Maria by Callas
Directed by Tom Volf
Role: Archive Producer
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Maria Callas, in her own words. Never-before-seen footage and performances offer insight into the life and career of renowned opera singer.
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PRESS:
Entirely composed of archival newsreel footage, performance recordings, and rare interview excerpts from when the great “diva” sat down with journalist David Frost in 1970, the film unfolds like a second-hand sketch of a phantom who continues to haunt its director.
Framed by a rare interview with David Frost, “Maria by Callas” reveals the star’s surprising reluctance, even melancholy, in continuing to perform on opera’s biggest stages, though her work ethic was considered peerless.
“Maria by Callas,” which opens here Friday, finds lots of press footage that most of us have never seen, filmed interviews for television or newsreels, and it’s all fascinating.
By sifting through these materials four decades after Callas’s death, the movie aims to correct a popular perception [...] that Callas was a diva offstage as well as on.
To observe the New York-born Callas arriving in Rome or Milan or Paris or New York, in a cloud of furs, flowers, poodles and pearls, is to understand the fundamentals of diva style, imitated but never equaled by such successors as Madonna, Rihanna and, most recently, Lady Gaga.
There’s no voiceover, no ex post facto experts doing a talking-head preen for Volf’s camera. Instead, we see Callas in interviews with the likes of David Frost, Barbara Walters, Edward R. Murrow (on “Person to Person”! boy, was network television different way back when — so was the culture). There are press conferences, home movies, news clips, performance footage, still photographs.
Maria by Callas Is a Fleetingly Intimate Portrait of the Late Opera Diva.
How the intimate documentary ‘Maria By Callas’ reveals the secret life of an opera star
Curated from live performance footage, television interviews, the singer’s own private letters and unpublished personal writing [...], what emerges is more respectful portrait than painstaking biography.
Volf has shaped his picture around rare newsreel, kinescope footage and home movies of the diva.
Produced by Elephant Production
Distributed by Sony
Directed by Tom Volf
Role: Archive Producer (US)
______
Maria Callas, in her own words. Never-before-seen footage and performances offer insight into the life and career of renowned opera singer.
______
PRESS
Entirely composed of archival newsreel footage, performance recordings, and rare interview excerpts from when the great “diva” sat down with journalist David Frost in 1970, the film unfolds like a second-hand sketch of a phantom who continues to haunt its director.
IndieWire
Framed by a rare interview with David Frost, “Maria by Callas” reveals the star’s surprising reluctance, even melancholy, in continuing to perform on opera’s biggest stages, though her work ethic was considered peerless.
Variety
“Maria by Callas,” which opens here Friday, finds lots of press footage that most of us have never seen, filmed interviews for television or newsreels, and it’s all fascinating.
Houston Chronicle
By sifting through these materials four decades after Callas’s death, the movie aims to correct a popular perception [...] that Callas was a diva offstage as well as on.
New York Times
To observe the New York-born Callas arriving in Rome or Milan or Paris or New York, in a cloud of furs, flowers, poodles and pearls, is to understand the fundamentals of diva style, imitated but never equaled by such successors as Madonna, Rihanna and, most recently, Lady Gaga.
Washington Post
There’s no voiceover, no ex post facto experts doing a talking-head preen for Volf’s camera. Instead, we see Callas in interviews with the likes of David Frost, Barbara Walters, Edward R. Murrow (on “Person to Person”! boy, was network television different way back when — so was the culture). There are press conferences, home movies, news clips, performance footage, still photographs.
Boston Globe
Maria by Callas Is a Fleetingly Intimate Portrait of the Late Opera Diva.
Vulture
How the intimate documentary ‘Maria By Callas’ reveals the secret life of an opera star
LA Times
Curated from live performance footage, television interviews, the singer’s own private letters and unpublished personal writing [...], what emerges is more respectful portrait than painstaking biography.
The Wrap
Volf has shaped his picture around rare newsreel, kinescope footage and home movies of the diva.
Observer