Film Review and Interview with ‘Conclave’ Producer Michael Jackman

Timeless and “of its time” are not often joined descriptors of a single film. Unless that film is a masterfully woven intersection of the stoic, ritualistic ceremony of a pivotal, world changing moment within the Catholic church played out through the real life faults and foibles of the men under those vestments who make the decision of who is going to be the next pope to guide the flock through a turbulent world’s present day.

I sat down with one of the key producers of the film Conclave, Michael Jackman, to discuss the difficulties and delights of making a film that not only will be on many top ten films lists of this year, but easily will secure its place as a classic to be revisited again and again for years to come.

The story to be told

A pope dies. A process begins. A process hundreds of years old, each step set in stone, as it were. But as the man in charge takes up his solemn task he quickly realizes his footing isn’t certain, his path obstructed by doubts and suspicions. And thus begins the journey of Conclave, one of unexpected twists and turns of plot and circumstance that make riveting cinema as it unfolds. 

Within the space between a dead pope and a new one, behind the secretive doors of the Vatican, while the world outside explodes with turmoil, the world inside boils within its own pressure cooker intrigues, potential enough to upset everything and everyone. This is not a Catholic film so much as a human film, with all our doubts, faults, and fears laid bare when fate calls us to decide our future. If you know nothing about Catholicism, you will still enjoy this film. If you know anything about being human you will feel this film deeply. 

The secrets and surprising reveals are to be reveled in as they unfold on the screen, so this article will leave them to be discovered by the audience the way it was intended by the visionary filmmakers gathered together to make this masterpiece.

Vision through a lens of particular

Producer Michael Jackman cites the key persons responsible for coalescing the elements at the core vision of this film. “[Director] Edward Berger and [producer] Tessa Ross were the creative hearts of this. Tessa optioned the book from Robert Harris. She commissioned the screenplay from Peter Straughan. She brought Edward and Ralph [Fiennes] into the project. And then Edward had a very clear and strong vision of what he wanted to do, how he wanted to do it, how he wanted to proceed, the things that he felt were important, everything from the breaths to the corridors, to the kind of performances he wanted. And he was also very clear on set what worked and what didn't work and knew when we got a shot and when we needed to work on something some more. And I think everyone just respected that ultimately.”

Casting the cream of the crop

This film stands firmly on the shoulders of an incredibly strong cadre of actors, and a large cadre at that. It is amazing that such a group could be assembled at all. I asked Jackman how the cast came to be and what difficulties were faced bringing them together.

“The characters are so interesting and they’ve all got great definition that I think, from the very beginning, once Ralph was that anchor, the question was who can you put around him that will be up to the task. I’ve been a part of the film for maybe two and a half years and it was always, Ralph, John [Lithgow], Stanley [Tucci] and Isabella [Rossellini]. And all three of them, besides Ralph, fell out and got back in at various times during prep. And so we were like, OK, who do we recast instead of John? Who do we cast instead of Stanley? Sergio Castellitto was most difficult to cast. We always had him in mind for a long time, but he was also doing a play all over Europe. So his dates were difficult. But he was not. He was, again, a doll. Luckily it all came together to get that cast that we originally intended.”

And as for wrangling such huge stars, “You know what, wrangling was not hard. They were all lovely, professional, just nice, collaborative partners. There was really not a lot of stress. You want to put them all up in a nice place where they're comfortable, where they have the things they need. But they were all just lovely to work with and manage.”

The actors had plenty to play with on the page. Every character is richly endowed with complexity, nuance and contradiction, enough for them to be the protagonist of their own story, which plays well into the plot twists and surprises as the movie unfolds. So every actor cast had to be able to carry a great weight. Luckily they succeed to every degree.

Even when the roles, necessarily, were less the focus of the storyline the casting was perfect. Being the story it is, set where it is, of course, the film fails the Bechdel-Wallace test. The one significant female speaking role is Sister Agnes in charge of the nuns who attend the cardinals’ needs behind the cloister. Isabella Rossellini plays her perfectly and dutifully succinctly. In the film, she describes the nuns’ duty to be invisible and silent. But when she rises to the necessity of violating that protocol, with respectful dissonance, using few words she commands attention and highlights not only the restrictive place of women’s role within the Catholic church but also their importance. Brief but brilliantly executed acting.

