Mona Lisa Smiles: Copies and Originals in Vera Caspary’s Laura (1942) and Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion (2022)
This article analyzes the striking connections between Vera Caspary's 1942 noir novel Laura, printed serially in Colliers, and Rian Johnson's whodunit Glass Onion, released on Netflix in 2022. Both works present a similarly contradictory message about the dangers of mass media in the conte...
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| Publicado en: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/belphegor, |
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| Autor Principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
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Belphégor
2025
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| Sujets: | |
| Acceso en liña: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Résumé: | This article analyzes the striking connections between Vera Caspary's 1942 noir novel Laura, printed serially in Colliers, and Rian Johnson's whodunit Glass Onion, released on Netflix in 2022. Both works present a similarly contradictory message about the dangers of mass media in the context of World War Two era print culture and pandemic era Internet culture, respectively. Through a close analysis of the wealthy, duplicitous art collecting murderers and the doubled women they seek to murder, the article argues that Laura and Glass Onion simultaneously frame authenticity as superior to and inferior to inauthenticity. While at first the villains seem to represent a lack of respect for authenticity, the heroines, each a set of doubles, also represent the superiority of copies rather than originals. By the end of each, these narratives seem to undermine their initial celebration of originals and authenticity with uncertain political ramifications of the inauthentic, imitative copy’s enduring power. |
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