The Oscar-winning Vatican thriller “Conclave” became a box-office smash when it was released last October, but in the wake of Pope Francis’s death its audience has expanded even further.
The film, which depicts the process of choosing a new pope after one has died, received a big bump in streaming numbers after the 88-year-old pope died on Monday following complications from a stroke.
On Tuesday, the film’s total U.S. streaming viewership topped 18.3 million minutes watched, an increase of 3,200 per cent over the previous week, according to Luminate, which tracks U.S. streaming data.
“Conclave” stars Ralph Fiennes as the dean of the College of Cardinals who leads the selection of the new pope. The film, in which John Lithgow plays a villainous Canadian cardinal, was nominated for eight Oscars and won one (for best adapted screenplay).
During the real-life conclave, which is expected to begin between May 6 and 11, 135 voting cardinals will assemble in the Sistine Chapel and remain there, sequestered, until they’ve chosen Pope Francis’s successor.
With so many people learning about the process by watching the fictional “Conclave,” how accurate is it? Experts say the film gets some things right and other things wrong.
“They tried to reproduce the mise en scene of the Vatican accurately,” Bill Cavanaugh, professor of Catholic Studies at Chicago’s DePaul University, wrote in an email to the Star. But, he added, the film depicts a lot of political conversations between cardinals, which is “exaggerated … for dramatic effect.”
Cavanaugh noted that some of the film’s plot twists are “absurd, with no known basis in (recent) history.” The film divides cardinals neatly into conservative, moderate and liberal camps, but this isn’t the case in reality. “An individual cardinal might be, for example, conservative on sexual issues but progressive on the environment, war and peace, economics, etc.”
“In general,” Cavanaugh said, “the film does a good job showing the gravity of the conclave, but also the fact that the cardinals are flawed human beings … In real life, most I think are genuinely trying to seek out the will of God, and not just manoeuvring to enhance their own power.”
The film is fairly accurate, according to Michael Attridge, who teaches historical and systematic theology at the Toronto School of Theology. “While it’s not a documentary, I think it’s a very good dramatization of what happens in a conclave.”
Others weren’t so approving. There were too many little inaccuracies, said John Allen, editor of Crux, an independent news site specializing in the Vatican and Catholic Church, and author of an unrelated book called “Conclave: The Politics, Personalities and Process of the Next Papal Election.”
“It has nothing to do with what happens in an actual papal election,” Allen said.
For one, discussions about politics in the conclave are much more elegant, genteel and refined than those depicted on the movie. “Nobody is shouting at one another,” he said. “There aren’t these tense, angry moments.” If the events were depicted accurately, he added, the movie would probably seem more like an art house film than a blockbuster.
Still, the sudden interest in the film is emblematic of the public’s fascination with the papacy and might invite curiosity, he said, serving as a “point of departure to find out what actually happens.”
Attridge calls the conclave “a very human endeavour” during which “the cardinals will need time to get to know one another. They will gather. They’ll be housed in the same residence and will listen to a variety of perspectives about what’s needed in the leadership of the next pope.”
During this period, they’re “cut off from cellphones, computers, media — anything dealing with the outside world.” The new pope needs a two-thirds majority. After each round of voting, if a consensus is not reached, black smoke is emitted from the chapel’s chimney. When a pope has been chosen, white smoke is sent instead.
The new pope, Attridge said, “will choose a name, step onto the balcony in St. Peter’s Square and deliver his first Urbi et Orbi message (to the people of Rome and to the world).”
