Notes on “Glass Onion”
Jan. 22nd, 2023 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_los- Man, this film will make you cringe about rich people.
- It’s fun, but the complaints annoyed right wing people made about the editing being kind of a cheaty reworking of the same moments are arguably fairly valid in terms of murder mystery logic. For one thing, ”Glass Onion” asks you to sign on for developments that a reasonable audience member could not at all extrapolate in terms of the switch. That’s a choice, and it’s not really Golden Age rules. Then, on top of that, the editing ‘lies’ at a couple points:
1. Why would they have the dialogue exchange about the suitcases and then whisper the next bit of the conversation? I believe no one was close enough to hear them at that point? Arguably they could have been doing it to establish for the others’ benefit that Blanc and Andy have spoken so that it doesn’t look weird if they do so again later, but that feels unnecessary.
2. In the shot sequence with the gun, Helen falling and the time lag, I don’t think inserting a secret 30 seconds in the middle of a contiguous scene is the same narrative technique as “Handmaiden” anymore. Did they cut away and I’m not remembering it? I’m pretty sure they did not meaningfully do so.
The reveal that the murderer has been an idiot all along, in contrast, was absolutely above board, because we had all the information Benoit did and picked up on it or failed to.
- Someone tried to suggest to me this was a budget constraint issue, but I don’t think so. For me, this was a writing or directorial craft level problem that could be amended, and a slightly more serious conceptual problem re: the mystery, hidden information and what I think of as Moffat Plotting (i.e. poorly handled concealed information that emotionally alienates the audience by diminishing their agency as readers of a text and estranges causal relationships in a story world, exacerbating the emotional evacuation effect). Like I don’t REALLY mind if that’s what this story wants to be, but it’s a couple of choices I don’t love.
- In case you missed it, there was a weird culture war mini spat over a Republican saying that the concealed information didn’t entirely work. The thing he was actually mad about was the politics of the film. Then, people who like the politics end up fighting this weird rear guard action to say, ‘NO, THE FILM EDITING IS PERFECT!’, which is an unnecessary response to a bad faith criticism of a slightly flawed but overall engaging and politically compelling piece of work.
- The Mona Lisa’s sacrifice is valuable and entirely defensible because it saves the lives of everyone Klear was going to kill.
- Btw you meet some PEOPLE at golden age mystery conferences, like, the guy who insists (and means it) that no mystery adaptation that changes a clue!plot detail is meaningfully the same story, because THAT is how Puzzle Focused he is.
- It’s fun, but the complaints annoyed right wing people made about the editing being kind of a cheaty reworking of the same moments are arguably fairly valid in terms of murder mystery logic. For one thing, ”Glass Onion” asks you to sign on for developments that a reasonable audience member could not at all extrapolate in terms of the switch. That’s a choice, and it’s not really Golden Age rules. Then, on top of that, the editing ‘lies’ at a couple points:
1. Why would they have the dialogue exchange about the suitcases and then whisper the next bit of the conversation? I believe no one was close enough to hear them at that point? Arguably they could have been doing it to establish for the others’ benefit that Blanc and Andy have spoken so that it doesn’t look weird if they do so again later, but that feels unnecessary.
2. In the shot sequence with the gun, Helen falling and the time lag, I don’t think inserting a secret 30 seconds in the middle of a contiguous scene is the same narrative technique as “Handmaiden” anymore. Did they cut away and I’m not remembering it? I’m pretty sure they did not meaningfully do so.
The reveal that the murderer has been an idiot all along, in contrast, was absolutely above board, because we had all the information Benoit did and picked up on it or failed to.
- Someone tried to suggest to me this was a budget constraint issue, but I don’t think so. For me, this was a writing or directorial craft level problem that could be amended, and a slightly more serious conceptual problem re: the mystery, hidden information and what I think of as Moffat Plotting (i.e. poorly handled concealed information that emotionally alienates the audience by diminishing their agency as readers of a text and estranges causal relationships in a story world, exacerbating the emotional evacuation effect). Like I don’t REALLY mind if that’s what this story wants to be, but it’s a couple of choices I don’t love.
- In case you missed it, there was a weird culture war mini spat over a Republican saying that the concealed information didn’t entirely work. The thing he was actually mad about was the politics of the film. Then, people who like the politics end up fighting this weird rear guard action to say, ‘NO, THE FILM EDITING IS PERFECT!’, which is an unnecessary response to a bad faith criticism of a slightly flawed but overall engaging and politically compelling piece of work.
- The Mona Lisa’s sacrifice is valuable and entirely defensible because it saves the lives of everyone Klear was going to kill.
- Btw you meet some PEOPLE at golden age mystery conferences, like, the guy who insists (and means it) that no mystery adaptation that changes a clue!plot detail is meaningfully the same story, because THAT is how Puzzle Focused he is.
