Interview: ‘Conclave’ Director Edward Berger on Recreating the Vatican, Religious Doubt and Having an Open Discussion with the Church

One of the biggest surprises of the 2022 film season was the massive success of All Quiet on the Western Front, the Netflix adaptation of the 1929 novel adapted into the 1930 Best Picture-winning film. Hailed as one of the best films of the year, All Quiet slowly gained momentum after a relatively inauspicious debut at the Toronto International Film Festival (at least by Netflix standards), captivating audiences and voters across the world, earning fourteen BAFTA nominations with seven wins, as well as nine Oscar nominations and winning four categories that included Best International Feature Film, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design. Spreading the good word about his film throughout the season, leading all the way up to Oscar night, was the film’s director Edward Berger.

Berger, a German director who up till All Quiet had been at the helm of television shows and mini-series like The Terror, Patrick Melrose, and Your Honor, with smaller films from his home country under his belt like Jack and All My Loving, both of which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2014 and 2019 respectfully. I met Berger back at the Middleburg Film Festival following a screening of the film, and while this was the biggest undertaking of his career so far, he was just immensely proud to talk about such an important film based on a book that meant so much to not just his childhood, but the homeland he proudly loves. He, along with the rest of us, never saw All Quiet taking off the way it did, but it was lucky for him that it did, because as I learned in my new interview with the director for his latest film, Conclave, he already had the next project lined up and ready to start shooting the minute the champagne ran out on Hollywood’s biggest night.

Berger traded the bloody battlefield of WWI for another kind of warfare, a conclave ceremony in the heart of the Vatican to select the next Pope to lead the Catholic church. Led by an all-star cast that includes Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini, Berger has stuck gold with festival audiences again, as the film has garnered high praise wherever it has screened, recently picking up Audience Award prizes at both the Mill Valley and Middelburg Film Festival. This seems like he and his team, all of whom worked with him on All Quiet and jumped onto this next project, will be in another long award season, filled with conversations about a movie where doubt, power, corruption, and forgiveness are at the forefront of the story driving Conclave to an explosive, shocking ending that audiences around the world are already discovering. In my review out of Telluride, I called Conclave “entertaining” and proclaimed that “Fiennes and Tucci carry the film’s ensemble” with their fantastic performances.

Back at Telluride, I saw Berger moments before the film was about to premiere in front of a packed audience. And just like when I first met him two years ago, he was smiling, laid back, and excited to show his new movie to the world. After all the awards and accolades over the course of two years, he was still the same nice guy looking to just make a movie to entertain audiences and provoke a running dialogue about the themes or topics his films attempts to bring up. Made me eager to talk to him again and in my conversation within him at the 2024 Middleburg Film Festival, Berger and I reunited to discuss what it was like to return festival circuit with Conclave, his creative influences, what it was like to recreate part of the Vatican, working with his veteran ensemble, and what he thinks members of the Catholic Church will think of his movie when or if they get a chance to see it.

Ryan McQuade: It’s got to feel good to be back here now at Middleburg with Conclave, a couple of years later after All Quiet?

Edward Berger: It feels really great when you come to a festival, and you have nice memories. And then return to it and are welcomed so warmly, it’s wonderful. I mean, this couldn’t be a bigger gift, right? And later on, there’s a barbecue, so we get to go to that too.

RM: Yeah. And an after party after the screening so lots of fun instore. The last time we talked, you had made this adaptation of a novel. It was very personal to you. But you didn’t tell me that you were working on your next project already at that time. (both laugh)

EB: And, as we were speaking, I was getting ready to work in Rome.

RM: So you were shooting, and then flying back, literally to promote All Quiet.

EB: Yeah, I think the movie played on a Saturday, so it was probably a Friday flight to New York, do something there, come here for Saturday, go to New York on Monday, Tuesday, then to London on Wednesday, and back to Rome on Thursday, continue to prep.

RM: How were you able to juggle all of that? Was it a lot for you?

EB: It’s really energizing when you have a film, two films, one that you loved making, and then, you realize, people are welcoming, or embracing, or have interesting questions about. And you know what? At the time I was thinking, “Oh, shit, I wish I wouldn’t have entered this movie, Conclave.” Sometimes, I was thinking that, because then I could just stay here for three days, and enjoy it, and watch the movies, and go to New York for a little bit, have a little holiday, and screen the movie, and travel there, just enjoy this process, because it is invigorating.

But then, I suddenly thought, “You know what? It’s the best thing that could have happened to me, that I just didn’t think about it.” I knew I wanted to make Conclave.

It happened that All Quiet is getting traction, I guess, or being shown at festivals, so I had to do both. And after the whole Oscar thing, you don’t have to pick a movie, you already made one.

