Good points here. Clarified my own thoughts on this. I was not totally mad about this film despite that it was laid up for me to love it. There was a better, more cohesive (and weirder?) movie inside this one, and I'd love to see it.
Yeah, I mean, frankly there were multiple interesting movies it could have been and they somehow managed to make it none of them. There's the like "tragic practicality" version where Lawrence has to squash Benitez's candidacy to claim his votes for himself because Lawrence realizes that even though Benitez is the most worth, only he himself has any realistic shot of beating Tedesco and keeping the papacy from a conservative swing.
*Or* there's the cynical twist version where after winning, Lawrence turns out to have been Keyser Soze-ing the proceedings the whole time through his "humble conciliator" act to become pope himself and reveals everything to Bellini just to fuck with him because now it's too late for them to undo him.
*Or* there's a like a Sorkin-eque procedural version where Lawrence does manage to push Benitez to victory by getting himself dirty to keep his idealistic candidate clean.
And a zillion other options, but somehow they managed to find an ending that made literally everything that happened and everyone's real intentions totally irrelevant.
I disagree due to my own personal experience as a lapsed catholic, but I understand what you’re getting at with the essay.
Personally I see the film as doubt vs certainty, and how does faith fall within that spectrum to the individual. The lynchpin of the narrative is universal, what exists for the church next is only defined by what actions are taken going forward.
To be clear though, I don’t disagree at all that those are the intended themes of the film; the issue is that the film is so structurally poor as a dramatic narrative that nothing deeper about it comes across as mattering very much.
I disagree with you on the narrative. The weight or gravitas of the dramatic narrative is completely subjective. From my perspective the narrative was what it needed to be for the central theme.
Honestly, having read the book, I think the film failed to convey it well. Most of your issued are addressed in the book. There are so many pivitol moments and issues the movie leaves out.
(The scene where he stares at a section of a painting on the cieling is suppossed to such a big moment and for some reason they include it without any context. WHYYYY EVEN PUT IT IN THEN?!)
And I think the film had a hard time conveying the deep inner struggle of the main character without a narrator. I loved the book. However, considering some of the people the author is friends with...I personally try not to recommend buying it.
I loved this, an excellent summary of its faults. I agree with your thoughts on 'The Twist' being rather lacklustre. How did you view the nuns? I felt they were criminally underutilised, and expected them to have more influence than they did.
Yeah man, I actually laughed out loud at Isabella Rossellini getting a Supporting Actress nom for this movie. I mean, she's a legend and I love her body of work, but come on guys, we have to at a certain point get a bit more serious about what "Supporting" actually means. Her role in Conclave is *barely* above background work and frankly, it would have been insulting if she'd won for it.
It genuinely felt like she was there *solely* to avoid the film having no female speaking roles at all. Which -- I do get why everyone involved would be sensitive about such things, but in that case, you guys truly picked a stupid-as-fuck story and setting if you're worried about failing the Bechdel Test...
“Crypto-fascist freaks” with “their own prejudice and evil.” Lol.
You’re free to hold whatever political opinions you believe are right, but using such extreme, alarmist language only reinforces the kind of strawman the “crypto-fascist freaks” use to generalize the left.
You're right, qualifying with "crypto" only reinforces stereotypes of liberal weakness and equivocation. What I should have said was they are Nazi scum.
When leaders are doing open Nazi salutes at rallies and laughing about deporting citizens without due process into foreign black-site concentration camps, there's nothing "alarmist" about calling that fascist or prejudiced -- that's just what it is. There is no sense equivocating on it, and if you think "respectability politics" are going to save your bootlicking ass, how's that centrist neo-lib "do nothing" playbook worked out as a political strategy recently, hmm?
I hear where you’re coming from — I agree that we shouldn’t downplay authoritarian rhetoric or actions, and calling those things what they are matters. But at the same time, the language you’re using here — “Nazi scum,” “bootlicking ass,” “‘centrist neo-lib do-nothing’,” etc. — feels so extreme and confrontational that it risks reinforcing the exact kind of polarization and caricature we’re trying to challenge. ‘Fascist’ is a serious word with real historical weight, and if we use it too loosely, we may end up weakening our ability to call it out when it truly applies. We can be clear-eyed and firm without losing rhetorical discipline.
So, to give you similar credit, I get that you're coming at this from a place of basically good intent. I think you're just mistaken on the approach for a number of reasons:
1. "‘Fascist’ is a serious word with real historical weight, and if we use it too loosely, we may end up weakening our ability to call it out when it truly applies."
