See the movie Conclave.

[Allan Black]

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.

[Christopher Young]

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

Chris Young

[Allan Black]

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.

[Allan Black]

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 …

YouTube (Short URL)

[Allan Black]

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.

[Allan Black]

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/Cardin...apal_conclave#

[Allan Black]

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.

[Andrew Smith]

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

Andrew

[Allan Black]

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...al-transition/

[Allan Black]

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!”