The rest of the cast are no slouches either. They range from well-established, journeyman actors like, “Lucian Msamati, who's a wonderful actor. He's just terrific,” to an incredible new face in his first feature role who brings in a mesmerizing performance, Carlos Diehz.

Jackman recounts the challenge of finding him. “And then Carlos. We had done a worldwide casting call for someone who could have the look, but also could emotionally [and] internally identify with the character. And that was not easy to find. He was the one. And Ralph, who had a lot of scenes with him, was so kind and giving and collaborative, He gave Carlos the room to find a voice. I was very impressed.” And you will be too when you watch the film.

Structural bones seamlessly fit together

One of the most difficult parts of any film is making the perfect locations you find and secure to film in look like they fit together seamlessly when you edit the scenes together. I noted that because no one is allowed to film in the actual Vatican. A cobbling together of disparate locations and pulling off making them seamlessly look like the same place is a considerable hurdle handled amazingly in this film. 

Jackman responded, “Well, I'm really glad you feel that way. Edward and Susie Davies, our production designer, were very, very focused on making sure that as you move from space to space, there was something to connect them. They felt like they were of one piece even though they were in 20 different locations around Rome and on the stage. And it's interesting because they don't all feel the same. Some of them feel older, some of them feel newer, but they connect.

“The only actual Vatican room that we recreated was the Sistine Chapel. So we built that as one does, which was 45 feet high on the sides and maybe 60 in front and back. And then a CG ceiling that we filled in, but we had the full-size room so they could sit in there. Everything felt real. They were surrounded by the walls. We had the frescoes up in the front and back, there's a little balcony and there's a big doorway and we had all of that. So that when they filed in, they felt that structure around them. That was very important.

“In terms of the rest of it, we took inspiration from images that we had seen of the Casa Santa Marta, which is where the popes live and where cardinals stay and the dining room. But it was a pretty long search for each of those individual locations. And we went down towards Naples to Caserta to do the scenes that happened in the big stairwells going down and the big corridors. And that was a beautiful location. That was like a day away from Rome. That was an overnight for us to shoot two days there. We started there. So that was interesting and fun to start there.

“The hardest thing to find were the hallways and rooms that they all lived in because a lot of action was placed in and around those hallways and elevator. We looked everywhere. We looked and looked and looked. Edward had a very clear vision of what he wanted. He wanted marble. He wanted length. He wanted a width. He wanted the rooms to feel opulent but not fancy, a little bit austere but still like the feel of the wealth of the papacy but not especially given this particular Pope who was not very pretentious in our story. And we wound up building it.

“Interestingly, the Sistine Chapel set when I saw it laid out was set in the middle of this huge stage in Italy. I'm looking at it and I go over to the construction. I'm like, push this as far in the corner as you can because I think we're going to need the other room just in case. And then we wound up having the room to build it without getting another stage because we're always fighting [with budget]. It was not inexpensive to build.”

One of the reasons these disparate locations connect so well within the film is the expert use of invisible visual effects. Jackman’s previous experience as executive in charge of post-production served well in the preparation for filling in with connective tissue. “There's a saying, post-production begins in pre-production. So if you're doing it right, your eyes are towards the end game so that you don't set yourself up to have to do something strange or do weird maneuvers or not have a good transition to something. So it's really just being aware of, you know, the Sistine Chapel, what is it going to look like? How's it going to feel? Building it to size so it feels right to the actors and everything looks correct. We want to use this scene with this shot, but the background's wrong. What are we going to do with that? And then say, OK, we'll shoot this background plate. So here's the background we want for here, we're at this location, we'll shoot it, we will then later on put it behind the scene so that it's very clear, again, that connectivity. So I think it's a connectivity that was a lot of it. Outside of the Sistine Chapel and what happens in there, most of the rest of it was just connecting the dots of location.”

