Fluentiama
Perfect cast and a good story
Matrixiole
Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.
Kirpianuscus
One of most impressive portraits of Maria Callas. lovely because it is answer to many expectations. explanation for the presence of her name with same intensity today, like yesterday. her vulnerability - from the egocentric perspective about life and the people around her to the chance gived by Pasolini. a film who escape to the temptation to be a pure eulogy/hommage. a film defined by the emotions you feel. more than by other pieces. so, a splendid work.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Maria by Callas" is the title of Tom Volf's first directorial effort and it's a pretty impressive work for a rookie these 110 minutes we got here. The subject is of course the late famous opera singer Maria Callas and we find out about career and private life in here. It is of course inevitable that the film is packed with her singing and that is maybe the best thing about it all. These visitors from her concert in the United States could not be any more right in saying she is a definite contender for greatest voice of the 20th century. And speaking about interviews, there are also many interviews with Madame Callas herself that add a great deal of charm and made it easy to see for me why she is so appreciated and desired until today. Not just in her performances, also in her interviews there always feels to be a sense of perfection that also has a bit of a sad note to me as I doubt there is one point we really see the Maria that she really is, but there is always a bit of an act to her. But it adds to the fascination. Maybe I would have liked to find out a bit about her really young years, but it's fine nonetheless as we see a brief summary to her rise to fame and global stardom, but a lot more focus is on her falling from grace, more with the press than with individual concert visitors who always managed to appreciate her. Another thing I found a bit sad was how she kept talking about the family she longed to have, but every time in the next sentence she tried to talk herself out of this wish by saying it wasn't meant to be and that she had to sacrifice it for her career, while stating repeatedly that being truly loved by a man and children maybe would have made her infinitely more happy than what she achieved by making millions of people so happy with her voice. Men also seem like a complicated subject looking at her first (and only) marriage with Meneghini and how it all went wrong before her lifelong affection for Aristotle Onassis who picked another femme extravangante when it counted the most and broke her heart, but still this did not keep her from caring for him when he returned to her in search for affection, not love. The short scene with Pasolini and her work on his movie was a nice inclusion too. It is a very insightful documentary we have here and I find it pretty sad this has not yet scored a lot of awards attention. It is a 2017 release yes, but I hope it changes in the coming months. I knew almost nothing about Callas before and I must say I turned a bit into a fan while watching. A truly gifted artist, but also a very tragic character admittedly. Well done, one of the best documentaries I have recently seen and this one for me is way closer to 4 out of 5 stars than to 2 out of 5. Go watch it if you have the chance. Maria will win you over for sure as she did with me and that's quite a compliment as I am not a great opera fan at all.
jonflynn1
I have watched a few documentaries about Callas over the years and this one still had many surprises in store for me. I thought the interviews and footage used were excellent. I had never seen her speak so much and, at times, lucidly about her life. You have the success and the solitude, the art and the love. There are also some exquisite arias. It is very moving, if you look carefully behind the facade.
wyrzykowskikajetan
"Maria Callas" is a documentary feature that is more-or-less depiction of the career of a famous opera starlet.The director of the film Tom Volf, praises the protagonist at every step. Maria is basically his muse. The entire documentary is dictated by her omnipresent dreaminess. The script moves forward without haste, slowly painting the vivid landscape of spotlight, cameras and ovations.Despite this inspiring form, "Maria Callas" is surprisingly flat.Volf maniacally impersonates Callas with her stage silhouette. Even when he tries to give her more depth, it is far from an insightful look. The bits of her life are either interviews or shots from her tours. This short-sighted approach limits the film's speech power in a great deal.The problem might also lie in the protagonist herself. Callas - at least according to Volf's depiction - is extremely selfish. She never really moves too far away from this overwhelming egocentrism. Even when speaking about the love of her life, it is imbued with selfishness. She elaborates on her diva life with occasional sadness resonating. And Volf direction is very much praising that self-loving approach. With every second shot of Callas surrounded by jostling journalists or reminiscing a goddess in one of her apartments, Volf makes this character suffocate.It might be rooted in Callas herself, as well as Volf's imperfect direction. Either way, "Maria Callas" is far from a heart-piercing, moving biopic. It deliberately limits the world presented. It's flashy in form and shallow in the substance.
