“If there was only certainty, and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore, no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts,” Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes, Spirit Awards alum for A Bigger Splash) cautions his fellow cardinals in Conclave in a poignant speech at the start of the papal summit to select the next leader of the Catholic Church.

The Machiavellian machinations escalate as over 100 cardinals from around the world gather after the expected death of the current Pontiff to participate in a brutal battle of succession, pitting the liberal camp of the order—led by Cardinal Bellini (three-time Spirit Award winner, Stanley Tucci)—against the conservatives with Cardinal Tedesco of Venice (Sergio Castellitto). A fast-paced tale of duty, power, faith, and comeuppance, director Edward Berger’s (Oscar-winning WWI epic, All Quiet on the Western Front) riveting election thriller was recently anointed the Best Film of the year by BAFTA and nominated for eight Academy Awards.

Scoring his first BAFTA win for the film two weeks ago, Irish picture editor Nick Emerson (Emma, Lady Macbeth) is also nominated for an Oscar.

Even with a captivating script and a flawless cast, it still seems challenging to make a play-by-play account of the papal electoral process the gripping thriller that Conclave is, but you did it! What was your process working with Edward?

Thank you very much! The way he shot it and our editorial approach kept things engaging. He went into it extremely prepared with storyboards and shot lists because he wanted scenes that never repeated a shot or the same setup. With every cut, there was something fresh to see. That was inspired by his love—and my love—of the ’70s paranoid thrillers of Alan Pakula, The Parallax View, and All the President’s Men. There’s a rigor to them that we wanted to aspire to.

Do you think that your background in television news and documentaries helped you find the drama, tension, and pacing?

Absolutely. To draw a story out of a great mass of material for a documentary, you need to know what’s absolutely vital. Every frame counts—it has to have a reason to be there. Knowing what’s important and what to lose, you have to be willing to cut stuff to tell the story. I’ve taken that approach into editing feature films. Even though they’ve spent a fortune and time on production, you’ve got to interrogate it and make sure that it has a place. When you reduce things down, the more important bits tend to rise to the surface. Even though documentaries are a different style and form, the narrative storytelling is identical.

How long was this project and were you editing on the set?

I edited in London while we shot in Rome for two months, but I also worked with Edward in Rome. I was probably on it for seven or eight months.

How big is your team?

It’s just me and my brilliant First Assistant Editor, Charlie Thorne, we’ve worked together on so many things and working together now on Edward’s next film. Since Charlie has worked as a VFX editor, he did a lot of the temporary VFX work on this, like when we had to digitally extend the Sistine Chapel set. So, that was wonderful.

Each cardinal brings his own agenda to this high-stakes gathering, but we rely on Cardinal Lawrence as our POV into the story. How did you convey the tension of the situation and the pressure on him to deliver on this difficult task?

Edward wanted a center POV as the compass of the film. You’re always with Lawrence, seeing everything through his eyes, which makes it super engaging. Ralph Fiennes obliviously delivers a wonderful performance, which is a joy because it gives you such freedom, since you’re not forced into other shots. The cast is so strong that you can cut to any of them at any point, and you’ll always have something interesting. In terms of conveying the tension, we hold on shots longer and was very precise and deliberate about the cut points, leaving it to the last minute until the audience needs something more. Often, we ended scenes early to get quickly into the next scene, so the tension or emotion carries through.

The film opens with Lawrence walking in the rain towards Casa Santa Marta [the cardinals’ dormitories] soon after the Pope’s death. Why was it important to start the story there?

At one point, we had something else before that scene, but decided the best way to start was with that moment, on the back of the main character’s head. The audience has to catch up a little bit. Who’s this man? Where’s he walking to? He’s obviously in a hurry. It keeps you excited. The first frame of a film is so important because the audience is completely without prejudice with that frame. It’s really important to get that first shot right.

You can tell that Lawrence is very tense and almost filled with dread as he walks. How did you hone in on the seriousness and strain of the moment?

We did many shots like that with the back of people’s heads and high angles looking down on the back of his head. Edward loves those shots because it gives you a strange access to the character. Usually, we think of access as being through the eyes, but when you see something at an odd angle like that, it gives you an unsettled access. With the camera’s above his left shoulder at three-quarter angle, you can feel yourself trying to look around and almost see into his eyes, which creates unease and tension.

