In ‘Maria,’ Angelina Jolie and Pablo Larraín Bring an Opera Icon to Turbulent Life
Of course, Callas is not as famous as Jackie or Spencer, and the film is careful to introduce her to a less-informed audience. Born in New York to Greek immigrants, Callas grew up in poverty, singing along to her mother for money, before her unique skills as a soprano took her career to Italy. She struggled with mental and physical health challenges throughout her life while pushing opera forward in the public imagination as it shifted to the upper class. (As the film demonstrates, she was already very popular in 1970s Paris, at least.) Shot on film by Edward Lachman (Nominated for an Oscar earlier this year for Larraín El Conde), Maria The scene cuts between dramatic color shots of the present, as our struggling heroine returns to vocal lessons amid rumors of a comeback, and fascinating black-and-white flashbacks showing Callas at the height of her power while indulging in an affair with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer)—the shipping magnate who, according to Larraín’s delightfully full story, eventually left Callas to marry Jackie Kennedy.
Jolie’s approach to the character was heartbreaking, capricious, and imposing, revealing a deep understanding of Callas’s desperation to reclaim herself before it was too late. “Here is the greatest diva of the 20th century, and who could play that?” Larraín said. “I didn’t want to work with someone who didn’t have that. I needed an actress who could naturally and organically become that diva, carry that weight, be that presence. Angelina was there.” He describes her preparation as “very long, very specific, very difficult.” She practiced posture. She learned how to breathe. She developed an accent that suited a woman of the world and a different plane of fame. Then came the voice lessons.
Yes, that’s actually Angelina Jolie singing, although it’s not just her. Larraín and his co-star worked closely with the Oscar winner John Warhurst (Bohemian Rhapsody, upcoming Michael), who, as Larraín says, “dedicated his life to actors singing in films” to creating innovative synth recordings.
Over the course of months, Jolie learned the rhythms of her themes and her notations. Eventually, she reached the point where she could hear operas in headphones while singing them herself. Larraín and Warhurst would record Jolie’s performance, then mix it with Callas’s. “You’re always listening to Angelina, and you’re always listening to Maria Callas,” Larraín says. “When we listen to Maria Callas in her prime, most of the sound is Callas—90 percent, 95 percent—and when we listen to Callas older and in the present, almost all of it is Angelina.” Notably: Much of the film takes place in the present.
Larraín describes the seemingly contradictory tasks. One: “How can you make a film about Maria Callas without using her voice? You can’t.” And two: “You can’t make a film like this with an actress who doesn’t actually sing.” He stresses that it’s not karaoke. “This is the real thing—she was terrified, but she did it.” When they finally started filming, Larraín noticed how deep his star had come—appropriate, perhaps, given the rawness of the material and the amount of training Jolie had done before she could really attack it.
A few weeks later, Larraín stopped coaching Jolie. The best coaching is silence; the best note is no note. “It’s so real, we just have to keep going and let her do her thing,” he says. “She can let you in when she wants to, and she can create distance where she wants to. It’s a dance of vulnerability.”
Larraín took an unusually hands-on approach to his set: He acted as his own cameraman. So even as he gave Jolie space, they still connected. “It was very personal because it was a film where the camera was very close to her—so we were always together,” Larraín says. “Sometimes she would sense me. We would finish a scene and she would look at me, just by the way I looked at her.” He calls their dynamic “sensation.”
Concluding Larraín’s provisional trilogy, Maria is the most deeply felt and accomplished film. Credit certainly goes to Jolie’s powerful turn and the film’s impeccable technique—you’ll remember watching Lachman, best known for his lens Todd Haynes‘S Sing a song And Far from Heaven, was a master of period cinema—and the score was led by an opera legend steeped in Maria with great emotion. But ultimately it comes down to the director’s vision. Larraín’s exacting approach to these biopics has garnered critical acclaim, but the actors at the center of them have tended, inevitably, to steal the spotlight (and awards recognition). That should change here. This may be the most personal film Larraín has ever made.
His first way in Maria stemmed from a long-standing desire to make a film about an artist. “When she sings, she is living everything she experiences on stage,” says Larraín. “That is why she is also so revered, not only for the quality, color, and specificity of her voice, but also for road she performed.” He says capturing that on film made him feel exposed. How? “I connected through the way that crafting your work can sometimes be devastating,” he says. “Even though this is a story about a woman who lived from her 20s to her 70s and had a completely different life than I did, there was an inevitable vulnerability. There was no hiding yourself.” He continues, “She burned her voice, her life, by doing her work—and I think I burned myself a little bit doing this.”
