My wife and I just saw Conclave and enjoyed it, it is brilliant.

A Vatican cardinal seems to be the role that Ralph Fiennes was born to play. His casting is simply perfect and his performance is nothing short of brilliant. I am in awe of actors who can express such raw emotion that tears run unbidden down their cheeks. I doubt he’ll ever play another character with such conviction.

Conclave was nominated for eight 2025 Academy Awards, for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Film Editing and Best Costume Design by Lisy Christl.

But Conclave which has won various other awards and holds a near-perfect score of 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, took home just one Academy Award — Best Adapted Screenplay (Peter Straughan.) Tough year at the Oscars.

However, within 5 minutes of the start I was fascinated by the use of the colour red, it looked to me like each scene was carefully graded to subtly feature red.

Costume designer Lisy Christl says … “Red is a very important color in the Catholic Church, to begin with. Director Edward and I looked at the shade of red the church is using now and thought it wouldn’t work for the film. This was actually our starting point to say, let’s change the color. Let’s also change the fabric to a heavier, woolen fabric, in a red that embraces you. A color can create a distance and the color can draw you in. Red is the color of blood. It’s for love. It’s for fire. It is a very powerful and meaningful color.”

Make sure you see this movie in a theatre, it’ll be a shame when it appears on television.

One slight trouble I had was, apart from Fiennes and Tucci, relating the actors to their characters. At times they just appear unannounced, so here’s a primer for you to memorise for your experience. Click to enlarge. Enjoy.

Loved it! Great story line. Good script, acting, direction and camerawork. A 5***** recommendation!

Chris Young

Hi Chris. One feature of movies I always listen for is its sound, even to the point of sitting in the best seat in the theatres, usually as close to the centre as I can get.

After Conclave had been screening for a while, I was disappointed to hear it was just basically stereo, I say disappointed because I thought it would be with ‘surround sound’ and the Cremorne Orpheum has a great surround system. Then as Conclave developed I noticed it was in surround sound but not much, then suddenly the big explosion definately was. I wonder with 8 Oscar nominations, if that’s why ‘sound’ was not one of them.

Now Conclave is available in every format you can imagine, including with Dolby Atmos sound.

On disc, Blu-ray and DVD formats hit U.S. stores in December 2024. On Ultra HD Blu-ray, the movie releases in a 2-disc combo edition with copies of the movie on 4k Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and Digital on Feb. 11, 2025.

On 4k Blu-ray, Conclave is presented in 2160p with HDR10 and Dolby Atmos / Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio. On Blu-ray, the movie is presented at 1080p with Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio. In Digital 4k UHD, Conclave features Dolby Vision or HDR10 and Dolby Atmos audio. I hope they did a good job with that.

I’m thinking of looking for a local theatre to go and hear the Dolby Atmos version, and enjoy Conclave again.
Cheers.

How did they resolve the Conclave production problems, including recording the voices of the actors when they all wore heavy costumes and boom mics were out of the question. Here’s the interesting answers …

https://youtu.be/00MxA1cG1kg

Pope Francis, the first non-European pontiff in nearly 1300 years, died on Easter Monday, also called the Monday of the Angel,
April 21, 2025 at the age of 88, at his residence in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta.

Francis papacy, which began in 2013, was marked by his dedication to serving the poor and marginalized.

250 Cardinals around the world will be summonded to attend his funeral while many millions of Catholics will now go into the
nine-day period of mourning called the Novendiale.

Now I’m more appreciative after having seen the movie Conclave, to understand what happens with the succession of ancient protocols in choosing a new Pope.

Rest in peace Pope Francis.

Without a doubt, currently the lead story on all our TV news outlets is the progress of the lines of thousands of mourners passing by Pope Francis lying in state.

The first day of the ancient tradition of holding nine consecutive days of mourning, the Novemdiales will be marked by Pope Francis’ funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square at 10:00 AM. Saturday April 26 local. Francis’ funeral will be held outside weather permitting, and will be televised world wide.

