Best Picture Oscar nominee Conclave is composed with all the ritual and restraint of robed Cardinals in the Vatican. Director Edward Berger’s follow up to the Oscar winning All Quiet on the Western Front is a slow burning conspiracy adapted from Robert Harris’ novel that unfolds during a Machiavellian campaign for papal succession.
“Edward’s idea was to make sure that despite the epic side of the storytelling we were still aware of how intimate it could be,” explains Stéphane Fontaine AFC (Captain Fantastic, Jackie, Elle and Ammonite) partnering for the first time with Berger. “I never thought in terms of mystery or suspense but in terms of tension and expression of doubt as seen exclusively from the point of view of Cardinal Lawrence.”
Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, is charged with leading the arcane voting procedure which pits candidates including Cardinals played by Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto and Carlos Diehz against each other. Some struggle under the weight of responsibility and begin to question their faith.
Credit: Philippe Antonello/Focus Features. All Rights Reserved.
Fontaine says Berger wanted to explore opposing ideas expressed in the production’s design and photography, a balance of light and dark, male and female, traditional and contemporary. This influenced the discipline in which director and DP approached lighting, camera movement and composition.
“Edward is a precise director in the sense that he likes to come up with a plan. The last thing you want to do is show up on set and only then start thinking about how to break down the scene,” Fontaine says.
“During prep we went through the script and tried to define the best possible plan for each scene. How do we want to begin the action? What does each scene convey? Is it just information or is there more at stake? So that when the camera moves it moves for a reason.”
They drew up an extensive shot list but retained the flexibility to adapt when the actors arrived on set. “What they do with their performance might open new doors to our imagination,” he explains, “but because we had a thorough understanding of the scene it was super easy to change our minds.
Credit: Philippe Antonello/Focus Features. All Rights Reserved.
The DP, who won the César Award for Best Cinematography in 2006 for The Beat That My Heart Skipped and another in 2010 for A Prophet, has shot RED since lensing Rust and Bone on EPIC in 2012. Selecting the V-RAPTOR 8K VV for Conclave came naturally.
“One consideration was how to represent humans in context of the Sistine Chapel. I used the widescreen 2.40:1 aspect ratio to do this, often using framing characters in negative space that reminds you of the scale of their environment.”
The opening of the film includes a 360-degree Steadicam shot operated by Alex Brambilla showing the chaos that Lawrence is facing, after which the visual language becomes much more restrained.
“The sense of power had to be translated by the composition of the frames,” Fontaine says. “We had to suggest as opposed to stress what we thought viewers should know. We used the widescreen aspect ratio to either pack the frames or to isolate characters.”
“We also needed to translate how suffocating it would feel to be living in these rooms for days on end. There should be a sense of claustrophobia. The large sensor enabled us to achieve greater separation between foreground and the background.”
He cites a scene set in an auditoria with red cassocked cardinals lit from overhead and positioned against cyan blue seats. “The beauty of the large sensor combined with a very quick falloff of light means you barely see anything in the background except for two tiny practicals. These create more depth and grounds the shot in a reality. Across the film, we didn’t want to have light that was too manicured or theatrical. It had to feel very simple each time and in that regard this scene is a good example.”
He tested different lenses and picked the TRIBE7 T-Tuned BLACKWING7 primes. Fontaine used one set of primes and shot most scenes with two V-RAPTOR allowing him to select a different resolution and use the same lens.
“The great thing with the 8K sensor is that you can use it in 7K, in 6K or 5K as you wish and you can't tell the difference because the image quality is even throughout the scale of resolution.
“For example, we had one V-RAPTOR set at 8K with a 27mm lens and the other at 6K. I have the option to swap the lens to either camera and achieve basically the same frames which is quite interesting. I like the fact that if you shoot in 6K, 7K or 8K, the same lens has a very different personality depending on the resolution you choose.”
Since the story is told from the point of view of Fiennes’ character Fontaine often frames him in close or medium shots. “Edward was keen for our close-ups to be on a 27mm which means that you're pretty close to the to the actor but at the same time when you shoot with a wide angle you still have a good sense of the surroundings. It's not blurred or abstract. You still know where you are. That felt right to us.”
Berger was also interested in using zooms, not to quickly rack a focal length but to very slowly move into or away from a subject. One of these is when Cardinal Lawrence is giving his opening address to the Conclave and the zoom solely closes in on Fiennes face as if crushing him under the weight of responsibility. Another instance pulls back from Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) to show him seated alone with his thoughts.
“The last thing I want to show is draw too much attention to the visuals,” says Fontaine. “A zoom especially is a very strong visual statement and hence also a strong storytelling statement. But there were a few occasions where we wanted to throw a bit more attention on the story.
“In the Sistine Chapel we start close in on Adeyemi and zoom out to see the whole chapel. It emphasizes that he has lost. He won't be Pope. It’s quite an effective way to describe how miserable and lonely he must feel at that moment.
“The other thing that happens when you make a slow zoom, when you don’t cut away, is that the audience is forced to listen more carefully to what's being said. So, when Lawrence has everyone gathered around him at the beginning and lays out the process for the Conclave we gently zoom giving the audience plenty of time to understand what's at stake.”
Production designer Suzie Davies built sets for the Sistine Chapel and residential building Casa Santa Marta on sound stages at Cinecittà. This included the Stanza delle Lacrime (Room of Tears), a small antechamber where a newly elected Pope changes into his papal cassock for the first time.
“It’s the place where he suddenly understands the burden that he’s going to assume. In reality, the walls of this room are very strong white. I felt this was a little boring to shoot. Then Suzie came up with the idea of painting it an almost primary red. It was really impressive.”
Credit: Philippe Antonello/Focus Features. All Rights Reserved.
It’s almost as if the filmmakers conceived this location as a womb. “Visually it's striking and it also recalls the red that we see in the Sistine Chapel,” Fontaine says. “We’d made color tests for locations and costume fabrics and the REDs translation of these colors matched our vision perfectly.”
Fontaine began his career in 1985 as first assistant camera on features directed by Jim Jarmusch, Leos Carax and Olivier Assayas and still prefers to operate on all his projects.
“The first thing that led me to RED was that it is compact and lightweight. I’ve tended to shoot quite a lot of handheld work in my previous movies and having that very small form factor felt like an asset to me. In Conclave there are basically no handheld shots but the A camera is something I need to do.
He continues, “I like being with actors and I need to be on set with them. I really do care about them and RED means I don’t have to use a bulky set-up. It makes no sense to be 10 meters away in front of multiple monitors. I would feel disconnected. Making films to me means being emotionally connected to the story as it is performed.”
Special thanks to Stéphane Fontaine, AFC for his conversation with RED Digital Cinema.