Maria, the third part of Pablo Larraín’s biopic trilogy after Jackie and Spencer, stars Angelina Jolie as Greek-American soprano Maria Callas, drifting along in the last week of her life, driven by tranquilizers and self-absorption. Callas died of a heart attack in 1977, three years after her last singing performance. In the film, however, Jolie is seen as Callas, rehearsing for an imaginary performance that will never happen due to the state of her voice – and for a camera crew dreamed up in a haze of pills and directed by Kodi Smit-McPhee.
“Maria” shows Callas surviving her childhood and failed relationships until her final days, though in the film’s present she is frighteningly thin (“A lot of me is being taken away from me,” Callas says to her sister at one point) and a source of worry to her Parisian domestic staff (Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher), both of whom facilitate and confront her addiction to methaqualone and other pills, creating an up-and-down dynamic in the script.
Alongside Larraín and her co-stars, Jolie held court at a Venice Film Festival press conference on Thursday afternoon, shortly after the film’s first press and industry screening. Asked if she hoped “Maria” would put her back in the Oscar race, Jolie said, “For me, the fans of Maria Callas and those who love opera are the yardstick by which I would know if I’m good enough, and I would be afraid of disappointing them. So if there’s a response to the work in my own business, of course I’m very grateful, but in my heart I’ve started to disappoint the people who love her and who mean a lot to her and her legacy. I didn’t want to do that woman a disservice.”
As “Spencer” screenwriter Steven Knight switches timelines and cinematographer Ed Lachman switches between time periods in black-and-white and color, Callas looks back on her early life and recent past, including her relationship with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), who left her for Jacqueline Kennedy. Jolie spent more than half a year studying opera and training her voice, and the film uses a layered soundtrack to blend the actual voice of Callas in her prime with Jolie’s more inexperienced soprano, but if there are transitions here, you don’t feel them. In flashbacks to a younger, less bedraggled Callas, Jolie at times sang loudly alone in front of as many as 500 extras. When asked about her favorite opera or karaoke song, Jolie said, “I’ve never sung, so I’ve never done karaoke.”
“Everyone here knows I was terribly nervous,” Jolie said, pointing to the cast and crew. “I trained for almost seven months because when you work with Pablo you can’t do anything half-heartedly. He demands that you really work, study and train in a wonderful way. But my first time singing? I remember how nervous I was. My sons were there. They had to lock the door so no one could come in. I was shaking. Pablo had me start in a small room and finished the show at La Scala. I was scared.”
Asked about her own taste in music, Jolie said: “I was more of a punk. I liked all music, but I probably listened to The Clash more than most, and as I got older, classical music and opera. I think I still love the music I listened to when I was younger. I still listen to The Clash when I’ve felt a certain level of despair, pain or love. At a certain point, there are only certain sounds that can convey that feeling, and for me, the immensity of that feeling that is in the sounds of opera is incomparable. And that feeling that would move us all if we heard it would be the only sound that could explain that pain.”
“Most of the stories she sang,” Larraín said, “were tragedies, and 90 percent of the operas she sang ended with a death on stage. How do we make a film where the main character slowly becomes the sum of the tragedies she sang? And the approach was a celebration. I didn’t want to make a grim film about a tragic situation. It’s more of a film about a woman who has spent her life singing for others, caring for others, caring for her relationships, and is now ready to care for herself and find her own destiny.”
Throughout the press conference, Jolie was confronted with questions that she dodged about how her own widely publicized private life influenced her portrayal of a woman who was hounded by fans and paparazzi throughout her career. “There’s a lot I’m not going to say in this room that you probably know and assume,” Jolie said. Asked how much she could identify with the Callas who is lonely here and being torn apart by critics, Jolie said she shared Callas’ “vulnerability” but not much more along those lines. (Later in the festival, Brad Pitt, from whom she is currently in the midst of a lengthy, contentious divorce, will appear at the Lido with his film “Wolfs.”)
Jolie added: “Once I left the music behind, it was past the Maria we all think we know. I sat there with her glasses and her Greek hair and her dressing gown and thought about her alone in her kitchen… and who that person was and how she allowed that human being to emerge, and her loneliness, and I find it quite sad too. I wish she was here today to see that goodness in her life, because when she died, that was her last experience, she went out and tried, and the critics were so cruel to her, and she didn’t try. She was older and not as good, and they were mean. I don’t know if she died knowing she was appreciated and doing her best. I think she died with a lot of loneliness and pain.”
On opening day in Venice, August 28, it was announced that Netflix had acquired the film. “Maria,” which is in contention for the Golden Lion, entered the festival as one of the highest-grossing titles. Jolie will next head to the fall festivals in the U.S., including TIFF, where she will present her directorial effort “Without Blood,” and she is also expected in Telluride for “Maria.”
“I’ve had to be home with my family more over the last few years, and in that time I’ve become more grateful to just be an artist, to perform, and to be among all of you in this creative world that we’re all lucky enough to be a part of. I’m grateful to be an artist in any way,” Jolie said.
