As the saying goes, history is often defined by the winners, but as time passes and history accumulates, we increasingly find that winning isn’t that exciting. First lady Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana and La Divina knew it – and while their success helped shine a public spotlight on them, it was their tragedy that left a lasting image.

It is this thread that connects the Chilean filmmaker Pablo LarraínThe “Important Women” trilogy, consisting of “Jackie”, “Spencer“, and the recent “Married» with Angelina Jolie. Although individually all three present unique looks at the lives and struggles of key figures of the 20th century, together they create an evocative triptych that redefines the way we look at the past and asks us to register the full complexity of these women – not just popular history. perception given to them by fans, the media and even those close to them.

With “Jackie”, Larraín and the star Natalie Portman begin their examination of the 35th president’s wife a week after the infamous Dallas assassination that took her life. Holed up at the family estate in Hyannis Port, she takes in a reporter (Billy Crudup) in the midst of her private grief in order to set the record straight and cement JFK’s legacy at a time when many were eager to write him off. tarnish. Speaking to Crudup’s reporter between drags of a cigarette, Jackie discusses the place history plays in our lives and how the media often manages to control it. She asks him insistently: “When something is written, does that make it true?” With this question, Larraín poses the first line of his portrait of Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy, later Kennedy Onassis, emphasizing her unique ability to cut through bullshit despite the role of showmanship and good looks played in her life until that moment. More importantly, this investigative statement creates an avenue for the filmmaker to investigate figures beyond Jackie, particularly women, who have also been deprived of agency and representation in their own right. lives and were often vilified for fighting back.

Collectively, most of the story told by “Jackie” lasts only a week, but being probably the most definitive week of Jackie’s life, the movie offers an intimate balance between the weight of history and the unresolved complexities of a difficult marriage. Similarly, the middle part of the “Spencer” trilogy, featuring Kristen Stewart while Diana, Princess of Wales, née Spencer, focuses on an even briefer moment: three days surrounding Christmas before the future queen chose to part ways with the royal family. Like “Jackie,” “Spencer” aims to show that the story can happen quickly, but with an eye on Diana and the mental deterioration she suffers because of the gilded cage she found herself locked in, Larraín places us right in the middle of the emotional horror that the late princess faced, so that we can understand the stakes at stake for this often misunderstood human being. In this sense, the objectives of the film are much clearer. If Diana cannot escape this scenario, which protects her relationship with her sons William and Harry, it could end up killing her.

Strangely, knowing what will ultimately happen to him doesn’t affect our hope for his freedom at this time. The relief that comes from seeing her enjoying KFC with her sons by the River Thames at the end of the film is somehow relief from the devastating future to follow, because we know that this image is truly the one she would want us to we remembered: a loving mother. who just wanted to make sure her children would be okay and not be held back by royal life.

Larraín’s third subject, Maria Callas, although she was born into an ignoble family and faced wartime poverty in the 1940s, was no stranger to the trappings of an empyreal existence, but had to constantly live up to her life, like Diana. met an untimely end. After all, this was a woman enthusiastically nicknamed “The Divine” throughout her career. With a voice that invoked angels, Callas rarely had the autonomy to be her own person, but was instead treated as a vessel for the satisfaction of others. Even when she chose to abandon her career amid her relationship with business mogul Aristotle Onassis, the pressure to return to sharing the gift she had been bestowed often came at the expense of her own well-being .

While Jackie, Diana and Maria may be linked by privilege, trauma, complex interpersonal relationships (two of the three were courted by Onassis after all) and an adoring but unkind public, what sets Callas apart is a physical talent so enveloped in her identity that without it, she is almost too ashamed to continue living. At the same time, it is this very capacity that imprisons him, like the family ties that unite Jackie and Diana. While “Jackie” is perhaps more coy in placing blame on those seeking to capture the moment, “Maria” takes a much more direct approach, with a scene where Callas is approached by a reporter who has secretly recorded a rehearsal gone wrong. Callas’ loyal butler Ferrucio (Pierfrancesco Favino) physically intervenes, forcing the man back and removing the tape while asking why they can’t leave her alone. While it echoes “Sunset Boulevard,” the scene also answers the question posed in “Jackie” and explored in “Spencer” by telling the audience that it’s not the stories we’re told that leave an impact sustainable, but rather what these stories tell us. individuals inspire others and it continues.

The role of the spectator is key to all three films, with Crudup playing the role in “Jackie,” Sean Harris’ royal chef Darren McGrady taking on the responsibility in “Spencer,” and Kodi Smit-McPhee playing the hallucination of a young filmmaker making a documentary on Callas in “Maria”. Although these three characters pursue similar goals – to give the audience a number by which they can place themselves in the story – the way in which they are considered in each film differs significantly and in ways that further highlight the intentions of each. Crudup’s reporter is a dry individual whose interest in Jackie’s story comes only because of the greater interests of his publication’s readers, speaking directly to his subject’s desire to prove his own worth and the fact that JFK would not have had the same effect on the country without her by his side. McGrady in “Spencer” is a much more sympathetic character who sees Diana’s struggle and only wants to help her as much as he can, all too familiar with how very stressful and all-encompassing the needs of the royal family can be. What makes Smit-McPhee’s documentarian so unique is that he exists as an extension of Callas in “Maria,” a way for her to maintain some sort of spotlight and ownership over her story while others try to consider it finished. In this sense, even Callas herself does not fully understand the woman behind the prima donna and her loving audience is largely at fault.

Another element shared between “Spencer” and “Maria” is the use of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII who was beheaded for adultery, incest and treason, although the true nature of these claims is for the less cloudy. In “Spencer”, Diana finds a book about Boleyn left in her room upon her arrival at Sandringham Castle. A warning perhaps about staying in your place, but is it from her in-laws or from Boleyn herself? In “Maria,” Boleyn does not exist 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 for Callas because it was what she played before Onassis first approached her and she had previously sung the role to show past critics who thought her career was over . By connecting the tragedy of Diana and Maria to that of Boleyn, Larraín deepens his dialogue with history, showing that women, especially those in power, have long been slandered and punished for no good reason.

Speaking with Jim Hemphill to a recent interviewLarraín told IndieWire that he never intended to make a trilogy, but that each 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 that I admired all my life and who, I think, changed the history of music, and that is Maria Callas,” he said. Although Larraín recognizes a lack of intention on his part, continuing to move from “ Jackie” to “Spencer” to “Maria,” the filmmaker was clearly constrained by a throughline between the three women, whether it was their similarities or their differences.

Just as “Jackie” opens the door and peeks behind the White House curtain, “Spencer” forces us to feel what it’s like to hold space around those who seethe in our presence , while “Maria” gets rid of judgment and contempt for honor. a once-in-a-generation talent, even when that talent struggles to be useful. The legacy of these women lies not in the books written about them or even the films that attempt to capture and understand them, but in the way they continue to exist as sources of light despite all the odds. darkness they endured.