Pablo Larraín’s Maria, with Angelina Jolie as the famed opera singer Maria Callas, was music to the ears of the audience seated inside Sala Grande on Thursday night. The Venice Film Festival crowd responded to the world premiere with an electric eight-minute standing ovation that saw its star in tears at one point.
It’s been a busy week on the Maria front. On Wednesday, Netflix confirmed that it had acquired distribution rights to the film. “I’m excited to partner again with the Netflix team who care so passionately about movies,” the filmmaker said in a statement regarding the deal. “This film is my most personal work yet. It is a creative imagining and psychological portrait of Maria Callas, who, after dedicating her life to performing for audiences around the world, decides finally to find her own voice, her own identity, and sing for herself.”
Jolie also made her first public statements on the project during a press conference held Thursday afternoon ahead of the screening. She apparently spent about seven months preparing for the challenging role, work that found her training with opera singers and coaches to master the posture, breathing and movement of a singer of Callas’ caliber. Diving deep into opera provided “therapy I didn’t realize I needed,” she told the press.
“I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out,” she continued. “So the challenge wasn’t the technical, it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.” As to how she related to Callas, Jolie said, perhaps surprisingly, was “the part of her that’s extremely soft and doesn’t have room in the world to be as soft as she truly was — as emotionally open as she truly was. I share her vulnerability more than anything.”
Maria
Courtesy of Venice Film Festival
Based on true accounts, Maria tells the tumultuous and tragic story of the life of one of the world’s greatest opera singer during her final days in 1970s Paris. The script was penned by Steven Knight. Jolie toplines a cast that also includes Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Valeria Golino. The producer roster includes Juan de Dios Larraín for Fabula, Jonas Dornbach for Komplizen Film and Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment, a Fremantle company.
Jolie’s appearance at the Venice Film Festival is part of a wave of A-list talent making the rounds on the Lido this year in a major return to Hollywood glitz and glamour. Those with films in the festival include Jolie’s ex-husband, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Jude Law and more.