How Angelina Jolie’s ‘Poetic Understanding of Film Acting’ Helped ‘Maria’ DP Land an Oscar Nom

Ask Ed Lachman about the use of color and the cinematographer provides a perfect layman’s primer in art education.

“Why are hospitals blue and green? Those are restful, peaceful colors. Why are fast food restaurants red and orange? Because those activate our passion and our appetite,” Lachman said in his laid-back, easygoing voice. “Theoreticians on painting, like Goethe in his book in 1810 or Josef Albers in the 1960s, have talked a lot about how color affects the viewer. It’s all very primitive and emotional and I love to play around with that.”

Lachman, for sure, plays with color, as well as four different film formats, in Pablo Larraín’ “Maria,” which depicts the final days of opera star Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie). The work has earned Lachman his fourth Oscar nomination, following nods for “Far From Heaven,” “Carol” and “El Conde.”

Renowned for his artful, adventurous lensing, Lachman recently marked his 50th year as a cinematographer. His first credit was 1974’s “The Lords of Flatbush,” followed by collaborations with many of the most important filmmakers on the indie scene: Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Sofia Coppola, Werner Herzog, Mira Nair, Gregory Nava, Todd Solondz, Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders and seven projects with Todd Haynes.

And it’s a tribute to Lachman’s craft and reputation that for the second year in a row, his Oscar nomination marked the sole recognition for the movie he worked on, after Larraín’s black-and-white satire “El Conde” last year. Lachman broke his hip during the 2022 production of “El Conde” in Chile, leading to a long recovery process that is still ongoing. But Larraín had been invigorated by his creative partnership and friendship with Lachman and wanted the relationship to continue for “Maria.” 

“I thought Pablo might want to work with a European, since this was shot in Budapest and Paris,” said the New York-based Lachman. “But he called and said he’d really like me to do it. I have to acknowledge Pablo’s vision. Thinking of this film’s aesthetics in the form of an opera really created what my images were. And in addition to the work of the production designer, the costume designer. And the other major aspect is Angelina Jolie and her exquisite, nuanced, heartbreaking performance. I was just very fortunate to fall into a very creative group of artists.”

Lachman is a master of film stocks and lenses, which is essential to the look and feel of Maria. The film’s sequences set in the week leading up to her death in 1977 were filmed on golden-hued 35mm film; scenes of Callas’ imagination were on 16mm; moments in the public eye were on 8mm; and flashbacks were shot on black-and-white 35mm film.

Lachman’s glass lenses for the black-and-white footage, called Ultra Baltars, were the same type as ones used for films made in the 1940s, such as “Citizen Kane” and “The Magnificent Ambersons,” the era in which some of the flashbacks in “Maria” take place. 

“By using these different film types, we can enter the interior world of the character,” Lachman said. “And for me, the camera does two different things in the film: One, it’s like a moving stage, where the camera becomes the point of view of the audience in an opera. And then two, it’s a heightened reality. Operas are not naturalistic – they offer a reality that’s mannered, expressionistic, through color and through contrast. And so even in Maria’s personal world in her apartment, I made it feel like we’re always viewing an opera.”

For the interiors in Callas’ home, Larraín preferred to film wide angles in a real apartment, leaving little room for Lachman’s lighting equipment. So the chandelier lights were covered with China Balls, to offer more ambient temperatures, and the cinematographer set up gigantic, 90-foot cranes outside the apartment’s sixth floor windows. Even at home, Callas was in the spotlight.

“We did that in a heightened way, with the mixed colors between the warmth inside and the coolness coming in the windows,” Lachman said. “So that her apartment was like her nest.”

Lachman prefers an impressionistic approach to the biopic format. It’s a philosophy that he exercised in his cinematography of “El Conde,” which portrays Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as an ancient vampire, and Haynes’ 2007 Bob Dylan kaleidoscope, “I’m Not There,” where six actors including Cate Blanchett played the music icon.

“Maria” is an extension of his belief that “the language of cinema is metaphor,” he said. “That’s the strength of it. And even if you shoot a film naturalistically, you’ve still interpreted how you’re showing something staged to depict the real world. Films are the illusion of a reality, but what is reality but our illusion?”

He counts Larraín and Haynes among his cherished collaborators – both called him on Oscar nomination day – and also points out the skill and acumen of the film’s star.

“Angelina is a director too and she smiled when I said to her, ‘I’m very humble because, as a director, you’ve worked with some of the greatest contemporary cinematographers: Roger Deakins, Anthony Dod Mantle, Seamus McGarvey.’ It was wonderful to have such good communication with her during filming. Certain actors are able to play to the frame, meaning that they have a deep, poetic understanding of film acting, and she is one of those.”

In recent months, the 78-year-old Lachman has been honored with lifetime achievement awards from the American Cinematheque and the CameraImage festival. He’ll head out to Los Angeles for the Oscars in early March, but with a sense of immense sadness after the fire destruction the city has endured; he hopes this year’s ceremony jettisons the glitz.

He plans to start work on a new film soon by Taiwanese director Midi Z, starring one of the current Best Actor nominees. “I’m still definitely kind of the outsider,” he said of the Oscar circus, with a chuckle. “But I’m certainly appreciative to get this recognition. You know, I haven’t been put out to pasture yet.”

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