On the first day of the conclave, the gorgeous sequence inside the Sistine Chapel has the choir singing the piece of music that Edward found on a 6am guided tour. What was it like to cut that majestic sequence?

I love everything in that scene. Edward had sent me that piece of music beforehand. I remember hearing it and was absolutely flabbergasted. We don’t have that much religious music in the film, but that piece really takes your breath away. Edward gave me a very specific shot list for it, so I knew roughly where I was going with it. You have an inkling about each character and his desires and each man is deliberately set in these beautiful, composed frames. It was about finding the right rhythm to lead up to the point where Lawrence goes off the track and says his own thing. There’s so much tension building up to that.

Cardinal Lawrence’s homily about faith versus doubt was genuine, moving, and contained a very potent message. How did you tackle that pivotal speech, which was fairly long, and account for the other cardinals’ reactions?

That scene has several anchor points. Sometimes, when you’re putting a scene together, the best place to start is actually not at the beginning, but at the most interesting, provocative point. Because of the way Edward shot it, I knew the final part of the speech was going to be on a long, slow zoom or track. It starts with that long dolly shot into Ralph and ends with a close-up, so I knew where I was going to end it. I worked back from that and found the best places to see the other characters. We went back and forth—sometimes the place is really obvious for when you need to see Tremblay or Tedesco. But it also exposes you if, for some reason, you can’t cut at that point, then you have to figure it out. That magnificent shot with all the cardinals is like a tableau of them all sitting and reacting to what he has said. You start with that crucial beat and work out from there. If you start building the scene at the beginning, let’s say with a wide shot that dictates a rhythm, then you get halfway through the scene before you realize oh, I’m in the wrong place. You’re better off starting at an anchor point and working back from that.

What were some other editorial techniques that sustained the intrigue and tension?

We did lots of things to unsettle the audience, to give them a little jolt. When Cardinal Lawrence goes to confront Cardinal Adeyemi about his past in his chambers, Adeyemi opens the door and retreats to his room. Edward said to me, try and do something really jarring and exciting there. So, I came up with this idea of Lawrence standing at the door when he’s about to cross this threshold to become this reluctant detective. He hovers at the doorway, going, should I or shouldn’t I? And next, we see him leaning forward ever so slightly, so you get the impulse of his decision. Then we cut another angle after the door is closed—we don’t see him go through the door. It’s just this little jarring jump. We do that throughout the film to create a sense of unease and keep it exciting.

When Lawrence finally decides to break the seal of the Pope’s quarters to see if he could find any clues, that was another pivotal moment.

That was maybe three or four micro-cuts really fast with different angles of this one moment, when he breaks the seal. For a film that’s so rigorous and composed to do those fractured cuts is really provocative for an audience. It increases the capital of tension. After that, you can let things play out really slow, like when he is inside searching for clues, because you’ve got the audience on edge by then. But they take time, because if you don’t get them right, you can take an audience out of it. You’ve got to pick the right moments. If you have this fractured moment at the beginning, it buys you a little time to enjoy the tension.

The cardinals have to cast their votes over and over until they reach a two-thirds majority, so the voting and tallying takes up quite a bit of the film. I have never thought that watching people write down names on a piece of paper and sliding it into a golden urn could be so thrilling, but it was! How did you make that suspenseful?

Edward shot them each time very differently, so that we could edit and make them look different. I changed the speed, slowed them down, or cross-cut them to keep those interesting. Every moment of the voting scenes was storyboarded to reflect the drama of the moment. Then, we went in and changed them around and the rhythm, some we decided to cross cut, like before or after the ballots were burned. The one I really love is a very simple one, when Cardinal Adeyemi casts his first vote after Lawrence tells him that he will never be Pope [ramifications from a rumored sex scandal]. We jump ahead out of that scene and go back to when Lawrence holds his hand and comforts him in his room after their conversation. Then we cut to this really huge close-up of Lawrence watching him [Adeyemi] cast his vote, and it’s very jarring. We’re inside Lawrence’s head as he reflects on that. Then, we cut to Adeyemi and back to them again, praying in his room. You’re melding the scenes together to create an interesting feeling. It’s an interesting temporal trick that’s classic with editing.

 

If you missed our Film Independent Presents Live Read of Conclave with Ayo Edebiri (The Bear), Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso) and Josh Gad (Book of Mormon), you can watch it on Focus Features YouTube channel.