This article containsDeath of a Unicorn spoilers.
We really must put more stock in art history.
This is a moral truth that should be repeated.
Yet its notonlya gag.
He also intensely examined those unicorn tapestries you see in the movie.
Aye, theyre real and currently reside in the Met Cloisters in New York City.
A24 / Met Cloisters
Ortega even previously told us they were a cheat sheet for understanding their movie.
Instead it is just dogs and kingsmen approaching a formidable wilderness.
That is something people write about with theUnicorn Tapestriesa lot: this sense of the way nature is depicted.
A24 / Met Cloisters
I think its telling that [the Lord] is not in this one, Scharfman says.
But this image had other significant influences on the film.
Its a funny thing, Scharfman chuckles, I dont know why theres this fountain in the woods.
A24 / Met Cloisters
The unicorn is not purifying a stream, its purifying water from a fountain thats pouring out.
Furthermore, this tapestry inspired even the name of the films villains.
As the director acknowledges, the name Leopold is an allusion to Leo the lion in astrology.
A24 / Met Cloisters
The Leopolds company sigil is also a lion.
In a lot of unicorn mythology, lions and unicorns were enemies, Scharfman adds.
But it is the violent carnage and death in the foreground of this tapestry that immediately catches the eye.
A24 / Met Cloisters
Its a hunting dog, so I think its self-defense.
They were not these passive creatures.
They really were not afraid to bite and kick and use their horn to gore people.
A24 / Met Cloisters
Jenna wears a red hoodie throughout the movie, which has a very unusual shape, notes Scharfman.
It had this really interesting cloak kind of shape to it.
And I started thinking its probably a Gen-Z leftist whos protesting on a campus somewhere right now.
Someone with very strong morals and ideals.
Thats because it was tremendously damaged.
This is another maiden who happens to be like a handmaiden working with the maiden who is the bait.
Its surrendering to an off-screen maiden that well never see.
It also allowed Scharfman to reconfigure the way the tapestries are meant to be interpreted.
The unicorn in captivity, that is the vision that Will Poulters character is going after, Scharfman says.
Yet there are multiple ways of reading the actual tapestry.
It seems like it could break out of this, but its not.
So there are questions about the symbolic meaning there.
Is it there by choice?
Is it there being held as captive?
But that is his vision of the future if [Shep] can possess them and contain them.
Then he will have a limitless supply of unicorns.
However, Scharfman doesnt think his films heroes are intoo muchdanger.
Still, should either Ridley or Elliot perish in the ensuing car crash, its no biggie.
Worst case scenario, they can resurrect some people.
And with any luck,Death of a Unicornmight inspire some folks to learn more about the O.G.
medieval roots of the pop culture creature.
That would be a nice kind of enchantment.
Death of a Unicorn is playing in theaters now.
