After scooping up eight Academy Award nominations (and winning Best Adapted Screenplay), papal drama Conclave is back on filmgoers’ lips following the death of Pope Francis on Monday.
Based on the novel by Robert Harris, Edward Berger’s acclaimed film stars Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who’s tasked with overseeing the election of a new pope while politicking runs rampant and a slew of secrets are unearthed.
With a real-life conclave unfolding in the coming weeks, fans may be curious just how true Berger’s film is compared to what really happens inside Vatican City. How accurate is Conclave? We unpack that question below.
Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence in ‘Conclave’. Philippe Antonello/Focus Features
In terms of the actual processes and rituals inherent to the death of a pope and the subsequent conclave, Conclave is accurate in several ways.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly last year, Berger emphasized both the wealth of research made available by Harris, visits to the Vatican, and their on-set consultant, who helped ensure accuracy when it came to Catholic tradition and ritual.
“[The consultant] was next to us every single day,” Berger told EW, specifically noting the rules and traditions that accompany the death of a pope, such as the destruction of their ring and sealing of their room. “I asked him, ‘When the Pope dies, what happens? What’s the ring and how does it look like? How did they chop it off and how do they kneel and what do they pray?'”
Fiennes spoke of his desire to “get the rituals right” in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter. “If you portray any organization, take the military, for example, there’s a way they wear their uniforms and salute. I hate when … it’s not done properly or if it’s messy. For those who are in these spaces, those elements are important.”
A similar fastidiousness was brought to the conclave itself. The film leans into the smallest details, such as the need to sweep the Sistine Chapel for electronic listening devices prior to voting and thread the ballots after counting for preservation.
“The film is generally very well-researched, and its portrayals of the voting portions of the conclave follow the proceedings exactly as described by former participants and Vatican reporters,” reads a piece from America Magazine, a Jesuit publication.
There are some areas, however, where the film deviates from reality, though they’re rather minor. Speaking with the New York Times, Jesuit expert Rev. Thomas J. Reese cited the layout of tables inside the Sistine Chapel, as well as the color of the carpet, to be inaccurate.
The cardinal’s outfits, meanwhile, are modeled more on vintage robes than contemporary ones due to their bolder colors. Similarly, the costumes were designed with accoutrements that distinguish each cardinal by their personality for greater dramatic effect.
Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz) causes a stir when he arrives at the Vatican for the conclave. Focus Features/Courtesy Everett
A key figure in Conclave is Cardinal Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who we learn is a cardinal in pectore, meaning he was appointed in secret by the pope. Since the distinction is a secret known only to the pope, many in pectore cardinals do not even know they’ve been appointed until the pope announces it publicly.
While it’s already a pretty big stretch that Cardinal Benitez would have known of his appointment when others did not, it’s an even bigger one that he would’ve been allowed to vote in the conclave. According to America Magazine, “even cardinals in pectore who do know that they have been appointed do not vote in conclaves.”
Director Edward Berger and Ralph Fiennes on the set of ‘Conclave’. Philippe Antonello/Focus Features
While nothing can quite match the majesty and lived-in history of Vatican City, Berger and his team worked diligently to recreate the Sistine Chapel and the Casa Santa Marta. The former is where the conclave is held, while the latter serves as living quarters for the cardinals while they’re in Vatican City.
While Berger wasn’t allowed to film on-site, his production was situated nearby at Rome’s Cinecittà studios, where he and production designer Suzie Davies found (and restored) an existing Sistine Chapel set in storage.
While it certainly mirrors the real thing, Berger and Davies also sought to use their sets to express the film’s grander themes. The Casa Santa Marta, for example, was designed “to almost feel like an opposing pole to the ecclesiastical, old-fashioned ancient building when it’s something quite monastic, quite cold, quite hermetically sealed to symbolize what Ralph feels inside, being hermetically sealed off from the world,” Berger told EW. “And then the windows open in the end. I wanted it to feel like a liberation; life comes back in, female laughter comes back in, air, winds, noise, sun.”
Other scenes, meanwhile, were shot at historical locations in Rome, including the Palazzo Barberini, an ornate 17th-century palace that now serves as an art gallery.
Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci’s characters are in the conclave’s more progressive wing. Courtesy of Focus Features
Conclave has seen blowback from several prominent Catholics and right-wing firebrands for being “woke” or promoting “progressive” viewpoints, leading many to wonder if real conclaves are as driven by notions of conservatism and liberalism as political elections. That’s certainly the case in Conclave, which creates a great deal of conflict out of the candidates’ statuses as traditionalists, social conservatives, progressives, etc.
In a 2016 interview with the Catholic Herald, Harris spoke about the difference between the Catholic Church and the secular world. “I approached the book with a certain trepidation, because I recognized that if you didn’t — and I am speaking as an outsider obviously — that if you treated the Vatican simply as if it were… a secular organization, you would miss the point.”
Some critics feel as if Conclave, as well-realized and logistically accurate as it is, is more a movie about U.S. politics than about the Church. While human desires and agendas will certainly emerge in any election, some believe Conclave portrays a Church where they eclipse the spiritual element.
William McCormick, a priest and writer, touched on this topic in an essay for the University of Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal, emphasizing that the Church “does not exist to serve any political program.”
“The movie sees something very good in the Church, but ends up betraying what is best about it: the hope for something beyond sin and conflict,” McCormick wrote. “It sees in the Church the possible champion of an earthly ideology, a place where a kind of political vision can triumph. This is bad theology. It mistakes the Church’s social and political implications for a wholly political and social nature.”
He continued, “It is also bad politics. It valorizes a tired political agenda, as though if the right people could just be in charge, things would work out.”
Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) is pictured hitting a vape pen in ‘Conclave’. Courtesy of Focus Features
One of Conclave‘s most memeable moments sees the traditionalist Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) hitting a vape pen, a humorous sight for a vestment-clad holy man.
So, do cardinals vape like the rest of us? David Gibson, Fordham University’s director of the Center on Religion and Culture, told GQ in December that it’s not out of the realm of possibility. “Some of those guys still smoke!” he said. “Not nearly as many as in past years, however, when the College of Cardinals was largely an Italian institution. Vaping is an improvement on the smoke-filled conclaves of centuries past, and I’m not just talking about the incense.”
‘Conclave’ became available to stream on Amazon Prime shortly after Pope Francis’ death was announced. Courtesy of Focus Features
Conclave is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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