The results on screen look glorious due to the clear intent in direction of Berger and his Director of Photography Stéphane Fontaine, afc. Every frame would fit in right at home hanging on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. The costumes and set dressings look properly pomp but also livable, working units.

Musical emotion and breaths

Berger’s controlling hands not only guided the entire look but also the sounds he wanted from the film. He worked again with his Oscar-winning composer from All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) Volker Bertelmann to craft a stellar score that was uniquely integrated into the emotional bones of the piece.

“Volker Bertelmann was talking to Edward all along the way. They were also spending time together because we were prepping and shooting Conclave while Edward was running around and getting an Academy Award for All Quiet. But they were talking as we were shooting. Very early on we sent Volker cuts, but he started feeding ideas to Edward very early.

“And before we finished shooting we started getting some conceptual ideas. That really evolved as we did the music. We evolved the cut. We all felt the benefit of that music at certain moments because the themes aren't super-leading or heavy-handed in terms of emotional [intensity]. I mean, some of them can be loud, some of them can be intense, but a lot of it is rhythmic. But it does feed the foundation of a scene sometimes, it gives you a nice bed. We all looked to add more music as we went along because of how it was impacting and elevating.

“Then to me, the other music of the movie, if you will, is the breathing, which Edward had always intended. It was part of his vision in the very beginning of how that would be part of the soundtrack of the movie. And so there's moments where you have the breathing and a little bit of music, and it just creates this tension. But I think the propulsive nature of the score is one of finding focus. Besides being a lovely person, he is so talented. So committed.”

Big Shoes to fill and timelessness

Although Jackman couldn’t recall any actual discussion about it during production, the cinephile in me while watching couldn’t help but find reflections of another classic movie set during a Catholic Church conclave, The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968). Both films handled the subject matter in a deft manner and with similar approaches, large stellar casts, even using the same studio in Italy for their sets. Both are timeless classics that reflect the political moments of their times.

Reflecting on the timely political angle, Jackman had these observations, “Part of what I found so interesting was when something is so well written, both the screenplay and the book, there's a timelessness of the themes that you get. And the fact that this is resonating so much with current politics in the world, current American politics, and people - I've been to screenings where people laugh at moments that feel like we're referencing Trump or referencing Kamala, or referencing Putin, or whatever we're referencing. We're not specifically meant to reference those things. But there is a timelessness of power and politics and religion. And those internal struggles that happen in any power struggle, good versus bad, liberal versus conservative, whatever you think is right versus whatever they think is right. I think that comes through and that way, we'll hopefully feel as timeless as Shoes of the Fisherman has that same sense. I feel like this will also feel relevant whenever you watch it.”

“The Italy of it all”

My final question to Michael Jackman was what was his most memorable takeaway of the experience.

“I think the interesting and fun stuff was just the Italy of it all. I mean, Sergio Castellitto is a huge, huge star in Italy. I mean, [a] real movie star. All the cafeteria scenes and dining room scenes were done on this military base to give us the right feeling. And our base camp where all the trailers were was down a hill. It'd be very simple to walk straight down the hill. But there was a parking lot with some military vehicles and the military decided, yeah, you can't go in there. So they had like eight guards stationed all the time to make us walk around. And so I had done this a few times, and I'm walking with Sergio to his trailer just chatting. And we get to that point, I'm like, ‘No, no, we have to go around.’ He goes, ‘No, no, no, it's OK.’ And he walks to them. And as soon as they see him, they part like the Red Sea. We walk through this little parking area and he goes, ‘I played a general once.’ So very funny, very charming.

“The other thing that was very interesting about Italy was we all had to learn that ‘No, is impossible,’ means maybe. And generally, if we asked three or four times that no became a yes. And we were told that that must be the American thing because in Italy, they have to ask five or six times.”

And my imagination was left thinking sometime in the future someone will shoot a film about the Vatican with Sergio in the cast. I can just picture the producer being allowed into the usually forbidden hallowed halls walking with Sergio saying, “I played a cardinal once.” The Italy of it all indeed.

Conclave releases only in Theaters on October 25, 2024.