Francis’ funeral liturgy will be presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals — the group which will in the coming weeks be tasked with appointing a new Pope.

And for people like me who’ve seen the movie Conclave, we’ll all be imagining the 135 Cardinals ancient voting procedure. Today in the 21st Century, I think they’ll all be at odds with each other over something or other while promoting their own personal candidate as the new Pope.

And no one here has corrected me, because the nine day period of mourning starts ‘after’ Pope Francis burial on Saturday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_electors_in_the_2025_papal_conclave#

Did you watch Pope Francis funeral on your tv? What remarkable television, probably relayed to be telecast by every tv network in the world, and live. I was involved with live tv and we mostly had some rehearsal, but not Francis ceremony, well maybe the choir.

In Rome early on Saturday, it was heavily overcast, if it rained the funeral was to be held indoors and if it stayed overcast, someone had to make the decision to stay outdoors. But whether you’re religious or not, the wind blew the sky cleared and to everyones relief including the 250 thousand crowds attending in Vatican Square, the funeral went ahead.

The tv coverage was amazing, the colourful camera work, all the multi language translations, the sound of the choir all went ahead without major fault. Pope Francis simplicity was emphasised by his plain wooden coffin, the workmanship in close up on your screen couldn’t have said it better.

Having seen the excellent movie, you might know the Conclave of Cardinals voting will commence within 15 days of Pope Francis funeral to elect a new Pope. One ballot is held on the first day, and up to four ballots are conducted on each subsequent day—two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Each elector writes the name of his chosen candidate on a ballot paper, which is recorded, threaded together for security, and later burned. Black coloured smoke is released through the Vatican chimney, in the ancient tradition to inform the world - no decision has been arrived at yet.

Cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to vote, and with each ballot a two-thirds majority is needed to win. Once this threshold is reached, the newly chosen Pope consents to his election and selects his papal name, then white smoke indicates, rejoice today there’s a new Pope.

The longest papal conclave lasted nearly three years—it took place following the death of Pope Clement VI, and went from November 1268 to September 1271 (33 months), until Pope Gregory X was finally elected.

But in modern days, Conclaves typically last under a few days; Pope Francis was elected after just five rounds in under two days in 2013.

I've been curious as to what they burn to produce the white smoke of the 'success' signal.

Andrew

Hi Andrew, don’t try this at home, I looked this up. When the tradition began, the light smoke was produced by the burning ballots and some dry straw, and the darker smoke by the ballots and wet straw. The results weren’t always black and white, though, and sometimes the smoke signal left the outside world confused. During the 1958 conclave, white smoke plumed from the chimney after one vote. The crowds gathered outside the chapel cheered and Vatican Radio announced that the church had a new pope.

Just a few minutes later though, the smoke started to turn dark. The straw that the cardinals added to the fire didn’t take right away, and needed some time to get going.

To avoid this sort of confusion, the cardinals and Vatican officials have tried a few different things to make the two smoke colors, and the election results, more foolproof. They tried smoke bombs for the black smoke in the 1960s. While they left no question about the color, they also filled the room with smoke, sending the cardinals into coughing fits. After that, they tried Italian army flares, and while the color was clear at first, the smoke quickly turned gray, leaving some observers unsure of what was going down.

In 2005, the Vatican went high-tech and introduced an “auxiliary smoke-emitting device” that was fed chemical cartridges that could produce clearly colored smoke for up to six minutes. What was in the cartridges was anyone’s guess. The Vatican was oddly secretive about them and would only say that they were prepared from “several different elements.”

And here’s a few more explanations, with a different slant on the white smoke …

https://www.cp24.com/news/world/2025/04/27/from-conclave-to-white-smoke-a-glossary-of-terms-used-in-a-papal-transition/

The late Pope Francis was known the have a great sense of humour and I’m sure he would appreciate this one, he probably heard it.

