Pablo Larraín practically sings when he talks about music. He was listening to John Coltrane on his walk over to the Beverly Hills Four Seasons to chat with The Envelope — he’s on a Coltrane kick — and lately he’s also been enjoying French prog-rock band Magma, opera singer Jessye Norman and some new interpretations of various classical masterworks.

He picks up his AirPods case and says: “This is the most important weapon that I have.”

The Chilean director of “Maria,” which stars Angelina Jolie as opera singer Maria Callas, is clearly a well-versed lover of cinema — but he says he wouldn’t actually consider himself a true cinephile.

“I think I know more about music than movies,” he says. “It’s my life. Music, for me, is the most beautiful and poetic expression that humans have created. I have this fascination toward the exercise of music as the ultimate poetic act.”

This was, in part, what drew him to making a prismatic study of Callas. His previous two films in English, “Jackie” and “Spencer,” similarly explored female icons of the 20th century, both also meditations on grief and the isolation of fame. Those films too were enlivened by music, in the idiosyncratic and remarkable scores by Mica Levi and Jonny Greenwood, respectively.

But Larraín made music — specifically opera — both the text and subtext of his third caged-bird portrait. With a screenplay by Steven Knight (who also wrote “Spencer”), “Maria” trains a spotlight on the final “cycle” of the singer’s troubled life: her last week before she died in 1977. Flashbacks and montages of her girlhood and celebrity prime reveal fragments of her biography, but the movie mostly sifts through the singer’s insomniac and at times hallucinogenic hours wandering her palatial apartment and the streets of Paris to probe the mystery of Callas.

The film tries to take us as close as possible to the diva — Larraín literally shot much of it, operating the camera himself, within a foot or two of Jolie’s face — and inside her mind.

“One of the things that I love about movies, that I think we can do,” he says, “is to show someone’s relationship with reality.” In any given moment of our day, Larraín elaborates, we might be in the middle of a conversation with someone, but any stimuli around us might trigger an emotional memory of our mother, or our kids, or an event from our past.

“Our perception with reality is so fabulous,” says the director, 48, who still lives in Chile with his two teenage children.

Larraín read nine books about Callas, watched every documentary and interview he could find, and after all of that “I had no idea who she was,” he admits. “It’s an enormous amount of mystery — and I’m so drawn to that.”

Choosing her final week, “just one brick of that huge wall of life,” was an attempt to “experience her work,” he says, “and look at her ghost, and try to understand certain things. But mostly it’s not a rational experience. It’s around something that is about to vanish. It’s an exercise of human poetry.”

Which is where music became all-important. As Callas glides from a conversation with her butler to an interview with an imaginary journalist to strained rehearsals with a patient pianist, the music of her past invades the narrative — sometimes in visually fantastical ways.

In one scene, Callas is walking past a theater and an orchestra materializes in the rain — and suddenly she’s in a scene from the second act of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” Passersby become the humming choir from the scene in that opera where the main character, Cio-Cio-San, is longingly waiting for her American captain to return to Japan.

In the opera, “She’s trying to sleep,” Larraín explains. “So the people, the choir, come together to sing this very peaceful music for her to sleep — but she can’t.”

Every aria or opera selection was made with dramatic intention; Larraín says the soundtrack is “the hidden map” of the movie.

At another point in the film, Callas attempts to sing “O Mio Babbino Caro” — translated “Oh, My Dear Father,” from Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” — during a rehearsal. Callas “had a very particular relationship with her father, who was an absent figure in her life,” says Larraín. “And in that moment, when she tries to see the state of her voice, she chooses to think about her father.”

Originally, the director planned to include subtitles so the audience could understand this illuminating map, “but then it became such a rational exercise,” he says. “It was so distracting to read the subtitles — it was just taking all the emotion out. And opera is about an emotional transit.”

He’s counting on the audience to have a more “subliminal perception, that maybe music would transmit that without the words.”

While making the film, he often thought about conductor Tullio Serafin’s advice to Callas in case she ever lost track of where her character was in the story, emotionally or dramatically, while onstage: “Just follow the music.”

“I took that as a mantra,” Larraín says, “for the film, and for her.”

“People make up their past, they remember what they want, they forget the rest.”

So says Timothée Chalamet, who plays Bob Dylan in the brilliant new film, A Complete Unknown, in a tense confrontation with Elle Fanning, who plays Sylvie Russo, a character based on Dylan’s on-and-off NYC girlfriend Suze Rotolo, as she prods him to share more about his mysterious past. Of course, he doesn’t, setting the stage for the enduring mystery of perhaps the greatest singer-songwriter of all time, a puzzle that continues to intrigue us.

I was fortunate to attend an advance screening of the movie over the weekend, and I can assure you, the buzz around this film is real. A Complete Unknown deserves all the accolades you’ve been hearing – including three Golden Globe nominations and Oscar talk for Chalamet, as well as for Edward Norton, who plays a perfect Pete Seeger. At the screening, the sold-out Newport audience widely applauded the film as the closing credits rolled; no one yelled “Judas” and no boos were audible.

