The movie by Pablo Larrain devoted to Maria Callas, introduced on the 81st Venice Worldwide Movie Competition and easily titled “Maria”, is a heartfelt tribute to the singer — painful, unhappy and clouded with tears.
“I’ve been a fan of Maria Callas since I used to be a toddler,” stated the director in the course of the Aug. 30 press convention. “As I grew up, I used to be stunned that there weren’t any movies about opera singers. Once I determined to make one about Callas, I used to be lucky sufficient to contain Angelina and discover a script that was superbly written. The movie is a celebration of her life, her work, and her music, in fact. Having Angelina Jolie was a stroke of luck as a result of solely a Diva like her might bear the load of portraying one other Diva; she might dare to play her and sing the arias that made Callas well-known.”
Jolie commented, “Diva is a phrase with very destructive connotations.” The actress-director is extraordinarily skinny and ethereal, with lengthy blonde hair overlaying a naked again adorned with tattoos, her face fragile but resolute. “However I realized the true that means of this definition from Callas, from (the Bellini aria) ‘Casta Diva.’ She was one of many hardest-working folks for her profession; the composers who created opera music know what it means.”
Jolie used all her self-discipline and perfectionism for her character, singing from the movie’s very first scenes. The director insists on close-ups of her face, significantly her well-known mouth. “I used to be very nervous about taking over this function,” Jolie defined. “I studied opera singing for seven months. Pablo could be very demanding, and whenever you work with him, it’s a must to give your greatest.
“I began in a small room, then Pablo took me to La Scala. My concern was to not disappoint Callas’ followers; the remainder doesn’t matter to me.” Jolie portrays Callas within the closing days of her life, in a back-and-forth of actual moments and flashbacks, however she additionally sings due to an revolutionary technical compromise. Her voice was recorded whereas she listened to Callas by way of headphones, after which combined to let hers prevail within the close-ups and Callas’s within the evocative scenes within the theater.
The movie tells of the final seven days of Callas’s life—she died at 53 on September 16, 1977—and intertwines moments in her Paris condo with visions of her previous, her triumphs in theaters world wide: Covent Backyard, the Met, La Scala, the Fenice in Venice, the place all of it started in ’59, and her tumultuous love affair with Aristotle Onassis.
“Now, there’s a number of opera in the home,” Jolie says, smiling. “My youngsters listened to it for therefore lengthy that they now admire it, and I hope many will strategy opera after this movie. I used to be slightly punk earlier than and liked the Conflict. However when your life is so stuffed with ache and despair, at a sure level, there are some sounds that contact these emotions higher. And opera is the one sound that explains this ache.
“What I consider I share with Callas is vulnerability,” she added. “To painting her, I watched recordings of her instructing and saying that the very first thing you need to do just isn’t take into consideration how you’re feeling however hearken to the music and perceive what the composer needs to convey, and solely on the finish are you able to hearken to your personal feelings. I feel there are components of this movie that talk to folks’s lives multiple may think.”
Within the function of the soprano’s sister is Valeria Golino. The movie additionally options Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Haluk Bilginer, who performs Aristotle Onassis, the nice love of Callas who broke her coronary heart by leaving her for Jackie Kennedy.