truly bad things about it haha
@@PillarofGarbage Used to like Critical Drinker, left ironically because his content was getting too political. Haven't actually watched any of his recent movie reviews but judging from the stuff he's calling stupid I think he is just being contrarian for the sake of it.
Why are you even watching someone whose personality is getting drunk, in 2023?
@@romxxii I like getting multiple inputs from different creators, he was the only one who had anything negative to say about this movie.
@@PillarofGarbage The thing that pissed me off the most is him saying "Blanc just got hot sauce out of nowhere" tipped me off that he barely paid any attention to the movie.
I wonder if there's a double meaning to the tags on the boxes too: "love Miles" as in, "from Miles" but also "please love me, I need to be loved, I need you to think I'm amazing" in some "please clap" kinda way.
I think Miles’ use of the word infraction is kind of genius. It implies that billionaires know they are often breaking the law to attain their wealth
Can't wait for your analysis of the Benoit Blanc Muppet movie sequel
Helen Brand probably would get great along with Karis Nemik from the Andor series, both saw the weakness in the system and worked on disrupt the oppressive system.
my 2 goats
she is the very embodiment of what he sought to do. rip Nemik your rebellion is carried forth.
I wonder if Andi herself would have been willing to work through the puzzles. The rest of the gang may be shitheads, but that doesn't mean she was squeaky clean herself.
Andi didn't go to the getaways that Miles held every year. The others noted when they saw Helen posing as Andi that she's been invited every year, but she never went. Plus, she was the one who stood up and walked away when she found out about Miles's biofuel. So I think it's safe to infer that she didn't play the game.
@@evilcatgaming9056 she was a more ethical and capable person, but at the end of the day she was a capitalist.
I think she was part of the group. These were her friends. Yes, she seems to be smarter, but she still felt comfortable spending free time with them for a long period of time.
So, yes, I think she would've done the puzzles.
But probably because it was something she found joy in, not because she wanted to look smart like the others. Feel like she would be the type of person to enjoy a puzzle-box like that for its own sake
@@foureyesisafish7968 yeah, maybe so 😅
But to be fair, I think the others liked the puzzle box too, it was their fun together, so it seemed to me 😅
That's one thing I liked about this movie, now to think about it... they are all likeable in certain light. Terrible people more or less 😅 But I can definitely imagine them being a group of friends in a bar 😆
Im glad you said this because the whole movie whenever disruptors got brought up this was what came to mind! The film already told me who thinks outside the box!
I think if Rian Johnson _really_ wants to break new ground in the third film he’ll have Blanc solve a mystery amoung the very poor and disenfranchised.
Or the Muppets
@@justaghostinthesea Or poor disenfranchised muppets
@@magicrainbowkitties1023 So the Muppets
@@justaghostinthesea *The* Muppets are whole celebrities at this point. What about muppets who DIDN'T get a giant theater and a tv show to launch their careers? What about them?
@@magicrainbowkitties1023 I was making a joke
Edit: Wait, you're making a joke aren't you?
I think you could also interpret the ending on a meta level. The revelation of this movie is that Miles is just dumb. That behind all of the onion layers of sophistication and wealth he's just a transparent idiot. And behind all of the flourishes of the movie, the ending isn't some clever plot to beat Miles. The solution is honestly just plain dumb, just a woman destroying stuff.
Fun Fact: The book where Andi inserted her original napkin is an actual book entitled The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms To Fail by Clayton Christensen. Based on what I’ve skimmed in Wikipedia, it discussed about disruptive innovation or in Miles’s words, “Disruption theory”.
Talk about foreshadowing.
This movies ending reminds me of this speech.
There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part-You can't even passively take part; And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus -- and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it -- that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all.
- Mario Savo.
I didnt particularly enjoy mile's dialog until you showed the direct correlation to the ending. Now i think it was a great foreshadowing
I just finished watching all of your Glass Onion videos and they are fantastic! I'm so enthralled with this movie, what it has to say, and how it's structured and I love hearing your interpretations
Thank you :)
I think there is a line between innovation and stupidity. We see the latter with Miles, who is determined to sell an actual flammable substance as the new energy source because it'd be innovative and ignores the potential consequences because, in his mind, that's what a disruptor does: they take risks and make big changes when everyone says not to.
Revealing a new renewable energy source WOULD be disruption, it would fundamentally change the world and receive a lot of pushback from people and companies wanting to mantain the status quo...but it doesn't work. But Miles doesn't care because he's too in love with this superficial idea of "disruption", when not all big changes are inherently good.