A young Priest in his own country won a competition to work six months in the Vatican in Rome. On his first day there, he was given the task of double checking the ancient Latin scripture translations, stored deep in the Vaticans vaults.

So taking some sandwiches and candles he set off carefully walking down the old stone stairs deep into the vaults and set to work.

When the Priests realised they hadn’t seen him for a couple of days they went down into the old vaults.

There they saw the young Priest crying over an old scroll. He looked up and saw them to cry … “The word is celebrate!”

Well there’s not to many threads on DVinfo that’ll wind up on all your TV news bulletins, every hour for a week or so. In fact I’d say this’ll be the only one ever, and for many of us this’ll be the only time we’ll ever see this ancient religious occasion, so pay attention.

And I’d say the producers of the movie Conclave never ever considered the fact that Pope Francis would pass away, attracting much attention on the actual details of their story.

People like me and my wife who’ve seen it, feel we have an insight into the drama that’ll happen during the next few days, while the 133 Cardinals gather together in groups persuading others undecided, that their candidate is the best qualified.

But who will it be, in the movie I never guessed right either.

More than ever before, with the latest news connections when the white smoke announcing the decision for the new Pope curls up from the Vatican chimney, wherever you are in the world we’ll all know about it in the following few hours.

Day two in Vatican City …

Day three (in Sydney.)

A new Pope has been elected, it didn’t take as long as many others. Robert Francis Prevost, the first American pope, has been selected by the Papal Conclave to take over as leader of the 1.4 billion-member Roman Catholic Church.

The new pontiff, who has taken the name Leo XIV, was chosen on Day 3 (Sydney time) of the Conclave. It came just two weeks after the death of Pope Francis at age 88.

Prevost, 69, is a Chicago-born cardinal who previously served in Peru for two decades. He’s likey to be Pope for another 20yrs, so this is maybe the only time many of us will ever witness this historic occasion.

For the general public an American was an unlikey choice, so see the movie Conclave to understand what drama could’ve taken place in selecting him, it still has relevance and it’s now on our Aust. TV @ A$6.95.

Being an American pope, there is a unique opportunity at hand. :-)

Andrew

I thought Donald Trumps Pope cartoon would have stirred far more adverse public reaction than it appears to have done.

Maybe it’s been masked by all the other stuff the U.S. President has been delivering recently. The 1.4 billion Catholic reaction could slowly be building to surface in the American streets, and the next U.S. election.

Have been avoiding this thread, but will make a few short comments. For starters, you've been a member here long enough to know that DVinfo doesn't allow political discussions and I think a thread about religion creates some of the same types of problems. DIscussing controversy about Donald Trump is clearly politics though.

Although I'm still listed as a "wrangler", I don't have any moderator capabilities anymore and it seems like there's very little moderation of the forum now, which is fine because there are so few posts these days.

Anyway, I respect your beliefs and am happy that you find this topic so fascinating. I'm a big supporter of freedom of religion, but the flip slide of that is the freedom *not* to be religious. Color me that way, I'm just not interested in anything about the Pope. Too bad that the old one died and best wishes to the new one, but I'm tired of seeing the non-stop coverage on the news. "It is what it is" however, and obviously there are many people around the world who are interested. So, enjoy the discussion.

But I have to push back a little on being admonished to "see the movie Clonclave". I'm not going to see it, I know what it's about and I'm not interested. I could probably suggest some movies that you wouldn't want to see as well.

I'll just leave it there because I don't want to argue about something as personal as religion. I will say however, in spite of my lack of religious beliefs, that photo of Donald Trump still offends me. And that's as far down the politics road as I will go....

Hi Boyd, I appreciate your reply. When I first posted the title it was to alert forum members that this was an absolute masterpiece in movie making regardless of the subject, and to start a discussion on its finer points.

Since then the death of the reigning Pope has drawn more readers attention to my thread maybe because unfortunately, there’s not much else happening on the forum.