RM: Moving to the book for Conclave. When you first got it and the script, what about Harris’s story sort of hooked you in to tell a cinematic version of it?

EB: Well I mainly entered the world of Conclave through Peter Straughan’s script. So it really works for me on two levels. One is I love (Alan) Pakula movies. I love All the President’s Men, and The Parallax View. I love his precision; I love his way of storytelling. I love the feeling of paranoia and claustrophobia, and I thought, “I can make that with this movie. I can make my version of that, or some version of that, a political thriller.”

It just happens to take place in the Vatican, but it could take place in Washington DC, or in any institution where a big CEO leaves, and the top gig needs to be filled. And people get out their knives.

So that worked on that level, for me, and I thought I could have, visually, I felt that was interesting to me, but more, on a personal level, why I made the film, is that Ralph (Fiennes) goes through this wonderful journey of self-doubt, and a crisis, basically. And he just sort of works through it.

Yeah, I mean, this theme of doubt, I think a lot about because I have it all the time. Which movie should I make? Should I have made that movie? Should I make another one? Should I make movies at all? Should I make something completely different?

And I think a lot of people feel that. And I thought, “That’s a great way to talk about this, in a movie, with a character.”

RM: Obviously, with a project like this there’s a lot of research involved because you’re handling something that is about this giant institution, and this very precise method of selection of a new Pope. When you were doing your research for Conclave, was there something that you found very interesting that you might not have known that you ended up including in the film because it intrigued you so much?

EB: I think all the rituals and details, the way they’re voting, the way they step up to the urn, the way they hold their hands. What I found really interesting is the ring of the Pope being chopped off. And all these things, and I thought, “There’s rich details,” and I actually spent a long time filming them.

I thought they would be very important to, sometimes, the scene would be only half a page, but you’d need 20 shots to sort of explain what people would do, because they’re so ancient, and they’re so archaic, and so inherent to the process there, that I think it’s very interesting to learn about. And when I think it’s interesting to learn, I assume, or I can only hope that it’s interesting to watch for people, as well.

RM: You talked about Pakula and All the President’s Men and Parallax View. Were there other influences, for camera framing decisions or to collect tone, that inspired you to make the type of thriller that you wanted to make?

EB: I would say, let’s say it’s two filmmakers. The first is Pakula. Because of his precision, like the darkness of the shots, and the incredible, accurate editing style. He would have a Warren Beatty in the film, and he’s the biggest star in the ’70s, producer on the film, he’s put two minutes in the dark with his back to us. You can’t see who it is, basically, you hear, only hear his voice.

And then, he cuts around at the decisive line, in the decisive moment, into not even a close-up, into a mid-shot. And that makes you just lean in, and try to learn more, and just pay attention to, “Oh, he’s cutting. That’s why this must be important.”

And the other filmmaker, I would say, is Steve McQueen, because his camera is like a razor. He’s sort of analytical, trying to dissect the situation, as well as the humans within the frame. He’s got a lot of hands in his shots, for example, in his movies. And I put a lot of hands in mine. I find him really inspiring to watch.

RM: You talked about doubt. It’s prominent throughout, not just this film, but many films about religion. What about Lawrence’s doubt of faith and then Bellini’s doubt of power did you find intriguing for yourself as a filmmaker?

EB: Well, I think the theme of doubt is, it’s almost the center of the movie. The film is about doubt. I know I’m driven by doubt, and I used to think, “Doubt, it’s like a sign of weakness.” And then, at some point, I said, “Fuck it. It’s a sign of strength if you embrace it, and if you just accept it, and it helpfully makes you come to the right decisions.”

But the reason why there is doubt in faith, or in filmmaking, is because there’s no recipe. We don’t know. I mean, God cannot be proven, religion cannot be proven. And who says that that religion is better than that one, or which one you pick? There’s no proof. It’s just, you have to believe. And with belief comes doubt.

Same thing in filmmaking, in a way, because I mean, we don’t know how the films are made. There’s no recipe. If we did, then we would have only good ones. So it’s not a science. So it automatically comes with questioning things, and questioning decisions.

RM: What was it like going through the process for the production design and locations for the film, and recreating a lot of the Vatican in Rome that you weren’t able to shoot in at the real locations that we see in the film?

EB:You know, we tried … Obviously, there’s a big white line on Peter’s Square, and that white line means, no commercial photography beyond this point. So there’s no cooperation with the Church. You have to recreate it. You have to find places outside of the Vatican to shoot.