The film, which should appeal to a wide audience given Chalamet’s youthful charm, opens Christmas Day across the country and begins an extensive run at Newport’s Jane Pickens Theatre on December 26. Advance tickets are available here.

Unlike some other great music biopics (Walk the Line, Bohemian Rhapsody, Coal Miner’s Daughter), A Complete Unknown covers a comparatively brief period in Dylan’s life, from his arrival and rise to fame in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1961, to that divisive moment when he “went electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, a cultural moment as important as Elvis on Ed Sullivan or The Beatles landing at JFK.

Chalamet is extraordinary playing the well-known singer, but still manages to build out his own character, much like Joachin Phoenix did in his Johnny Cash interpretation in I Walk the Line. And that’s not easy – Dylan is quirky and not easy to mimic. In interviews, Chalamet has said that he had several years to learn Dylan’s mannerisms, mirroring his vocals and acquiring his distinct guitar strumming patterns. He sings all the songs in the film, very close to the original recordings. And it works – Dylan himself recently approved the performance in a widely shared tweet.

Director James Mangold boldly re-creates Greenwich Village in the early 60s, with all the spirited grit and grime of the time, in street scenes and tightly packed basement nightclubs where folk music ruled the day. The story is compelling, the music is authentic, and the acting is outstanding all-around, with love interests Elle Fanning (Sylvie Russo) and Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez) brilliant in their supporting roles.

Mangold doesn’t over-mythologize Dylan, and the film doesn’t shy away from the singer’s darker side, his often rude treatment of those close to him, especially women, and his nasty eye rolls directed toward his mentor, folk legend Pete Seeger. Bob Dylan – always an enigma, kind of a bully, and occasionally “an asshole” as Barbaro, playing Baez, tells him.

Of course, the film plays fast and loose with many facts; Rolling Stone magazine spotted over two dozen places where the film veers from the known historical record, but let’s remember that this a work of historical fiction, not a documentary. It’s closer to the spirit of the truth than anything else I’ve seen about Dylan, including interviews with the bard, who is known for his reticence and occasional deception. The story closely mirrors that period in his life, and the spirit of the narrative is certainly one version of the truth. 

Meanwhile, here on Aquidneck Island, where Dylan and his like stormed the Bastille at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he’s not so unknown. His spirit is ever present at the Festival, where he appeared from 1963-1965 and again in 2002, sporting a strange wig that still has fans guessing. The “City by the Sea,” along with Greenwich Village, serve almost as co-stars in the film, with frequent Newport references and numerous scenes from the festival grounds and the Viking Hotel. (Note: those scenes were filmed mainly in New Jersey.)

As far as getting to know Dylan’s motivations a little better through the film, that ain’t happening. Chalamet plays him close to the chest, as elusive as ever. When I interviewed longtime Festival producer George Wein in 2015, he told me that Dylan, like Miles Davis in the jazz world, intentionally curated a certain persona, centered around an air of mystery. “Both were always concerned with not doing what you expected of them … throughout their life,” said Wein. “Dylan, his last album, nobody would ever dream he would do an album of Tin Pan Alley ballads.”

The film echoes Wein’s remarks. Dylan was never afraid to take the initiative, from visiting Woody Guthrie in the hospital when he arrived in New York to choosing an electric guitar at Newport in ’65. Sure, he was influenced by the people around him, but he was always his own boss, rarely submitting to the will of others. He did things his way, and continues to do so, like it or not. Perhaps that’s part of the reason he’s such the icon he has become today. Indeed, “If you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying.”

Click here for more information on A Complete Unknown.

Over a long career, and especially during his recent resurgence on “Only Murders in the Building,” Martin Short has pressured to a perfect diamond the Martin Short Thing, which is: saying very mean and petty things in a way that is both hilarious and somehow endearing. It’s his thing and maybe nobody except Don Rickles got away with it for so long.

For “Saturday Night Live,” which Short guest-hosted for the fifth time (cue Five-Timers’ cold open), it’s a perfect fit. With the comic actor’s manic energy, perfect delivery of cutting lines, and ability to still dance and sing at 74 made his monologue and sketch appearances pretty much flawless, though he was a little light in the show.

That was partly because a raft of celebrities (though not his co-stars Selena Gomez and Steve Martin, though they were mentioned, or rumored romantic partner Meryl Streep) filled up parts in lots of sketches and dominated the cold open. They included Tom Hanks, Paul Rudd, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Emma Stone and Scarlett Johansson, who provided live reaction to jokes about her from a particularly brutal “Weekend Update” joke swap between Michael Che and her husband, Colin Jost.

Short scored as an aggressive Delta lounge employee in a sketch about a Christmas parade that takes place at an airport gate, an angry mall parking lot driver, and a demanding director of the “Charlie Brown Christmas” pageant. But he was absent in the episode’s pre-taped piece, “An Act of Kindness,” about a homeless man (Kenan Thompson) helped by a gullible woman (Heidi Gardner), and a sequel to the Nate Bargatze “Sábado Gigante” sketch — with Marcello Hernández as host Don Francisco — that featured Rudd and an appearance from Dana Carvey.