Thank you for this, glass onion was so encouraging to me and you've articulated beautifully why
Progress can't happen without destruction. You have to rip apart the old to make way for the new. We must continue to progress however the status quo and those who up hold it take up the illusion of progress and wield it as a weapon against real change. Glass Onion demonstrates that perfectly
One of the things I want to add was that the moving burnt a copy of the mona lisa - The Real painting is done on a panel of Popular, so there's an implication (like the upside down Rothko) that the Louvre realized they could pass off a canvas copy to Miles (and they did)
But if it’s not the actual Mona Lisa that undermines the whole conclusion of the film . No, I think that was the actual Mona Lisa and they just didn’t do the art history research as well as everything else
@@83croissant Or maybe they did do their homework, but they knew most of the audience wouldn't notice, and they thought canvas looked cooler when burning.
@@83croissant It was initially meant to be fake, but they removed the scene revealing this from the story because they thought people would care more if it was "the real Mona Lisa" in the context of the film.
Great video!! And way to catch that parallel of destruction and Mile’s monologue of disruption. Makes me appreciate this movie more
Great analysis again, really enjoying the videos lately
"Hellenisation"
Heh
lmao I didn’t even notice that hahah
@@PillarofGarbage thanks for the reply! Been loving these videos. I hope you'll do one on the mythological significance of Cassandra's name.
Must this blessing shield you from the wrath of the Holy Ones & Zeros.
Helens sandals make me think of a Greek soldier
Dam you're one of the only people I've seen advertising tabs for a cause, besides the one other channel I first learned about it from haha. Good on ya!
Loved the movie, but loved even more this take on it!
@Pillar of Garbage, WELL DONE!!!
They probably wouldn't have given it to him if they knew he had an override button for the safety box to be honest
Nicely done. I am appreciative that you focus on the larger lesson. The Greek concept that nothing is permanent except the concept of flux or change. Capitalism and socialism are both responses to change but have strengths and weaknesses. Capitalism seems really good at balancing complex systems when there is a relatively balanced distribution of purchasing power and no monolithic narratives to cloud enlightened self interest. Socialism seems really helpful when those in power have a focused issue that needs a short-term treatment to get over the hitches, but really really needs those in power to be right, kinda like a high stakes gambler. FDR would have been a terrible president in another era and Hoover would have been a better president at another time. Just like there are wonderful directors of some films but really was not the right one for a very very specific movie...
I see that there should have been other mechanisms like the Courts or the media or the group of friends to keep Miles in balance. True disruption with destruction occurs when the is no other option to bring back balance. While people and institutions can provide balance or be near the point of balance, they never are the focus of balance. If a socialist or capitalistic institution doesn't realize that they are a temporal tool, then it's all too easy to be seen in history as a shithead.
While it can be a metaphor, the movie is entertainment. I wouldn't be so wrapped up in what other people think of it than to be a cause for self reflection on how we can be better people.
The Helen-ization of Miles Bron.
"I've just spent three weeks talking about deeper meanings (and making fun of a crappy internet Elf) in Glass Onion. Tune in next time as I talk about Knives Out!"
Gee.... Twist my arm why don't you?
i think another fun parallel to draw with Helen as the one true disruptor is with Helen of Troy. In Christopher Marlowe's "Dr Faustus", Helen of Troy is described as one with a "face that launched a thousand ships", referencing the wars fought over her beauty. Helen of Troy quite literally disrupts the peace and the system in which war was founded, as Helen does in Glass Onion. idk theres probably a lot more to go into on that but this is just food for thought
It's only short, but I did publish a Patreon endnote touching on this connection myself: www.patreon.com/posts/endnote-helen-is-76883202?Link&
If you pay attention, the Mona Lisa in Miles' house is a fake. The Louve gave him a copy of the famous painting, and knew that he'd be none the wiser.
Hey, POG. If you’re looking for another murder mystery type thing, I highly recommend checking out the Harry Hunsacker plays. While not as smart or satirical as Glass Onion, they have likable characters, hilarious humor, and incredibly clever twists. Not to mention how the “In Living Black And White” ones capture the feeling of a black and white movie very well. Give them a watch, I think you’ll like them.
