Maria Callas: Reserve a table for me in a café where the waiters know who I am
Narrative
Maria Callas, the world’s greatest opera singer, lives out the final days of her life in 1970s Paris as she confronts her identity and life. Angelina Jolie and director Pablo Larraín discuss how they connected to the true and moving story of world-renowned opera singer Maria Callas. The third and final film in Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of female-led biopics called “Lady with Heels,” following Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021).
I’m in the mood to be fawned over
Referenced in Close-Up: Why Do We Need the Venice Film Festival? (2024). Othello Act 4: ‘Ave Maria’ (Desdemona) Performed by Maria Callas, Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire Conductor: Nicola Rescigno Written by Giuseppe Verdi, Arrigo Boito Warner Classics Release, (p) 1964 Parlophone Records Limited Remastered 2014 Parlophone Records Limited Courtesy of Warner Music Group Germany Holding GmbH, a Warner Music Group company.
I have to say that director Pablo Larrain’s 2024 entry in his iconic trilogy of 20th-century women was a disappointment
It starts with the casting, as Angelina Jolie may be too iconic to play the supreme diva Maria Callas, the least remembered of the trio, the other two being Jackie (2016) and Diana in Spencer (2021). Jolie conveys the necessary self-confidence to carry the regal image of the world’s greatest opera singer, but physically she seems too gaunt to convincingly emulate the more robust figure that Callas achieved. Written by Steven Knight, the lugubrious, overlong film covers the last week of Callas’s life in Paris in 1977, a fictionalized account with inevitable flashbacks that cumulatively unfold like a ghost story.
Her cloistered existence is tempered only by two devoted servants, played poignantly by Pierfrancesco Favina and Alba Rohrwacher
All the production elements, like the polished cinematography and set details, are impressively handled, but Larrain’s creative choices are more debatable, for example the hallucinogenic images of choirs of people singing back to her in public spaces. There’s the ambiguous role of an interviewer (played opaquely by Kodi Smit-McPhee) with the same name as her prescription drug who forces her to confront her legacy. Some of the flashbacks hint at more intriguing elements to her story, such as her somewhat budding relationship with Aristotle Onassis, her traumatic encounters with Nazis as a child, and a puzzling conversation with JFK (played by Caspar Phillipson, who was cast in the same somewhat inconsequential role in “Jackie”).
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Still, Jolie’s star power is a showcase befitting her singular talent for conveying swagger and vulnerability at nearly the same time. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is one of the biggest TV and streaming premieres of the month.