Pablo Larraín’s ‘Important Women’ Trilogy Adds a Fundamental Layer to Our Historical Dialogue

As the saying goes, history is often defined by the winners, but as time passes and history accumulates, more and more we come to find that winning isn’t all its cracked up to be. First Lady Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana, and La Divina knew this — and as much as their success helped illuminate them with the public, it was their tragedy that left a lasting image.

It is this thread that connects Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín‘s “Important Women” trilogy, consisting of “Jackie,” “Spencer,” and the recently released “Maria” starring Angelina Jolie. While individually, all three present unique looks into the lives and struggles of key 20th century figures, together they create an evocative triptych that redefines how we look back into the past and asks us to register the full complexity of these women — not just the popular perception put upon them by fans, the media, and even those closest to them.

With “Jackie,” Larraín and star Natalie Portman begin their examination of the 35th President’s wife a week after the infamous assassination in Dallas that took his life. Holed up at the family’s estate in Hyannis Port, she welcomes a reporter (Billy Crudup) amidst her private grief in order to set the record straight and cement JFK’s legacy at a time when many were moving fast to tarnish it. Speaking to Crudup’s reporter in between puffs on her cigarette, Jackie brings up the place history has in our lives and how the media often get to control it. She asks him pointedly, “When something is written down, does that make it true?” With this question, Larraín sets the first stroke in his portrait of Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy, later Kennedy Onassis, emphasizing her unique ability to cut through the bullshit despite the role showmanship and putting on a good face played in her life up to that point. More importantly, this statement covered by an inquiry creates a runaway for the filmmaker to investigate figures beyond Jackie, particularly women, who’ve similarly been deprived of agency and representation in their own lives and were often vilified for fighting back.

‘Jackie’©Fox Searchlight/Courtesy Everett Collection

Collectively, most of the story “Jackie” tells exists over the span of only a week, but being likely the most definitive week in Jackie’s life, the film offers an intimate balance of history’s weight set against the unresolved complexities of a difficult marriage. In a similar fashion, the midsection of the trilogy, “Spencer,” featuring Kristen Stewart as Diana, Princess of Wales, née Spencer, hones in on an even briefer moment: Three days surrounding the Christmas before the would-be Queen chose to separate from the royal family. As with “Jackie,” “Spencer” aims to show that history can happen quickly, but by keeping our eye trained on Diana and the mental deterioration she endures as a result of the gilded cage she’s found herself locked in, Larraín places us right in the middle of the emotional horror the late Princess faced, so that we might understand the stakes at play for this oft-misunderstood human being. In this sense, the goals for the film are a lot clearer. If Diana does not find her way out of this scenario, one that protects her relationship to sons William and Harry, it may just end up killing her.

Strangely, knowing what ultimately happens to her in no way affects our hope for her freedom at this moment. The relief that comes from seeing her enjoy KFC with her sons by the River Thames at the end of the film is somehow unburdened by the devastating future to follow because we know this image is truly the one she’d want us remembering: A loving mother who just wanted to make sure her children would be okay and not stunted by the royal life.

Larraín’s third subject, Maria Callas, despite being born to an ignoble family and having to face wartime poverty during the 1940s, was no stranger to the trappings of an empyrean existence, but in constantly having to live up to it, like Diana, her life met an untimely end. This was, after all, a woman enthusiastically referred to as “The Divine One” throughout her career. With a voice that summoned the angels, Callas was rarely given the autonomy to be her own person, but instead treated as vessel for the satisfaction of others. Even when she chose to give up her career amidst her relationship to business magnate Aristotle Onassis, the pressure to resume sharing the gift she’d been granted often came at the expense of her own well-being.