Your videos are always so fire (pun not originally intended but then I realised what I did and now think I'm funny)
I'm serious though, your analysis always blows me away and reminds me why I only got a 2:2 on my English literature degree
ABSOLUTELY delightful! Of course you would use that as a jumping off point & bring us on a wonderful journey that makes us all smarter and wiser. Perfect freaking video & I'm not even done yet. Thank you, Pillar of Garbage
I read up about disruption theory after watching the glass onion, turns out it is rarely good for the disruptor, they usually crash and burn either because they break the wrong things, such as too many laws, which spirals into lawsuits etc. Or because they fail to see that their one hit wonder was just that and fail to bow out, wasting their money attempting to do it again.
As it is the amount of failed disruptors who never even manage to get riches is much more vast in quantity and quality then those who make it to the top, which are not necessarily the best or even mediocre among their peers. At the same time failed disruptors tend to end badly, bankruptcy, self harm, you name it.
All this 'drama' about "Glass Onion" on so many YT videos and shows is the BEST advertising coup for a film EVER in the history of movies. Absolutely GENIUS!
I mean its a really well written and directed movie, i dont blame creatores for wanting to discuss it
Wasn't expecting to see Marx and Engles named dropped in the video, literally thought of the quote right before it popped up in the video
I love that I watch both film youtube and leftist youtube so I thought this was just gonna be a fun movie analysis but then Marx and Engels were quoted, but it wasn't jarring. Anyway yeah I subscribed I love your style.
What a great analysis!
After my second rewatch, I started to wonder if the choice to have the movie take place on May 2020 was an intentional one or just a really odd coincidence
What happened in May 2020 to make you think that it was intentional?
It was written in 2020. That's probably the main reason.
Actually, come to think of it, Miles only has the Mona Lisa on loan because of lockdown. That's a really good reason to set it in 2020.
@@ashadder795 the end where the public school teacher destroys Miles' property and the shitheads join in only for them to backtrack once priceless memorabilia gets destroyed and fire gets involved is reminiscent of what happened in the george floyd uprisings.
whenever someone says Gordian knot I can only think of the Phineas and Ferb episode
Glass Onion's one true disruptor is *exactly* who I thought.
I am so surprised to learn that miles in real life is a descendent of Pocahontas
I think it's interesting that Helen prevents (or disrupts) Klear (a representation of Miles' so called disruption)
She disrupts the cycle of disruption.
The inflection point of an S-curve is exactly in the middle. If there's a joke I missed at 11:14, then I tip my cap.
Incredible review
Here's what I'm puzzling over. There's the whole thing about fugues at the beginning, right? And damn near every time Helen makes an entrance, the music sounds like Moonlight Sonata. What is Johnson trying to do with contrasting fugue and sonata?
LadyJenevia did a vid on that: ruclips.net/video/m0hF_7DRrgk/видео.html
@@khpa3665 oh, thanks!
Top notch vid! I was actually surprised, though, that Andi was mentioned only in passing because your analysis here puts into sharp relief the wedge between her and Helen and her and Bron. Yes, Andi probably got screwed over partly because she's a racialized woman in a competitive field and the money is ultimately Bron's, but here's what you've made me realize... The specific break-off point for Andi comes through her *not understanding the very system she's trying to thrive in*.
Andi, in the end, is as much a clout-chasing capitalist as all of the "Disruptors" - her company *is* a weird crypto-funded amalgam of odds and ends and she *is* the one who got Bron aboard to begin with; but at some point she goes "wait, if we do this reckless nonsense bull-in-a-china-shop approach, people (we care about, not these *laborers*) are gonna get killed and we're gonna get our asses kicked. And, of course, she's right but she's also *wrong* - capitalism *is* about reckless, unstable delirium and ludicrous hustle! Is *is* a mad rat race for quick profit that thrives in constant, catastrophic crisis! It's not a pyramid, it's a scheme *shaped* like one! It's an arms race among the overambitiouscon artists of the bourgeoisie! It's so resilient precisely because it's a ramshackle flurry shedding and scavenging its own skin! We sell bullshit here, ma'am!
Andi does not recognize how fundamentally fungible and meaningless she, the Shitheads and even whatever innovation she/they might bring are to the system she sold her soul to. She took that system's nature at its own word, took its veneer of stodgy stability for granted and...well, we all know how it all went down.
Those parallels with Helen and what he says are wild
I love both of these movies
There was one Disruption in Soviet Russia, (the Overthrow of the Tsar), the civilization created by the teachings of Marx and Engels, and then not so much.
