CONCLAVE was one of the films that has most surprised me this year, mostly because on paper the film doesn’t look like one I would immediately be drawn to. It was *the* talk of the Toronto International Film Festival, and a movie I have loved to recommend to my friends. Having seen the movie now a second time in preparation for my interview, I love it even more, finding interesting elements in the screenplay I didn’t notice the first time. I already loved the movie, but dare I say it works even more on a rewatch?
Based on Robert Harris’s novel, the film follows Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) as he leads the electoral process for the next pope. Convening cardinals from all over the world to form a conclave, Lawrence witnesses warring factions—conservative vs liberal thinkers—as they battle it out for the majority of votes. Sound familiar?
The film is about so much more than a papal election. It is a mystery/thriller dripping in intrigue. You never know what is coming next in the film, with enough skeletons in characters’ closets to leave you surprised and second-guessing what you thought you knew. So don’t let the Vatican/religious setting lead you to think this film is going to be on the boring side. Its intelligent, gripping screenplay is going to leave you on the edge of your seat more than many other films this year. And the cast! The film has phenomenal performances from Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and many more. And you may just be pleasantly surprised on the role of women in this traditionally patriarchal hierarchy.
I had the amazing opportunity to sit down with director Edward Berger at the Middleburg Film Festival this year. We talked about the gorgeous cinematography and camera movement in the film, what he hopes people get out of second viewings, the surprising role of women in the film, and much more. Definitely make sure you see CONCLAVE this weekend; you won’t regret it.
It’s so wonderful to talk to you. I saw the film at TIFF, and it was one of my biggest surprises. I loved it. And whenever we film critics were walking around and talking about what to see, I always said CONCLAVE. I saw it again because I wanted it to be fresh in my mind for our conversation. And although I already loved it, the second time I saw it, I loved it even more, and I noticed so many different things that I didn’t pick up on the first time. There are elements that I noticed reference some of the surprises in the film. And so I wondered if that’s intentional when you’re making the film. Are you thinking about people’s second viewing and that they’re going to pick up on these hints?
Edward Berger: Oh, 100%. You want to plant little seeds so that even if you don’t notice, I think subliminally that makes the surprise interesting and it doesn’t come out of and you think that’s a stupid twist. You somehow need to plant it a little bit with a sentence, with a little visual, with a little piece of doubt, something like that. Then you forget it and an hour later it pays off. It’s so important. I think movie making is like architecture.
Right, and even the chessboard at the beginning. When I first watched the film, like you said, it was forgettable. I was like, oh, interesting a chessboard. But then watching it back, I was like, oh my gosh. This whole movie is like chess.
Edward Berger: Yes, that’s good! Perfect! That’s what I always thought… you know what this movie is? It’s a game of chess. You need to put the knight there to beat the bishop, and then the king falls. It’s that. It’s a game of chess. Absolutely. And I wanted it to have that feeling of accuracy that a game of chess has. There are rules. You know, you can’t put the knight this way; it can only go one way.
And not to get into spoilers, but even the use of women… women are seen and not heard. But just even in the small moments in the film where Cardinal Benitez was stationed in different places in the world that women are underutilized or underserved…
Edward Berger: Absolutely. It was always an agenda for him or, you know, some kind of fate had put him there. The movie takes place in the oldest patriarchy in the world, in a very archaic structure. Yeah. And and in the end, there’s some kind of crack in that structure, and a light shines through of how the future could look. And that future has a feeling that perhaps the three nuns that walk at the end… there’s a touch of femininity in that. So femininity was really important throughout the film. I mean, the nuns are sort of dressed in blue, and they kind of stick out from all the red, and Isabella [Rossellini] is such an important presence in the movie. She kind of plants that seed throughout the film and that in the end pays off maybe in a different way in terms of that.
And so when you’re watching the first cut of the film, are there ever seeds that you saw were going to give away too much and you had to pull it back a little bit?
Edward Berger: Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s such a fine tuning of elements in terms of… it could be a single shot that you kind of feel… and I don’t know because I’m too close to it. You eventually have to sit with a bunch of your friends or family in the theater, and you measure how they’re reacting. This seems to work. This doesn’t work, and so forth… or this gets boring. When suddenly there’s a scene that gets boring by like 20 seconds, it’s too long. The next 5 minutes are sort of bad. The people are out of it, or this idea is too obvious or with many of our twists, I didn’t have that plant somewhere. I didn’t have that seed earlier, and then they came too sudden. You just really need it. It’s a fine balance of planting it but not too obviously. I want you to only understand it on the second viewing. If you saw it on the first viewing, it would be ruined.
I think that’s what is so beautiful about the film too is that you don’t know that there are going to be surprises, elements that are going to make you think a little bit more. And I think that’s what is so beautiful.