Luckily, in Rome, you have a lot of old buildings that could help, but I didn’t want to make a film that only has ecclesiastical architecture left and right. That felt like, “Yeah, okay, churches, I could imagine.” It just felt too normal, or too expected.

And I thought, “Okay, what’s a cornerstone of the architecture? We’re going to have to shoot, we’re going to have to recreate the Sistine Chapel,” which we built in Cinecittà, outside of Rome, wonderful studio, with Fellini, and everyone, you feel it. We feel the history of movie making in those halls.

So we built that. And so, I knew, “Okay, what’s the other big location that we’re going to need?” That’s the Casa Santa Marta, where they’re sequestered.

So I wanted that to have the feeling, the opposite feeling, a very modern, cold feeling. The movie’s called Conclave, which means they shut, they lock themselves away, they’re locked in.

So I wanted it to feel like a jail, basically. And it’s a little bit of a jail. The shutters come down, there’s a hum of it. It’s lit by fluorescent lights, kind of ugly. All you hear is that fluorescent light. You don’t hear anything from the outside.

So, to really portray it, to portray what’s going on inside of Ralph’s body, to make that feel dark and shut off. So that was sort of the idea of the design for the Casa Santa Marta, which we built right next to the Sistine Chapel, so that you could feel, in the end, sort of a sense of relief, when that thing is over, and when the shutters open, and Ralph opens the window, and air comes back in, yeah.

RM: The movie is a thriller, but it’s also very political. The selection of a Pope is a very political process, and it is one that can lead to, especially for an American audience right now, the similarities between what’s going on, not just now, but over the last couple years, in our political process. Could you speak to the political parallels found in your movie with what is going on now?

EB: Yeah, I mean, obviously, when you make a film, I think it’s always really important to make it ring true with what you, when you walk outside the cinema. That’s what’s going on in society, the political discourse. So you want that political discourse. Or that feeling has to, in my opinion, find this its way into the movie. And we picked several characters. This character represents that, and that character represents that, and obviously, they have different ideals and ideas, and they’re going to clash.

So that feeling needed to be part of the film. What we see every day now on, you turn on CNN, and they say one thing, and then, you turn on Fox News, and they say the exact opposite, and they both hate each other. So that kind of feeling needed to be found, I wanted to find it. We live in these sort of disjointed times, where left versus right, up down, rich, poor, black, white, race, gender, everyone keeps fighting each other. And that had to, we tried to make a movie where that feels like where that is mirrored.

RM: Could you just talk about working with this ensemble to create this movie, and especially with Ralph, Stanley, and John, the trio of Cardinals, and talk about creating those very rich characters?

EB: I was very blessed with a good script that really, where every actor I sent the script to, they just said yes, because they really liked their roles. They felt like, “Oh, I’ve got a character to play. It’s got a nice arc, and I am a cog in the machine, but an important cog.”

It didn’t feel like you could take one out, and just throw it away, and the movie would still work. They all sort of complement each other. And I felt I needed a main actor, because Ralph’s character is not the loudest guy.

He’s actually the quietest guy of them all. He’s content to stay in the second row, he doesn’t want to be in the limelight, he’s not an alpha, he’s a reluctant manager of these proceedings. He actually wants to be somewhere else.

And so, you need someone who has that fire in his eyes, where you can see, “Wow, I can see what he’s thinking,” because he doesn’t say it. You just need to see what’s going on behind his eyes. And Ralph is a master at that.

And when you’ve got Ralph I can call, suddenly, I can send the script. And then you go, “Okay, Stanley’s interested, because Ralph’s in it, and he’s got a good role, and John is on board…”

RM: And it becomes a domino effect.

EB: Yeah, it’s a domino effect. And then, they all love Ralph, because Ralph is a great actor, and also, a very generous actor, who’s there behind the camera, giving the performance of his lifetime, so that Stanley can shine. He’s just that type of person, just giving it from off camera, so his colleagues are good, as well.

And it’s always, the main thing is, “Who do you play with?” And then, can you be good? And they were all, you kind of want them to have an ensemble, that they’re all very different. John is so different from Stanley, he’s basically the opposite of Ralph.

That’s the wonderful thing. And they love each other. And then, we have conversations in the beginning. We rehearsed a little bit. Many conversations, I spent many dinners with Ralph, leafing through the script, talking about the purpose of the scene, the mood of the scene, the feeling, what interests me in the scene, what interests him in the scene.

And then you make a pact. You say, “Okay, let’s make that movie.” Then you just go off, and hand each other everything. It’s an act of faith, an act of trust.

RM: With Isabella’s character, and the women in this film, I know they are very important characters for you, because they are silent within the church, but they are not silent in this film. So talk about their representation in the film, and working with Isabella on her vital role in the film?