‘Spencer’Courtesy Everett Collection

While Jackie, Diana, and Maria may be bonded by privilege, trauma, complex interpersonal relationships — two of the three were courted by Onassis after all — and an adoring, yet spiteful public, what sets Callas apart is a physical talent so wrapped up in her identity that without it, she is almost too ashamed to go on living. At the same time, it is this very ability that imprisons her, similar to the familial ties that bind Jackie and Diana. Whereas “Jackie” may be more coy about placing the blame for misconception on those who aim to capture the moment, “Maria” takes a much more direct approach, with one scene seeing Callas accosted by a journalist who’s secretly recorded a rehearsal gone wrong. Callas’ faithful butler Ferrucio (Pierfrancesco Favino) physically steps in, forcing the man back and removing the tape from his grasp while asking why they can’t leave her alone. Though it has echoes of “Sunset Boulevard,” the scene also answers the question asked in “Jackie” and explored in “Spencer” by telling the audience that it’s not the stories we’re told that leave a lasting impact, but rather what these individuals inspire in others that carries on.

The role of spectator is key to all three films, with Crudup carrying the role in “Jackie,” Sean Harris’ Royal Head Chef Darren McGrady handling the responsibility in “Spencer,” and Kodi Smit-McPhee playing the hallucination of a young filmmaker making a documentary on Callas in “Maria.” Though these three characters serve similar purposes — to give audiences a cypher by which they can place themselves inside the story — the way they factor into each film differs greatly and in ways that further highlight the intentions of each. Crudup’s reporter is a curt individual whose interest in Jackie’s story only comes as a result of the greater interests of his publication’s readers, speaking directly to his subject’s desire to prove her own worth and how JFK would not have had the same effect on the country without her by his side. McGrady in “Spencer” is a much more sympathetic figure who sees Diana’s struggle and only wants to help her however he can, all too familiar with how the needs of the royal family can be highly stressful and all-encompassing. What makes Smit-McPhee’s documentarian so unique is that he exists as an extension of Callas in “Maria,” a way of her retaining some kind of spotlight and ownership over her story while others try to write her off as finished. In this sense, not even Callas herself fully understands the woman underneath la prima donna and her loving audience is largely at fault.

‘Maria’©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection

Another element shared between “Spencer” and “Maria” is the use of Anne Boleyn, the second wife to King Henry VIII who was beheaded for adultery, incest, and treason, though the veritably of these claims is murky at best. In “Spencer,” Diana finds a book about Boleyn left in her bedroom upon arriving at Sandringham Castle. A warning perhaps about keeping in her place, but is it from her in-laws or from Boleyn herself? In “Maria,” Boleyn exists not as an entity, but as one of the characters Callas gave voice to in Gaetano Donizetti’s tragic opera “Anna Bolena.” The role holds special meaning to Callas, as it was what she was performing before Onassis first approached her and she’d previously sang the part as a way of showing up critics in the past who thought her career was over. In tying both Diana and Maria’s tragedy to Boleyn’s, Larraín furthers his dialogue with history, showcasing that women, especially women in power, have long been maligned and punished without justifiable cause.

Speaking with Jim Hemphill for a recent interview, Larraín told IndieWire that he never intended on making a trilogy, but that each one led to the next. “Darren Aronofsky invited me to do ‘Jackie,’ and then I thought about making a movie about Diana and then at the end of that process, I just thought about making a movie about someone I admired my whole life and who I think changed the history of music, and that’s Maria Callas,” he said. Though Larraín may acknowledge a lack of intent on his part, in continuing to expand from “Jackie” to “Spencer” to “Maria,” the filmmaker was clearly compelled by a through-line between all three women, whether that be their similarities or their differences.

Just as “Jackie” opens the door, taking a peek behind the White House curtain, “Spencer” forces us feel what it’s like to hold space around those who seethe at our presence, while “Maria” shakes off the judgement and contempt to honor a once-in-a-generation talent even when that talent struggles to be of use. The legacy of these women does not rest in the books written about them or even the films that try to capture and understand them, but in how they continue to exist as sources of light in spite of all the darkness they endured.