Ok, so Angelina is not sitting this Oscar season out.
The first competition film out of the gate at the 81st Venice Film Festival, Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s biopic about legendary opera singer Maria Callas, is a banger and a large part of the film team, including its lead actress, will likely be showered with accolades in the coming months. Having successfully tackled Jackie O. and Princess Di in his series of portraits about famed/trapped women, it’s a perfect three for three for Larraín.
Set during the week before Callas’ death in 1977, Maria studies the tortured life of an extraordinary artist. Born in New York of Greek descent, Callas has conquered the biggest theaters and opera houses from New York to Milan with her superhuman vocal prowess. Now in her fifties, those days of glory are behind her. When we meet her, she’s leading a secluded existence in Paris and has not performed publicly in over four years. But even when her voice is clearly failing her, Callas can’t not sing. She tries out verses for her housemaid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher) and secretly rehearses with a pianist scenes from classics that made her famous around the world. Ostensibly she’s considering making a comeback. But could there be more that explains this self-destructive, near-obsessive need to sing?
The screenplay by Steven Knight (who also wrote Spencer) is once again a blend of historical facts and leaps of fancy. A highly subjective, lyrical interpretation of the subject’s life. Callas is addicted to prescription drugs in her later years, which Knight uses as a framing device to have her interviewed by a narcotics-induced imaginary journalist (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Some might find the approach cheesy, but the sentiments revealed in these intimate conversations feel anything but false. Among other insights, you realize for someone born with such a gift, there is no life away from the stage. On stage is where their true selves are realized, it is very much a part of their being.
In between scenes of her performances, we also get flashbacks to different parts of Callas’ life. How, as a young girl, she sang to appease Nazi soldiers who meant her family harm. And how, as a married woman, she began a doomed romance with billionaire Aristotle Onassis (who later married Jackie). Through these glimpses into the trauma she carries, you get the sense that singing means more than performing for Maria Callas. It’s also her way of recalling and confronting the demons from her past. And perhaps even more importantly, it’s her way of asserting control. After having a mother who made her sing and a lover who forbade her to sing, she’s finally singing for herself.
I appreciate the free-flowing, almost musical structure of the film and was quite moved by many of the observations made about a consummate artist and about the power of music itself. In the childhood scene where Callas sings to the malevolent German soldier, you see a grown man struck speechless by a little girl’s voice. He may not even understand the (unsubtitled) French lyrics, but I do believe that in the face of such pure, awe-inspiring beauty, man’s natural instinct is to bow down. I also love how the film does not try to make Callas a saint, but shows sides of her that are vain, insecure, bitter. This is a lady who sings people to tears, of course she lives and breathes all that makes us vulnerable and human. At one point a doctor pleads with her to see reason, to which she simply responds her life is opera and opera has no reason.
Jolie lip-syncs or sings over the original recordings of Callas, and it takes a while to match that iconic voice to this iconic face. But her portrayal draws its strength not from skills to belt out impossible notes, but her breathtaking ability to emote, which is on ample display here. Through the sharp rage provoked by an oblivious fan, the unguarded tenderness shown towards her house staff, or the absolute, devastating sorrow at Onassis’ deathbed, she brings to life a woman who’s all emotions, who feels too much for her own good. In a scene where Callas meets her sister, she’s reminded of the German soldier who has never left her dreams, and the wide-eyed look of horror on Jolie’s face is so open and raw you feel like you’re seeing inside her soul. Towards the end of the movie, she sings one last time as Callas in her apartment. By this time you’ve known Callas so intimately through her, you don’t even notice if she’s just mouthing the words.
Besides the sonic treats of an operatic soundtrack, the film looks sensational. Just from the brief intro scene where a group of people gather in a posh Parisian apartment drenched in warm autumnal light, you can tell it’s going to be one of those motion pictures you’d just want to luxuriate in. DP legend Ed Lachman not only makes 70’s Paris look good enough to eat, but injects such romanticism into each frame that the heightened theatricality of Callas’ life comes through vividly on screen. Also to be singled out is Massimo Cantini Parrini’s costume design. As gorgeous and evocative as Callas’ vocals, his wardrobe creations do the diva justice and paradoxically help reveal the person hidden beneath them.
Compared to Jackie and Spencer, Maria is probably the most expressly melodramatic of the series. This could rub some people the wrong way but it didn’t bother me considering its subject matter. In fact, bless Larraín for continuing to give complex, fascinating women the unconventional, individually tailored cinematic treatment that they deserve.
