Within the Vatican and the real life drama behind

In the Oscar -winning film last year “Conclave”, as the cardinals played by John Lithgow and Ralph Fiennes face the body of a dead Pope, the process of choosing his successor is in motion.

The royal conclave to choose a successor of Pope Francis will begin on Wednesday, but from his death on April 21, Large number of viewers of us have been transmitting the film – Around 15,000 the day before dying, 3 million since then.

So, we decided to visit the time we spent with Fiennes in Rome and then in New York City when the film came out the past fall.

In Villa Medici, one of the filming places for “Concónimo”, Fiennes said: “For the person who knows, this is not the Vatican. But I think that for a film, one could believe that this was an aspect of the Vatican, and in reality we filmed only inside.”

Fiennes played Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, who betrays his own repressed ambition to be a potato from another cardinal, played by Stanley Tucci. Both men are trapped in the claustrophobic pressure cooker of papal policy. The cardinals are locked up, imprisoned in magnificence and secret.

Most of the film was filmed in the famous Cinecitta studies in Rome. Of the costumes, Fiennes said: “The clothes are very important, and if you wear a gown like that and hangs you in a certain way, suddenly does something.

Kidnapped, the Cardinals College issues ballots for a papal successor. “It’s a context of wealth,” said Fiennes, “worldly wealth, and these holy men …”

“Supposedly holy,” I said.

“Yes, I was going to make signs of inverted coma! They are in a structure that massage their political instinct about what they are called the Church.”

Robert Harris wrote the 2016 novel that inspired the film. “Well, I was a political journalist, and it is politics that fascinates me,” he said. “And the conclave is fair, for me, the final choice. It is the oldest choice, the most extraordinary.”

Since the death of Pope Francis, the sales of Harris’s novel are ten times.

“It’s not that it is a kind of seer somehow,” said Harris. “It’s just that the conclave always falls in this pattern. There are traditionalists and there are reformers. There are geographical blocks. And from this mixture, a commitment candidate arises.”

In the book and the film, the traditionalist is Tedesco; The reformer, Bellini; Tremblay is a moderate scheme, but a scheme; There is Adeyemi, the African contender. One by one, a commitment candidate is eliminated and emerged.

Harris said: “The thing acquires its own impulse, as any group would do. You know, as a jury that suddenly swings to a verdict, this is called within the spiritual world a movement of the Holy Spirit through the Sixo. In the political world, it would be called impulse.”

Although Harris is not Catholic, his opinion on what happens during a conclave is usually considered quite precise.

I asked him: “It seems that the idea of ​​the book is that somehow these defective men, who are also holy men, reach the right choice?”

“Yes, I think it’s a very good process,” Harris replied. “I think that the Roman Catholic Church has an immense wisdom of incorporated centuries.”

Fiennes said: “The film leaves you with a question: who should lead? Who should lead a structure like the Catholic Church? Who is the person worthy of it?”

“But it also asks the question, does the political process determine the leader to produce the right leader?” I asked. “The film seems to say yes.”

“Yes, the movie yes, in this case, say, can“Fiennes said.

Fiennes, like the cardinal who plays, is a man of doubts. He said: “They raised a Catholic, and then I rebelled when I was 13 years old. My mother was a committed Catholic. On my mother’s side, there are some theologians. Then, God’s questions have been in my family since I was a child.”

I asked: “Did you go out with something answered from your own questions?”

“No,” Fiennes replied. “I went out with more questions.”

Dramatized in the film by Cardinal Thomas Lawrence: “If there was only certainty and, without a doubt, there would be no mystery and, therefore, there is no need for faith.”

Harris said: “The way he pronounces the word faith In the end it is simply extraordinary. “

Harris is a great admirer of the film. Now, he is seeing that his book comes true. “I’ve seen the early stages of the novel that develop in front of me,” he said. “And that has been a fairly strange feeling, frankly, witnessing this machinery in operation.”

No matter who ends Pope, Harris, the ex rookie turned into a novelist, knows a good story when he sees one: “The whole image of it. The smoke that comes out of the fireplace. I mean, what extraordinary and brilliant concept is that, that has entered the language and culture of the world. It is a show that plays very well.

“I am fun, by the way, that the conclave is going to start, I think it’s a Wednesday,” he added. “There will be a really strong sensation among the cardinals that they would like to leave Rome on Friday afternoon. It is a fairly effective and cunning deadline!”

For more information:

• “Conclave” is available through streaming and vod
• “Conclave” by Robert Harris (vintage), on commercial pocket paper, electronic and audio books, is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and BookShop.org

History produced by Reid Orvedahl. Editor: Joseph Frandino.

See also:

• Conclave to choose a new Pope to start on May 7, says the Vatican. This is how the successor of Pope Francis will be chosen
• Catholic Filk Fock to the tomb of Pope Francis when the eyes become conclave
• Stove installed in the Sixtine chapel where the ballots will be burned during the conclave to choose the new Pope
• Cardinal Convict Angelo Becciu retires from the conclave to choose the new Pope. What to know about your embezzlement
• Extended interview: author of the “conclave” Robert Harris about the secret process of choosing a Pope (“News Evening News”)

In:
• Vatican City
• Catholic church