If Disruption was not a force for good, that has been harnessed by Capitalism, and still is (ChatGPT, Blockchain and soon Zero-Knowledge Chains), the Soviet Union would have worked with just the force of Labor.
It didn't.
The lessons this movie gives do not work in Reality, despite their sophistication. Just like the Last Jedi.
God i love this movie franchise
This movie really is a glass onion
So many layers
Helen gave Miles his life-long wish, his name will forever be linked to the Mona Lisa. Beware what you wish for, . . . .
Damn the “one true disrupter” is exactly whom I thought
So Neo as the disruptor in the matrix is the necessary key for keeping the box intact…
Wow... now that you point that out, THAT is clever
From Peter Joseph's 2020 film Interreflections
John Taylor: Whether you believe it or not, Simon, the activists of the world
are slowly becoming more aware, more focused.
Simon Devoe: Focused on what ?
John: The system
The origin of the social psychology that keeps those feedback loops
of oppression going.
Simon: Ah, so a threat to the money god ?
The thing i like most about Helen’s disruption is that the purpose was not just to disrupt the system. She is not an ideologically driven disruptor. She did this because she couldn’t just let Miles get away with killing her sister. Not Cassandra Brand, disgraced visionary CEO, but Andi, sister of Helen, a fifth grade teacher. That’s what grabbed me during that scene, when i had a visceral reaction to the destruction of the Mona Lisa. No matter how much we value a painting, even its artistic and historic value to society, it is not more important than any given person’s life. Helen’s disruption is about seizing the closest thing she can get to justice for a single, personal, individual act of violence.
And in our current society, i think any true disruption would have to be like that. It might be about masses and masses of people, but it will be about real, tangible, living people and the quality and value of their lives, not ideals or abstract concepts. It’s all built on a foundation of abstraction at this point anyway.
Watching the first of your videos about Glass Onion, I remember thinking how logical and reasonable this is and I honestly (and perhaps naïvely) couldn't imagine how people wouldn't agree with it or get it. Then I saw comments under a different video and was forced to acknowledge just how deeply this capitalist programming has been rooted in some of our brains. It's honestly impressive how hard some of these people will defend a man who they know nothing about and who is in fact the cause for a lot of suffering and inequalities in the world.
(For instance, here's one exchange:
Shithead: "There's a profound difference between intelligence & wisdom"
Me: "After all that's happened, do you honestly and ernestly STILL believe that buying Twitter was a smart or wise choice for Elon to make? Because if your answer to that is anything but no, then you don't get to preach about intelligence and wisdom and who's an idiot. At least not without making a complete and utter fool of yourself"
Shithead: "What's an outcome that you'd like for Twitter? What's a perfect twitter for you? I don't use it, it's a dumpster fire. Elon just wants freedom of speech. I think that's a good thing. Call me crazy.//
Nice try with all the strawman arguments though. Nice try.")
As I've hopefully managed to demonstrate, the refusal to look past the mist of mysticism is really quite something.That's why we need to keep talking about this movie for at least a long time. So, I guess what I'm saying is, you're doing us a great service with these video essays!
their brains have been turned to Soup
onion soup.
It’s still so fucking funny that they think Elon cares about free speech, or any of them for that matter.
Yes! After seeing it twice, I get SO bored at the whole exposition sequence where they explain who Helen is. It's extremely boring, so thank you for sharing.
Appreciate the ad of the video but as you said in the video we’re past time for that. True change will come from a real form of disruption.
Seeing the name of this video gradually change is so funny
😔
The true disruptor was actually Agatha all along
0:18 MUSIC THEORY!??
Well, Rian Johnson managed to “break” some childhoods 😂😂😂
I think my favorite thing about the usage of the Mona Lisa in this story is how its destruction and how we as viewers feel about it can illuminate how we see “disruption” - in this way the story isn’t just so much calling out the rich people but also every one of us as well and how we might contribute to these old systems and institutions being able to keep standing, and really how society practically trains and conditions all of us to side with traditions and institutions rather than breaking the system, because after all, the Mona Lisa is precious, we believe it to be so simply because we are told it is all our lives. We are all prone to not being willing to cross the line to true disruption due to the way our capitalist society functions.
Wow what an absolutely amazing video
So the way to enjoy this film is if my hatred of the rich is greater than my need for good murder mystery. Then you can leave behind the actual mystery and just go into philosophising about how each character represents a mission to destroy the wealthy.
I mean I guess, but I think their have been better films that do a metaphorical commentary on the super rich.