EB: Isabella is obviously a really important part of the movie. Because the movie is about, what is it about, in the end? It’s about the oldest patriarchy in the world, that gets a crack, in the end.

And through that crack, hopefully a light can shine in, that the future is going to be brighter and positive. And Isabella represents that throughout the film, because she’s the only, as far as we know, obvious feminine element of the film. And so, I told her at the beginning, “I really want to make sure that we track what you are thinking in the film, because you don’t say it.”

So also, again, I had to put the camera on her, while she watches, and while the men speak, because if Ralph is in the third row, she’s in the twenty-seventh row. And then, I think she’s kind of our, she says what we think in the end, and that’s why I think the audience responds to her so well, because finally, someone opens their mouth. And it’s Isabella, and she becomes our hero.

RM: The film is built on the back of tension, and I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about that being amplified by Volker Bertelmann’s score. Could you talk about the process of creating that score with him, to build the tension that we see in the film?

EB: So it was really difficult to find the score. All Quiet was very simple. He sent me a first draft, and I said, “That’s great, let’s do it, yeah.” Somehow, he nailed it.

In this one, because I also didn’t find tempo music for this movie, I just couldn’t find the right tone, and slowly, he sent stuff, and I said, “Ah, not this one.” And then, it slowly just went back and forth, and basically a long conversation, by our practical examples, of him composing something, me putting it on, saying, “It doesn’t fit here, but it would fit there.”

For some reason, we somehow never nailed the beginning, and the movie didn’t play as tense as it does now. Only three weeks before the mix, I called Volker, I said, “You know what? We don’t have, we have everything, the entire tire movie is scored,” but everything until the title, the first 10-15 minutes, were wrong. We’re somehow not telling the audience that this is a movie that is tense, also, and that has palpitations.

He said, “Oh, you’re right. We never really changed that from the beginning.” And then, he just went away and did that. And somehow, that changed the whole perception of the film. Suddenly, you enter the cinema, you could, “Oh, I get it. That’s the type of movie. I can sit back, and sort of enjoy it, but also be gripped by it, and let myself, I can hand myself over to the tension.”

And the music has a big part in that, in telling us how to feel. But I also, I never want to make music that feels like what I see on screen. I actually want it to do the opposite.

I want the music to be non-ecclesiastical. I want it to clash with the image. I want it to be surprising, that you’re going, “Oh, I didn’t expect music like this. That’s interesting. Let me lean in and listen to it, and look at the images.”

RM: Lastly, the movie is of course religious. And obviously, the Church will see it, and they will have their response. I know that you particularly have said, in other interviews, that I know it’s not of significant value to you, because it matters to the audience’s watching it. What is your hope for them when people of the Church do see it? Do you hope there will be openness to have a conversation about the film from those who are deeply religious?

EB: I mean; I would be surprised if there weren’t the openness towards discussion. I like when not everyone likes a movie. I want to disagree with people. I want to have a discussion.

I want someone to say, “No, I meant it this way.” And they say, “Yeah, but this is how I feel.” In no way, ever, did we try to offend anyone, or mean to do a takedown of the Church. Who am I to do that? I don’t mean to take it down. I think it’s an interesting institution that I would learn to look at, and the movie happens to take place in it. And I think we deal with it sensitively and with openness.

And I think I would be surprised if audiences aren’t open to it, and religious audiences aren’t open to it, and don’t embrace it. I mean, I’ve shown it to many Catholics, and so far, they’ve all liked it, and really haven’t felt offended.

Will there be people who will discuss it, and want to discuss it, and maybe throw tomatoes at me? Probably. But why not? I mean, let’s have that. I would love it if there’s a good discussion about it, and then try to understand my agenda of making the movie, and me trying to understand how they feel when they watch the movie.

RM: I hope that they’ll be open to everything in the film.

EB: I’m sure there will be good conversation. And I know, from every cardinal we’ve spoken to, it’s played well. But I don’t think they will ever comment publicly, because if I were a cardinal, I would say, “Let me watch a movie and have fun, and laugh at it because it’s wrong. Or pay respect, because it’s right, and it portrays something. But will I comment on it? No, it’s just a movie. I mean, I’m a cardinal. We let them make a movie. It’s not reality, it’s a movie.”

And I know, from every cardinal that we’ve spoken to, they say, “Oh, we’re going to watch your movie,” because they’re going to be interested in it. I mean, they would love it. I mean, they would love watching their world.

RM: I hope you got good feedback, and I would love to see a broader discussion on this movie with all of y’all included. Thank you for your time, Ed.

EB: Thank you. Good seeing you again.

Conclave is currently in theaters from Focus Features.