“Maria” DP Ed Lachman breaks down the black and white party scene

Greek-American opera superstar Maria Callas is the subject of Pablo Larrain’s latest feature film. “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie, picks up Callas at the end of her life and mourns the end of her career.

The film, now streaming on Netflix, features flashbacks that show snapshots of her fame; Appearances at La Scala and other opera houses around the world, adored by millions, and her personal life described as an advertisement for the shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

Cinematographer Edward Lachman used various film materials to differentiate her story. 35mm was used for the main narrative, 16mm for her fantasy and 35mm black and white for her memories.

In conversation with diversity For Inside the Frame, Lachman explains why filming was his preferred choice. “Film is like oil paint and digital is like watercolor,” he says. “As we reference different eras from the 1930s to the 1970s, it was important that we shot on film to represent the world she was a part of.”

The scene where Callas first meets Onassis takes place after one of her performances and is a memory. “I call (this scene) a moving proscenium. We put the audience in their place when watching an opera and let them think about what they are seeing,” he says.

Since the film focuses heavily on Callas and tells the story from her perspective, Lachman says he followed her into the surrounding area, in this case the party. “Hopefully you feel what she might feel,” he says.

Lachman’s camera movement was based on the idea that the opera in the film was “heightened reality.” He says: “It creates the emotions, like she even says in the film, ‘Opera doesn’t have to be realistic.’ It’s about the emotion.’ And that’s what I tried to do, to create a higher reality in storytelling with the color and the movement. So you felt like you were in their world.”

Lachman shot with the Arri 435 ES 3-perf camera and used the same lenses he developed for Larrain’s black-and-white vampire film El Conde. He explains: “The coatings would give the whole thing a historical feel.” Additionally, shooting on film “gave the image a depth that you don’t get when it’s digital and pixel-fixed on one layer.” You get the feeling that “It’s subtle, but you can feel there’s a difference in the depth of the image.”

The scene itself was filmed in a library in Budapest, where most of the filming took place. However, for this particular scene, Lachman said he had limited options for placing lights. “A lot of the lighting always comes from practical devices. There were candelabra bulbs. And I increased that from 15 watts to 40 watts, and that was enough exposure to shoot in black and white.” Lachman continues: “We shot with black and white negative film, and we were lucky enough to have the lab in Budapest could still process black and white films.”

In places, he covered them with white Chinese paper lanterns so he could screw in larger light bulbs to “increase the wattage of the area.”

Shooting against the white walls proved complicated, but Lachman found that covering the balls with black plastic provided a solution.

The film was ultimately about Maria and her spirit. Lachman credits Jolie’s performance with giving the film a mystique that he sought to capture in every frame. “That’s Angelina and how she played the role where she doesn’t reveal everything she thinks about a situation.” He notes, “You see what she’s thinking, how she expresses herself, but you don’t necessarily see it articulated . I think that’s the strength of the performance and the way Pablo edited it to construct the inner world.”

Watch the video above.