Maria, the Maria Callas biopic-of-sorts starring Angelina Jolie, is directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Steven Knight.

The star and filmmaker behind one of the festival season's instant hits walks IndieWire through their meticulous process, from real singing to even more real emotion.

To the generations of opera singers that came after her, she’s still an era-defining consummate artist. “She’s an icon. There’s no other way to put it,” said bass Morris Robinson, who recently sang the role of Ramfis in “Aida” with Boston Lyric Opera.

Angelina Jolie glides through the final days of Maria Callas' short life in Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” a dramatic, evocative elegy to the famed soprano. It’s an affair that’s at turns melancholy, biting and grandly theatrical, an aria for a once in a generation star.

The important thing to know going into “Maria” is that it’s the third in a trilogy of films directed by the Chilean whirlwind Pablo Larraín that seek to recover the women behind the plaster saints of 20th-century iconography.

While the glamorous role of a declining opera diva would seem perfect for a star of Jolie's profile, it's undernourished by the screenplay's limited conception.

And for the first time in years, Jolie is back in the spotlight, in full movie-star mode. Her commanding performance in “Maria” seems assured

Maria,” Pablo Larraín’s cinematic portrait of opera legend Maria Callas, arrives as the third of the director’s films centered on iconic women of the 20th century. And like the other films in the trilogy — “Jackie” (2016),