Yes people who are not interested in the daily happenings in the actual Conclave wouldn’t follow this thread but this was in our news bulletins around the clock, so it seemed obvious to keep up with it here.

I had no intention of posting the Donald Trump cartoon to start any political discussion whatsoever, but from some devout Catholic friends in San Francisco, they emailed me to say this was total sacrilege, the final nail in the Presidents coffin and will slowly fester and blow up in a big way. I’m not Catholic but hence my comments with his cartoon.

I'm not a Cat-a-holic myself and ordinarily wouldn't give a second thought to what the pope is or isn't doing, but I do enjoy a good meme from time to time. Especially the ones that I posted. The thread may have technically strayed from the guidelines in the last few posts, but it was still a healthy one.

Come to think of it, I don't know that I have even read the rules since joining in 2009. Couldn't recite them to save myself.

Andrew

Howdy Boyd,

It's great to hear from you. As always, I sure appreciate your input.

I don't have any moderator capabilities anymore and it seems like there's very little moderation of the forum now, which is fine because there are so few posts these days.

Indeed. Currently I'm the only bad guy.

These days I try to do my level best at not interfering with the posts that our members make. Instead I focus on keeping out the spam. Hopefully (if I'm doing a good job) it's not too obvious, but the number of bot registrations and attempted spam attacks has only increased over the years. It's never gone down.

I'm a big supporter of freedom of religion, but the flip slide of that is the freedom *not* to be religious.

A lifetime ago when I was in school, a very wise civics professor explained to our class that the First Amendment protections of the U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom *of* religion... but not freedom *from* religion. I always thought that was a very interesting take. But that's as far as I'll go here with that notion.

I will say however... that photo... still offends me.

I have removed it. Hopefully Allan will understand.

Howdy Andrew,

I don't know that I have even read the rules since joining in 2009. Couldn't recite them to save myself.

Shall we say it's somewhat nuanced. The rules I had posted created a bit of a problem when they were addressed with zeal by some, ignored by others and turned around on me by a few. Since then I've simply gone the route of "you don't talk about Fight Club" and the hedges are simply pruned quietly.

For the most part it's just common sense and basic civility. Verboten subjects are politics, sex and religion. Allan's original topic is a movie. I love talking about movies. Not only is that fair game here; I wholeheartedly encourage it as well.

We could discuss the 1962 John Frankenheimer film "The Manchurian Candidate" compared its 2008 remake. That would be another topic about movies. It passes through the filter of politics. We could approach Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" from the standpoint of filmmaking. That's fair game.

Perhaps it's easier to say what is allowed rather than what isn't: the purpose of this forum is to discuss visual media and all aspects of its production, post-production and distribution. There are certain meta-discussion areas like this one -- Awake In The Dark -- and others, like Show Your Work, where we talk about the final product, or the Neighborhood forum where we talk about ourselves and each other. If it doesn't fall into the realm of visual media or its peripheral areas then it probably doesn't belong here.

That's when I remove something from public view (which is not the same thing as deleting, but that's another story). The image I withdrew from Allan's post above is the first time in a long while that I've had to anything like that.

Does this help? I hope so.

I was almost going to mention the 'common sense rules' in my last post but that would have required more typing.

Hey, it's just so good to see you here in the forums again. So good to have you back.

Andrew

Instead I focus on keeping out the spam. Hopefully (if I'm doing a good job) it's not too obvious, but the number of bot registrations and attempted spam attacks has only increased over the years. It's never gone down..

Hey Chris - really great to hear from you! I'm a moderator at MacRumors now and with over a million members and 10,000+ posts a day, there's never a dull moment! Constantly tweaking our spam filters, but some still get through and every now and then we have a literal flood to deal with.

Also a mod at a small local forum where the spammers rarely get through our (very aggressive) filters. Then, I'm the only mod at gpsfiledepot. Smartphones have pretty much wiped out dedicated GPS units and almost all new posts are from spammers. That can get frustrating, but not really a problem.

