The conclave has always been a moment of the life of the Church that arouses attention even outside the community of the faithful. And at this moment it is even more so both for the great condolence that has aroused the disappearance of Pope Francis, and the consequent expectation towards those who will be called to succeed him, and because the conclave is the scenario of a film released last December in theaters and which in these groups landed on the platforms. Conclavedirected by Edward Berger and based on the novel of the same name by Robert Harris, even with his very literary and effect vision, he really takes us inside the conclave why no film had done before. The opportunity to make a quick excursus among all those films they have treated, more dedicated, who for short narrative passages, the moment of the elections of a new pope, who is traditionally announced to the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square, after the white smoke, with the Latin formula Habemus Papam.
AND Habemus Papam (2011) It is precisely the title of Nanni Moretti’s film, where the French actor Michel Piccolo plays a cardinal who, after the unexpected election to Pope, is taken by a panic attack and runs away. To help him overcome this emotional block, a psychoanalyst (Nanni Moretti) is called. A film defined in some way prophetic, because shortly thereafter the Pope Benedict XVI, albeit after long and meditated weighting, had given up on the papal throne, an event that had occurred in the history of the Church only again.
Angels and demons (2009), taken from the bestsellers of Dan Brown Sequel of the Code da Vinci And directed by Ron Howard he tells mysteries, intrigues and murders that take place just at the turn of the Pope’s death and the conclave to elect the new pontiff. Great importance in film has the role of Camerlengo, played by Ewan McGregor. The Camerlengo, who is currently Kevin Joseph Farrell, is that cardinal who has the task of chairing the vacant venue in the period between the end of a pontificate and the conclusion of the conclave in which the next pontiff is elected.
Removed by Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins – respectively in the roles of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI – The two popes (2019) The relationship between the two ecclesiastics just before Ratzinger’s re -reluctance to the office of Pontiff and the consequent election of Francesco to Pope in 2013 is very imaginative. In 2013
Among the different films on the figure of Pope Francis, Call me Francesco – The Pope of the people (2015), directed by Daniele Luchetti, tells the life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Rodrigo de la serrna as a young man, Sergio Hernández as an elderly), from his youth spent in Buenos Aires to the election to Pope on March 13, 2013. The film is structured through a flashback series while the conclave in which Bergoglio is elected Pope.
Going further back in time we find The cardinal (1963, the year of the death of John XXIII) of Otto Preminger. He tells the rise of a proletarian of Boston, son of an Irish Catholic family, who becomes bishop as a seminarian. Based on the novel by Henry Morton follows the protagonist until the moment in which the Conclave participates. Of 1968 The man who came from Kremlin by Michael Anderson, with Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn. Set in the era of the Cold War, he tells of a cardinal who left the Gulag after twenty years arrives in Rome and is elected Pope. From the novel by Morris West, title of the same name, inspired by the figures of Josyp Slypyj, a Ukrainian cardinal who was freed from imprisonment in the USSR in 1963, with Kruscev to power, and sent to Rome where all his life remained. And to that of Hryhorij Lakota, also a religious Ukrainian, condemned by Stalin to the concentration camps where he died in 1950.
There is also a film that seems to continue attracting spectators to each television step: THEto Papessa Giovanna (1972), also directed by Michael Anderson, with Liv Ullman, who refers to a legend born in the Lutheran countries to discredit the institution of the papacy according to which, in the ninth century, a woman camouflage himself as a man, first managed to become a monk and then, after a series of incredible events, to be elected pontiff without anyone suspecting his true sex. And only his pregnancy will unmask the colossal deception.
Finally, we mention the episode The Holy Soglio directed by Luigi Magni (director also of a trilogy of films on papal Rome) within the episode film Ladies and gentlemen, goodnight (1976). Set in 1500 during a very tense conclave, where Cardinal Felicetto de Li Caprettari, played by Nino Manfredi, deemed seriously ill, is chosen as Pope by a clique of cardinals who want to manipulate it. Felicetto. Volta elected Pope. “Miraculously” heals the conspirators to death and condemn to death.
