Maria ending explained: How Angelina Jolie pushed her real voice to a 'celebration of tragedy' in haunting final scene

Warning: This article contains spoilers about the ending of Maria.

It might seem obvious, but Angelina Jolie's performance in Pablo Larraín's stirring biographical drama Maria ending on a pitch-perfect high note hits hard nonetheless.

In an in-depth explanation of the movie's haunting, emotional ending, Larraín tells Entertainment Weekly that the note was all real, and that Jolie preserved her real singing voice until the time came to film the conclusion, and let her vocals loose for her final take on set.

"She’s basically asking God what happened. She says, 'I gave my life to art,'" Larraín says of the final number Callas (Jolie) sings in her lonely Parisian apartment, with the actress positioned near the windows of the abode.

The scene comes at the end of the Chilean filmmaker's narrative that repeatedly positions the real-life Callas — an esteemed opera singer — in a difficult professional and personal space, grappling with an ailing body and a perceived loss of her voice, both spiritually and physically. When she finally sings for the last time in her apartment, though, Larraín trains his camera not only on Jolie's performance but on those watching outside her window, as the bustling streets of the French city teeming with people grind to a halt and listen as Callas belts her final tune.

Though the real singer didn't get as grand of a send-off from this world (Callas died from a heart attack in 1977 at age 53), the director hopes that reframing her death and legacy for contemporary audiences will, in this way, gift her with the finale she deserved.

"Listen to [the song] and find a proper translation. Those words define the end of the movie and Maria Callas’ life. It’s probably the song she sang the most," Larraín says of Tosca's "Vissi d’arte,” the song Jolie belts in the scene. "She collapses because she’s ready to do it, it’s a beautiful way to celebrate her life. There’s something in this movie where we wanted to make a movie that somehow would show that she became the sum of the characters that she played, so it’s the sum of the tragedies she played on stage for so many years. It’s a celebration of a tragedy."

Jolie pushed herself to the limit for the scene, which Larraín confirms was filmed "on the last day of shooting" and that he intentionally "kept it for the very, very end" of the process to mirror its symbolic nature with regards to Callas' life.

"Angelina had to sing it out loud, with all of her power and humanity. By doing so, I asked her to feel the emotion and feel how broken she was in this moment of joy," Larraín recalls, admitting that watching Jolie master the scene moved him to tears. "You’re giving everything you have, to sing this piece of music where you’re finally getting your voice again…. At the same time, that creates a lot of joy because you can hear yourself, a singer only controls their voice, they control their voice because they control their ears. That gives you joy because you’re finally there, but at the same time, because of that, that’s breaking you, and that’s not letting you breathe. That sort of mix of demands and emotions was something very hard to do, and I couldn’t believe how beautiful what was happening in front of the camera."

In terms of narrative, after Maria's body is found by her longtime companions and staff members, Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino) and Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher), the film's last shot sees the pair embracing as they accept their fate, now forced to navigate the world without their longtime guiding light.

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The shot of Ferruccio and Bruna holding each other calls back to a prior scene, in which Callas, finally coming to terms with her impending fate, tells the pair over a game of cards that she hopes they remain companions in the wake of her death — a comforting thought to Callas, as she takes solace in believing that her life served one purpose: to facilitate real, tangible happiness in others that will endure after she's gone.

"There’s something beautiful in that decision, and the last shot is very longing. They’re looking and wondering what life is like now. Someone they love has passed, and it’s a moment where you feel like a stranger in your own life, in a strange situation," Larraín observes. "They’ve served this woman for many years, they became a family, and now she’s gone. They’re wondering, 'What is life like?' It’s an existential moment of beauty, and I thought it was the right note to end it on, to have both of them looking to the infinite instead of sadness, but also understanding that it was their decision, and they somehow admit it with a mix of joy and sadness. It’s a cocktail of emotions that come together."

Maria is now streaming on Netflix.