Angelina Jolie is making herself scarce, although you may not notice it. In the news, or rather “news”, the Oscar winner omnipresent for years. One of those mega-stars that we take for granted in life and headlines. In a way, that’s a fallacy.
You only really realize how rarely we see actress Angelina Jolie when a new film with her comes out. Since the 2010s, she has made it a habit to let three to four years pass between projects. Now one of these breaks is coming to an end – thanks to Maria Callas.
Reality and hallucination blur in the film about Maria Callas
In Maria, Jolie plays the New York-born Greek soprano and probably most famous opera diva ever. After Jackie and Spencer, director Pablo Larraín concludes his trilogy about female icons in life crises. The three film titles set the agenda: What is the essence of the personalities behind the famous “brands” Kennedy or Diana? Along the lines of: We know Callas, but who was Maria? This is not an innovative approach, but Larraín does not have a completely conventional biopic in mind.
Accomplices Film
Angelina Jolie plays the last days of Maria Callas
Maria Callas (Jolie) spends the last week of her life in a spacious Parisian apartment, together with her loyal butler Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino), her maid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher), a lot of pills and hallucinations. Walks through the city of love turn into opera performances of days gone by and visits to restaurants awaken memories from 30 years ago.
The city even turns into a stage for Madame Butterfly, with costumes, choir and everything. Reality and imagination merge into one another when she looks back on her life. Music pours out of every corner, even though Maria has long since lost the voice of her great days.
Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight tailored an ambitious biopic for Angelina Jolie
Or as a doctor once told her: Her “Voice be now in heaven”. Maria is full of dialogues like this, where you don’t know whether to write along or shrivel up into a heap of embarrassing touching.
The script by Peaky Blinders creator and Spencer author Steven Knight imitates a grand operatic tragedy in several acts. The heroine has the necessary measure for this, as she is searching for herself with her last breath. Grand gestures are therefore a must and the urge for them sometimes seems tiring and at times empty. All three of Pablo Larraín’s iconic films have this in them, albeit to varying degrees.
Jackie surprised us with a grotesque acting lapse by Natalie Portman, whose approach to the title heroine was thwarted by her Chanel suit. The far more capable Kristen Stewart saved Spencer from a similar fate. Thanks to her spontaneity and precision, she turned the cliché of the little bird in a royal cage into a tangible person. In Maria, the interaction between icon and actress is taken further.
Accomplices Film
Mary
With the first shots, the film puts itself in the foreground. In a black and white close-up, Angelina Jolie opens her mouth and Maria Callas’ voice echoes towards us. You have to bring these different levels together first and this is difficult, especially at the beginning.
On the other hand, the contradiction is part of the basic musical principle of Maria. In flashbacks to Callas’ great days, the original is played into the mix, while in the film’s present, the older, lonely and sick diva the proportion of Angelina Jolie’s voice is increased. At least that is the director’s explanation in Vanity Fair .
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In Maria, Angelina Jolie triumphs where Natalie Portman failed
On the one hand, this reinforces the artificial impression of the film, because one of the most famous opera voices of all is even harder to convince an actress to do than that of a rock star or a pop singer. That’s what demanding arias are all about.
At the same time, the two-track singing reinforces the contrast to the real Maria of the film’s present. The more fragile Maria sounds, the more authentic Jolie’s musical performance seems. This is how you can discover the Maria behind the “Callas”. The impressive Angelina Jolie plays a major role in this, as she delivers every passage of dialogue, no matter how stilted, as if it had just come into her head.
Jolie doesn’t have to visibly contort herself to play the role of a diva who knows exactly how larger than life she is perceived by her counterpart. She managed this natural grandeur even in a film like Wanted, although the parallels between Timur Bekmambetov and Pablo Larraín end there.
It’s not that easy to play a star, even if your name is Natalie Portman or Angelina Jolie. In Maria, Angelina Jolie proves her acting greatness several times over – but the film doesn’t always do justice to her sensitive journey under the skin of Maria Callas.
Maria is in competition at the Venice Film Festival. The film currently has no German release date.