Pablo Larrain at the 27th SCAD Savannah Film Festival on Nov. 2, in Savannah, Ga.Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Chilean film director Pablo Larrain is asking if I think I know Angelina Jolie – like really know her. The answer, of course, is no. I only know the star of his latest film Maria as much as anyone who consumes the actor and filmmaker’s work and reads the headlines about her humanitarian efforts and turbulent relationships with men like Billy Bob Thornton and Brad Pitt. I know her as much as I know Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart, the stars of Larrain’s previous English-language biopics Jackie and Spencer, respectively.
Larrain is turning the tables on this interview and posing the question not in a confrontational way, but in response to my own inquiry as to whether there’s a conflation between his stars and the 20th century icons they play in his films – between Portman and former first lady Jackie Onassis’s poise under pressure; Stewart and Princess Diana’s emotional fragility under intense media scrutiny; and Jolie and opera singer Maria Callas’s fight to control their own narratives.
The point he’s making is that these are all women who have had embattled relationships with the public eye, weathering the often-cruel narratives and personalities projected onto them. And yet, we never really knew them.
“I think they are very mysterious people playing very mysterious people,” says Larrain. “There’s something that I am absorbing from their experiences: how mysterious they are.”
“What I’m interested in is the relationship with media,” Larrain continues, explaining his evolving approach in what has developed into an unplanned trilogy about three of the most photographed and scrutinized public figures. “There were a lot of stories that were untrue. They were tough with them because they are women.”
Larrain is on a Zoom call with The Globe and Mail from a New York hotel, discussing the affinity for opera nurtured in him since he was a child attending with his mother and how that would influence his own artistry in films that lead with emotional curiosity rather a rigid pursuit of narrative. That includes the movie he just made about one of the world’s greatest opera singers. “[Opera is] something that is very moving but it’s not entirely rational,” says Larrain. “Operas do have an argument. They have a plot and a story. But my approach to it was more sensorial.”
Maria is an admirable facsimile of an icon that is visually gorgeous
In Maria, Larrain imagines the final week in Callas’s short life. She’s holed up in her opulent apartment, her health and voice deteriorating, nudged to take care of herself by a maid (Alba Rohrwacher) and butler (Pierfrancesco Favino) who nurture and defend her like family. It’s from this space that the film retreats back into Callas’s memories: the sweeping performances on stage often shot in black-and-white or grainy 8 mm; the fractious romance with domineering shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis (before he moved on to the subject from Larrain’s Jackie) as it flourishes and then unravels at galas and on yachts; the fleeting moments at airports and on red carpets with the paparazzi always near, embalming the Callas we think we know.
Chilean film director Pablo Larrain and U.S. actress Angelina Jolie attend AFI Fest for the premiere of ‘Maria’ at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, on Oct. 26.ETIENNE LAURENT/AFP/Getty Images
As his film is about her fractious relationship with media and the narratives they would impose on her, Larrain makes it clear that he’s kind of doing the same. His film, written by Spencer scribe Steven Knight, makes no claims to authenticity. And the filmmaker himself suggests that any film that even tries such a thing about their subjects is foolhardy.
“I think that biopic is a cultural fantasy,” says Larrain. “I don’t think a movie or a book can ever properly describe who that person was. I don’t intend to do that. So I assume right from scratch that I won’t be able to do that. I stopped seeking that cultural fantasy. And that opens the door for freedom; open the doors to do something that is very well researched but at the same time that is based on tools of fiction.”
Larrain weaves and lays bare the act of narrative construction throughout his memory piece, where the lines between what’s fiction and non-fiction – and what’s fiction within the film’s “fictional reality” – are increasingly blurred. Jolie’s Callas, both physically and mentally fragile, imagines herself in conversation with a documentary filmmaker (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee), a storyteller invited in on her terms, as if her consciousness is present, wrestling for authorship. At a certain point she’s told, “This is the part of the film where you’re expected to sing,” to which Jolie’s Callas responds, “I will sing when I am ready to sing.”
Most biopics revel in peeling back layers. They try to get behind the images that the public is familiar with to arrive at those moments when their subjects are less composed, vulnerable and often humiliated, as if that unvarnished image is getting at some unadorned truths. Larrain’s Maria refuses that too, instead protecting the decadence and elegance, framing Jolie’s Callas even in her lowest moments in stately and beatific poses. When she passes, she’s out of sight, the audience refused access to see her that way.
“Some people told me that I’ve been reverential to them in these movies,” says Larrain. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah. That’s true.’
“I love them. I want to celebrate their life. The movies aren’t necessarily easy [on] them. But I’m all up for doing a movie that would just celebrate their legacy and who they were.”