The crowded episode didn’t give Short much opportunity to bring back classic characters or to break new ground, but it didn’t matter much because the show overall had strong sketches and when Short was deployed, he nailed every moment.

Musical guest Hozier performed “Too Sweet” and a cover of The Pogues’s “Fairytale of New York.”

If you’re an “SNL” completist and faithful fan, the best piece of the entire show for you may have been the cold open, which features a huge number of past guest hosts who’ve done the task five or more times. Hanks, who will narrate NBC’s documentary series “The Americas” in February, kicked off the sketch with Rudd welcoming Short into the Five-Timers Club, who responded, “What a surprise that I’ve known about all week.” Fey, Baldwin, Stone, Melissa McCarthy, Johansson, Kristen Wiig, John Mulaney and even Jimmy Fallon all got to tell a joke or two each, the best perhaps being when each made a confession. “Ant-Man’s powers aren’t good,” Rudd admitted. “It’s me that’s flying those drones. All of them,” Fey revealed. “I never had COVID,” Hanks shared. When Short received his Five Timers’ jacket, sized women’s small, he did some physical comedy making it impossible to put the garment on properly before saying, “From the bottom of my heart: I love most of you so much.”

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Short started his monologue with some one-liners, suggesting that he’d be playing an elf in 10 sketches and joking that his Uber driver, Matt Gaetz, was waiting outside before discussing his long friendship with “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels. “We’re kind of like (President-elect) Trump and Elon Musk, without the sexual tension.” When cast member Sarah Sherman appeared onstage to ask for some holiday cheer to get her out of her funk, Short launched into a song that sent him on a journey through the studio, throwing a kid off Santa’s lap, taking shots at actor Armie Hammer and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before encountering Michaels and Fallon. “I didn’t know Jack Daniels made cologne,” Short quipped before planting a big kiss on Fallon. Once Short was gone, Fallon said, “You never kiss me like that anymore,” to a nonplussed Michaels. It was a high-energy performance not unlike Maya Rudolph’s “Mother” monologue from earlier this year.

Best sketch of the night: Like celebrity cameos? Here’s more

Returning from last year’s Thanksgiving parade sketch at Newark Liberty International, two TSA agents, Umberto and Chartreuse Hamilton (Bowen Yang and Ego Nwodim), host a TV Christmas special this time around with an array of characters. They include Rudd as himself trying to get into the Delta Lounge (Short spits water in his face), McCarthy as a gate attendant mispronouncing names such as Gina Sowdry, Wiig as a passenger riding a motorized suitcase, and Hanks reprising his role as Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the famous US Airways pilot who was the subject of a movie. The sketch overall is a scattershot assortment of jokes, but the enthusiasm and star power go a long way with this one.

Also good: Melissa McCarthy did what to your car?

Like the airport sketch, this was also a new edition of a prior sketch from last year, the traffic altercation featuring Quinta Brunson. As in the previous one, Mikey Day and Chloe Fineman play a father and daughter who get into an argument with a driver in another car that includes lots of hand signals and body language to express what they’re trying to say. In this situation, Short is a driver competing for the same parking spot as them at a mall on Christmas Eve. All three comics do a fine job physically expressing phrases such as “bull crap” and “super Christian,” but the sketch goes to a whole other level when McCarthy shows up as Short’s wife, banging on the family’s car window and threatening to eat the dad’s face with her own face. That would be a fine cap to a sketch, but McCarthy then spits coffee on the window and does something to the window with her body that may never have been shown before on broadcast television. In an episode stuffed with huge stars, leave it to McCarthy to give the show its most GIFable and potentially viral moment.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: Two men owe Scarlett Johansson a huge apology

On any other week, Bowen Yang’s portrayal of a New Jersey drone would have easily walked away as the best thing on “Update,” a comedy bit full of great jokes that concluded with a “Wicked” song parody. But this wasn’t just any week: It was time for Che and Jost’s annual joke swap, in which each writes awful, offensive jokes that the other must read out loud. Jost’s jokes for Che included jokes about awful sex, insinuations that Che supports Sean “Diddy” Combs, and a truly gross joke about Disney’s Moana. But it was Jost who was more thoroughly roasted when he was forced to deliver jokes in a “Black voice,” starting with one about white reparations and Kamala Harris, and moving on to a series of jokes about Johansson, who was shown backstage watching “Update” on a monitor. The jokes included one about Jost leaving Johansson because she just turned 40 and a truly awful joke about her genitals. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed backstage, apparently unable to believe what came out of her husband’s mouth. The high-wire act of keeping the segment going with the subject’s live reactions elevated what has become a truly offensive, yet compelling annual tradition to see how far and how low “Update” will go. The answer? There appears to be no bottom.