Anyway, you're doing a great job here - haven't seen any spam at DVinfo for years!

Howdy Boyd,

I'm a moderator at MacRumors

Well done! I've met Arnold; he's a great guy. He and I are members of a small group of fellow forum owners.

Cool! Have never met him myself but he is a bit of a legend. Coming up on my 6th anniversary as a moderator there next month.

I have removed it. Hopefully Allan will understand.

Hi Chris. No I’m not upset with you removing the Trump Pope cartoon, most everyone has seen it elsewhere.

But as I said I’m not religious but after the 2 Conclaves, it does make you think.

A few years ago on a cruise from Doha up the Suez Canal we stopped for a day at Ashdod in Israel. For the day excursion from the ship, we had 3 choices, the Golan Heights, the Dead Sea or Jerusalem. My wife and I figured the Golan Heights might be too dangerous and as much as I wanted to lie on my back and float on the salt in the Dead Sea, we chose Jerusalem.

Along with about 30 other passengers we left after early ships breakfast for a coach trip of 2hrs to get to the ancient city. There we had a guide walking around the sights with his commentary guiding us along. For lunch we were booked into the Hilton Hotel dining room and I remember the head waiter wouldn’t pass the menus around, till we could all point out the direction to the bomb shelters.

After lunch we saw the wailing wall, and the room where the Last Supper supposedly took place, click the photo. It was very moving and during the late afternoon return trip in the coach to the ship everyone was quiet.

I have 5 grandchildren and I wonder if the youngest ones will ever find out, what’s out there, I mean way way out, just keep going. We can’t be the only ones, and maybe one day curious young Sam will find out. Yes the Conclave movie does make you think.

Hi all, a couple of friends have suggested I should relate the story of our cruise through the Red Sea with the Somali pirates.

From Sydney we flew to Dubai to join the Seabourn Sojourn cruise ship. From there we sailed to Doha capital of Qatar for a day excursion there. The oil money there is incredible, they put S bends in the motorways to cope with all the Ferraris. From Doha we reversed our course through the Red Sea heading for the lower entrance to the Suez Canal.

You might know when you first board your cruise ship, after all the passengers board and get settled in their cabins, you all have to assemble in the lounge on your deck with your life jacket, for the mandatory talk about ships safety, and where you should all assemble should there be any trouble. They do a head count to make sure all passengers are in attendance for this talk.

The difference with our talk was, after he finished the second officer added, “In the remote chance that any pirates try to board the Sojourn the Captain will sound 3 short blasts and 1 long blast on the horn. You should all immediately go to your cabins and lock the door … Any questions ..?”

Dead silence from the group, and we all returned to our cabins to dress for dinner. You can imagine the talk at the dinner tables that night. A couple of people said had they known they’d never have booked this cruise, they were going to have a serious talk with their travel agent.

“Too late!” another joked and we all somewhat nervously laughed while a woman who previously cruised in opposite direction in the Sojourn said “You’re all lucky we had spikey barbed wire, wrapped around the decks outer railings.”

In the next few days, we learned we had 4 Israeli mercenaries on the top deck armed to the teeth and they stayed there 24/7. And on the rear deck we had 2 Sound Guns, one either side, that can disable anyone from 500 feet away. A day later from our cabin balcony, in the far distance with binoculars, I spied small boats with groups who we assumed were Somali pirates, but they never came close to our ship and we cruised on to the entrance to the Suez Canal.

There our 4 Israelis with their armaments disembarked to relax in their mother ship, while waiting for their next job in the reverse direction coming from the Canal. From our cabin balcony I photographed them leaving our ship, and one of the Sound Guns on the rear deck of the Sojourn. We’ve enjoyed a few cruises now but nothing like this one with the Somali pirates in the Red Sea and I’ve dined out on this story for years, thanks for reading.

While we're here, I seem to be not the only one who has had thoughts of shooting back at approaching pirates as being a worthy adventure. Internet meme attached for your enjoyment.

Andrew