“Maria” is a kind of film that might have been made in the 1960s. Ordinarily, I would mean that as a compliment. Unfortunately, anything that would have once been considered experimental about it was explored more successfully, iconically even, by Fellini and others, over a half century ago. (I just looked up the director, Pablo Larraín, and in 2012, for a poll conducted by Sight & Sound magazine, he named “8 1//2” as one of his favorite films.) In any case, it would have been impossible to make this particular picture back then, since its subject is the last week of the life of super-diva Maria Callas, who died on September 16, 1977. As it stands, it’s a film that too often trades in empty technical exercises and clichés. It doesn’t come across so much as homage as been-there, done-that.
The pills, the ego, the faded glamor – we’ve seen it all before, only here it’s an opera singer, instead of a rock and roll legend. Elvis Presley died on August 16, exactly one month before Callas did. Most Callas portrayals tend to include something of her caustic manner and imperious nature (see Terence McNally’s “Master Class”). But was she really so much of a Norma Desmond figure? (“Sunset Boulevard” is another one of Larraín’s favorite films.)
“Maria” has been described as the third in Pablo Larraín’s “Important Women Trilogy” (somebody has to come up with a better name), following “Jackie” (2016), about the grieving Jacqueline Kennedy – whose life, of course, intersected with Callas’, by way of her marriage to Aristotle Onassis – and “Spencer,” about Princess Diana (2021). None of these are straight bio-pics. Rather, they attempt to get at their subjects’ psychological states through artistic means.
I can’t speak for the success of the others (which I have not seen), but “Maria” rings fairly hollow (not unusual, alas, for films about musicians). That said, Natalie Portman and Kirsten Stewart were both nominated for Oscars for their respective portrayals, which bodes well for Angelina Jolie. Hollywood loves its own, and here Jolie stretches far enough beyond audience expectation that she can’t help but be noticed.
To be fair, the film does have some good performances (Jolie’s included, given the material she has to work with, her distracting lip injections aside). But it’s generally the quieter parts, the less-flashy ones, assumed by an international cast, that inspire the more satisfying turns. “Maria” is a coproduction of independent film companies in Italy, Germany, England, and the United States, with additional footage shot in Hungary and Greece. Remember when Hollywood used to actually produce these kinds of films?
Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher (both Italian) leave lasting impressions, especially the former, as Callas’ long-suffering butler and housemaid, respectively. Haluk Bilginer (Turkish) plays Aristotle Onassis; either that, or a lecherous George Burns. Anyway, he has a good death scene. Stephen Ashfield (Scottish) appears as conductor Jeffrey Tate, minus the spina bifida (perhaps the filmmakers feared blowback if they had attempted such a portrayal?), who I never realized until now bore such a likeness to Elton John. (He didn’t.) There’s also a fabricated conversation with JFK, played by Caspar Phillipson (Danish), all jaw, with a quasi-Kennedy coif, reprising his role from “Jackie.” (Callas did sing at Kennedy’s Madison Square Garden birthday reception in 1962, perhaps upstaged by Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” also depicted in the film.)
Kodi Smit-McPhee (Australian) has the most thankless role as Mandrax (named for a drug Callas abuses), a journalist who follows Callas sporadically throughout the film with the conceit of filming a documentary about her. Except he’s an hallucination. The narrative is divided into three parts signified, with an unnecessary and self-reflexive flourish, by the clack of a clapperboard and digitally-added signs of wear and tear, manufactured artifacts of the celluloid era. It works in Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers.” Not so much here. The whole meta conceit is eye-rollingly pretentious, more like something that would have been perpetrated by a film student as opposed to a director with ten previous films under his belt. The fantasy sequences are similarly trite and come across as the kinds of things that used to turn up in rock videos (for example, an orchestra playing fragile acoustic instruments in the pouring rain).
I found some of the musical choices, when Callas isn’t on stage, more unconventional, a little peculiar even. I understand this is the world of opera, but often it seems as if the dramatic off-stage moments are somewhat randomly scored with familiar passages. The “Humming Chorus” from “Madama Butterfly” the “Anvil Chorus” from “Il trovatore,” the prelude to “Parsifal.” Yes, Callas sang in these operas, and I may be nitpicking, but she didn’t sing in the choruses, and in the case of “Parsifal,” though she performed a surprising amount of Wagner early in her career, she never sang Kundry after 1950. In any case, it’s not the repertoire that endures in most people’s memories as quintessential Callas. And what’s with the Brian Eno?
Most unfortunate, the film never successfully manages to convey the Callas mystique. Lest there be any doubt, “Maria” concludes with a montage of genuine footage of Callas herself. She never speaks a word, yet it’s evident from her few minutes of screen time that the filmmakers were unable to capture her essence.
Tom Volf’s documentary from a few years ago, “Maria by Callas” (2017), gives a much better sense of who she was, through actual performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters, and unpublished memoirs, most of which had never been shown to the public.
Often during the last half hour or so of “Maria’s” 2 hour and 5 minute running time, I felt like surely it was about to end. Not out of boredom, necessarily. It just felt dramatically as if the film had run its course.
And in the name of all that’s holy, what’s the deal with the heinous and pervasive practice of these streaming services cutting off their movies mid-credits? It’s bad enough that the movies aren’t given the respect of nationwide theatrical releases anymore (Netflix does its films a disservice in not presenting them in an environment in which a viewer can be totally immersed, as opposed to giving in to an ice cream craving or nodding off on the couch), but whatever immersion one is able to achieve at home is shattered by being jerked out of a sustained illusion of reality that’s been so painstakingly crafted over two or three hours. It’s a frustrating experience, and I am tired of railing against Netflix, Hulu, Tubi, etc., every time it happens.
It’s especially frustrating in the case of “Maria,” as I was curious to see the microscopic music credits at the end. (No, they’re not listed on IMDB.) So I had to go back, start the movie, and fast-forward through the entire thing again. Thanks, Netflix.
Anyway, you can add this to the mountain of classical music movies that just don’t get it. Too often “Maria,” the film, comes across as an exercise in style over substance, something that its subject, Callas the artist, never was.
Watch the film’s trailer here:
Then that for the superior “Maria by Callas”
