Conclave is a film by Academy Award Winner Edward Berger that explores a crisis of faith in an age with fewer believers. What is the role of religion in the present day, and can it be reformed to be more in step with modern times? Set in the context of picking a new pope, the story plays out like a thriller.
Filmed in Rome, mostly at the historic Cinecetta Studios with various stunning locations and meticulously built sets that contrasts the gaudiness of the church with the secluded quarters of its subjects. This weighty film was a hit at the box office and has recently been nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Production Design by the amazing Suzie Davies. Davies recently spoke to Immersive via Zoom.
[This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.]
How did you get involved with Conclave?
I met Edward Berger in 2020 and worked with him briefly on a project that didn’t take off. He reached out again when he was starting Conclave. I think this film had been hanging around for a while. It nearly got going a couple of times. I just happened to be free at the right time. When you get sent a script that’s as good as this with this director, and you’ll need to be in Rome for six months, you say yeah, I can do that.
What was it like working at Cinecitta Studios?
Cinecitta Studios was extraordinary. Just driving through the gates every morning was exciting because you can feel the life force of Federico Fellini and get influenced by it.
Religion and faith are big themes in Conclave… are you a religious person?
I’m not religious but I love churches. There’s something powerful about big halls, which is ultimately what churches are. I like choirs too.
What was your approach to this film? And how was it different from other projects?
My job at the beginning of a movie as a designer is to hone in on what the storyteller wants to say and how they want to say it. I try to be the director’s biggest champion. I try and understand their point of view and let everything, all my ideas spring off from wherever they are.
The great thing about Edward is that he’s very visual and adept at explaining what he wants to achieve. I knew that he wanted this papal movie in a more contemporary light. He wanted it to be more of a thriller than a movie about popes.
The finished film feels very contemporary…
We often think cardinals should be seen in churches and cathedrals but ultimately they’re people like you and me. We want to see them eating on their phones, smoking vapes, and drinking coffee. So throughout the process of prep, it became apparent that I could build a bit of a world that brought that juxtaposition together and balanced us out.
So we’ve got the beautiful Sistine Chapel, Cloisters, and a modern brutal prison-like guest house. That was sort of like a thread from Edward for the production. We sort of sucked color out of the film, apart from our color highlights.
You brought up a few fascinating points there. When I think of Conclave, I think of the color red.
It’s such a great color to use in film. It’s got so many different meanings and you can play with it and so many ways to play with it. It starts really with Lisy Christl and her choice of red for the Cardinal’s robes. I’m so glad she fought for that particular red it has a powerful color.
We did our due diligence and researched what a Conclave does. In reality, there’s a certain amount of tradition. We know that they would put a beige carpet on the floor of the Sistine Chapel. Beige isn’t in our world. I put a red one down. So you have that red on red on red, which is an interesting take on the world. It adds to the perhaps suspense and the uncomfortable feeling of what’s going on and heightens the whole sequence.
The religious spaces and the big meeting halls were just massive but there was something so claustrophobic about their personal rooms. Let’s discuss that…
I wanted absolute opposites. So we’ve got these big palatial spaces on location that we use some of which are not as large as they seem… It was really interesting to play with those colder surfaces and the harsher environments. The starker I went the more interesting it became, especially when then you put the characters in their rooms. It was interesting to see these men isolated in their decision-making.
I thought it was fascinating how much of the film was about decision-making. One of my favorite scenes is when they’re on the steps, the steps were pretty amazing. It’s like the production’s almost the character of the movie. Talk a little bit about like, those steps.
We were really lucky. There are elements of Rome that we had access and the choices were immense. Our Vatican City was a jigsaw of locations and build was really interesting. We went scouting with DP Stéphane Fontaine, and Edward and we found so many great places. It was a case of enhancing those rather than doing anything necessarily to them from an art department point of view.
What were some of the challenges in this film?
I wanted to build the Casa Santa Marta because we tried to find that on location. I knew what I wanted it to look like so we ended up building it and that was not easy. It’s always the same challenge about finding the sweet spot between ambition, time, and money.
Any particular favorites of all the stuff that you created and/or found?
I loved the Casa Santa Marta. Its function was very useful. We didn’t have a lot of space and not much money. It had the longest corridor we could afford. Only one room, but it’s on trucks flat, so they squeeze in and out to create slightly different environments depending on whose room we’re in. I love how well it worked on camera. There’s not much ornamentation on it, it’s pretty simple but the simplicity really worked. The balance between the ornate, beautiful balustrades of the church and then this brutal underground bunker, a hermetically sealed prison was perfect.
What has this ride been like? A very celebrated project that has been nominated for multiple awards…
I love making movies and I’ve really enjoyed the ride on this. To have this come to life in the way it has and to be so well received is fantastic. I think Edward’s an amazing filmmaker, he finds that zeitgeist with every movie he makes. I think it’s just dropped at the right time, it’s really unexpected. It’s a wordy, interesting movie that could be set at any time.
Conclave is available to stream and is playing at select theaters.