Edward Berger: Right. And I wanted I wanted that that element of the film. You know, it’s just one character of the movie. Obviously, an important character. But every character, be it John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, Sergio Castellitto, they all have their surprises; their past that comes back to haunt them, as does Benitez. It’s just another surprise among many surprises. Every character brings their past. If you’re going for that top job, the past needs to be pretty immaculate.
And I think that’s a good segue into my next question. Of course, when I’m watching the film, I’m thinking…since we’re almost at the our own election here in the U.S., I see the parallels between the papal election and what we’re facing here. So was that always in the back of your mind? And not even just the U.S. election, I mean political elections writ large and this push and pull between conservative and liberal ideology.
Edward Berger: We started the movie… Tessa bought the rights, I think, 8 years ago, and I started maybe 6 years ago. So there was no way of knowing when the movie was going to be bought, when it was going to be financed, cast, and released. So that is coincidentally during a presidential election is pure chance. But we obviously made the film because it is political, and it doesn’t matter that it takes place in the Vatican. It’s an interesting setting for me, but what attracted me is the politicalness of it. That it could make sort of a peculiar movie like Parallax View, a conspiracy thriller from the seventies. And we live in similar times of where people don’t trust each other, and they feel observed, and there’s so many opposing forces, and everyone fights each other and no one really talks to each other. It felt right for a movie of that type to be made again. And so it could take place in Washington. It could take place in any in any organization that has a big CEO job. That woman or guy is gone; the top person is gone. And suddenly there’s going to be 7 people that are going take off their knives to get that job.
I thought that the film was also one of the most beautifully shot of the year, not only in the cinematography, but in the setting. And so I’m really interested in how you were able to find some of these locations that looked like you guys were actually in the Vatican. Was that difficult to find?
Edward Berger: It was very difficult because the Vatican obviously doesn’t let you shoot there. There’s no cooperation there. You don’t want it because you want to be independent. So you need to recreate it. And we knew the Sistine Chapel was going to be part of that because that’s where they [convene], so you need to build that. And because that was ecclesiastical, I felt that the building where they live, the Casa Santa Marta, has to feel sort of the opposite. I didn’t want another old, ecclesiastical building, but I wanted something that felt like almost like a prison.
Sterile.
Edward Berger: Yes, sterile, a prison, austere. When the doors close, it sucks all the air out of the room, and it’s suddenly silent, and all you hear is the fluorescent light humming. So by the end… I mean, it’s called the conflict. People lock themselves away. They lock themselves up in a prison to vote and it has to feel claustrophobic and oppressive. So what’s really important to me is the ending when everything’s done, that Ralph… when the shutters go back up that there is this feeling of relief. And if you want to feel that, you need to really make it dark before. That is a really important ending in terms of Ralph’s arc. Suddenly, there is air coming in, sound coming in, women’s laughter. The last shot is three nuns in white, the color of innocence.
Oh wow! I could talk about this movie forever. Um, so another element that I loved is your use of the camera. I really liked the camera movements and how they, at times, make you feel like a fly on the wall. And some of the longer takes, I was thinking about all of the moving parts and all of the actors. What was the rehearsal process like? And did you guys have a lot of time to rehearse?
Edward Berger: I rehearsed a little bit before shooting, but it’s mainly conversations… and maybe some scenes that I’m a little bit scared of. For example, the scene when they’re all praying around the dead pope’s bed, I wanted the actors to know where they were going be sitting so I don’t have to discuss it on the day. Many shots, a long day, you want to get certain things out of the way, or to discover things. “Oh, the the way I imagined this doesn’t work. We need to kind of change it.” But mostly a rehearsal looks like I’m going with Ralph to a restaurant and we leaf through the script and talk about the scene and see what I want from the scene and what he wants from the scene. We agree on a sort of road map so that he knows what I’m going to do.
And then on the day, I really planned the camera. I spent 6 to 8 weeks with the cameraman, sort of shot-listing and storyboarding. But then I kind of put it away. And as I look at Rafe and Stanley, and they play it… oh! Ah! I think we need another shot here. Rafe plays it this way, so it needs to be a bit closer or really far away. Sort of that feeling of the camera follows what the actors are doing. I have a plan, and very often I use 50, 80, 70%, a 100% of that plan, but sometimes I don’t at all. I don’t want to waste too much energy really rehearsing a scene. It’s a rough technical… where do they stand, how do they turn, when does somebody walk away, things like that. And then you just shoot it. And we didn’t have much time. It’s not like we had weeks and weeks of shooting. It’s like 40 days of shooting. It goes by very quickly.
So it sounds like you were flexible on set.
Edward Berger: Oh you need to be because if you stick to a rigid plan, then I think things become very sterile. Mhmm. And you just feel that people aren’t free. The actors need to feel like things come from them rather than from the camera.
Well, again, I could talk to you about this movie for days. I’m already excited for the Blu-ray. Hopefully, we’ll get a director’s commentary or something.
Edward Berger: I did one! I just talked for two hours over it.
I cannot wait!