I'm gonna start with this because it's the most dubious statement here, and we all are just not gonna be entertaining this New York Times intelligentsia-style equivocation on whether or not the American far right is fascist anymore. They are. Here's the most commonly cited definition of the characteristics of fascist movements, from historian Stanley G. Payne:
' - "Fascist negations" – anti-liberalism, anti-communism, and anti-conservatism.
- "Fascist goals" – the creation of a nationalist dictatorship to regulate economic structure and to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture, and the expansion of the nation into an empire.
- "Fascist style" – a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth, and charismatic authoritarian leadership.'
There is not a single one of these characteristics that does not fully and completely describe the contemporary character, rhetoric and openly stated aims of Donald Trump and the current Republican party. I don't necessarily know if that label matters that much at this point since they themselves clearly don't much care about being tarred with it, but if there is in fact any value whatever in calling things what they are, they *are* fascists. And since, with increasing openness, they utilize the symbolism of the Nazi party, they get to be called that too. These are guys that do Roman Salutes in public and cheer on followers wearing swastika shit. So, genuine question -- if those aren't fascists and Nazis, then what the fuck *would* you call them?
2. Anyone who is not in bed with these guys needs to get real serious about something real quick if there's going to be any hope of undoing this shit -- the current liberal democratic playbook *does not work*. I very much understand that center-left people are so outraged by Trump that they have trouble seeing and grasping this important fact, but it's extremely necessary to get to grips with this reality that they find so distasteful, which is: people *like* Donald Trump. They don't really give a shit about or even understand his policies -- they just like *him*.
This comes up over and over and over in dissecting how Democrats keep managing to bungle these elections, but the party just will not assimilate this lesson. There is a *big* -- meaningfully big -- outer layer of soft Republican support from people who simply gravitate to Trump's personality as a politician. "He tells it like it is," "He's not afraid to fight," "He means what he says" etc etc etc. I know that you've heard/read this stuff, because we all have.
And the flip side to this is also true: these same people *hate* -- *HATE* -- the way modern Democrats comport themselves. They see them as weak, spineless, corrupt, two-faced liars and hypocrites...which, quite a few of them are, I'm sorry to say. The American people have signaled very clearly in the last several elections that they do not like and do not want "politics as usual."
The "We go high when they go low" approach has been the move for the last decade...and it doesn't work. People don't like it. The current mood of our culture doesn't favor it. I don't think that's good, per se, but it's just the reality. Terry Goodkind might have been a Randian nutcase, but he was very right about one thing: "The aggressor makes the rules. You must play by them, or you will surely die by them."
And what's more, when Democrats *have* come out swinging with spicier rhetoric against the far right -- like Tim Waltz did before the galaxy-brains in the DNC ordered a muzzle on him -- it's fucking worked! It does huge numbers. People respond to it. There is a *massive* chunk of the American electorate who is hungry for change and whose interests actually much better align with left-leaning policies, but who just simply will not vote Democrat right now because they find the Democrats so repellently spineless and useless.
The inner hardcore of Republican support can never be won away, and we have to get over the idea of there existing these magical unicorn "independent" voters who make calm, policy-based assessments about who best represents their interests in each cycle and will be turned off by too overt stridency in either side's rhetoric. That isn't a thing anymore. Again, that sucks, but it just is the reality. It's all about vibes now. The Right gets this, and they cash in on it time and time again. People do not want the cutesy elitist tee-hees the #resistance libs get from trying to think up the sickest and most literate burn they can for Trump -- the "Mango Mussolini"-type bullshit that lib grifters like BrooklynDadDefiant or Jeff Tiedrich jerk themselves off to so heartily. That doesn't do anything but make the posters themselves feel smart.
What a large stratum of Americans have signaled they want is aggressively confrontational efforts towards meaningful change in material conditions. Right now, the Republicans and Trump are the only game in town actually offering that, so people who are angry and disaffected with their current situation are falling into their lap by default. But there's no reason it *has* to be that way. If there's anything to learn from Trump's ongoing success, it's that his messaging is fucking effective and the Left should be duplicating it but in favor of policies that aren't venal and/or evil.
A lot of Trump/Republican/Fascist rhetoric capitalizes on the (unfortunately) very human need to unite around a common enemy to blame for what's wrong in society. The Right offers them that -- immigrants, people of color, people of different gender and sexual identities. So fuck it, if that's the game, we're gonna play by it -- I think we should all unite around the common internal enemy of Nazis and fascists. We're gonna call them that, and we're gonna stop with the cutesy satire and just call them evil and rally people to start doing the same. They *are* freaks, they are aberrations, and they don't get or deserve the political respect afforded to normal political ideologies.
The ship may be going down either way -- I'm not optimistic about any of this being in time to save the situation -- but if we're all going down, well, I don't know about you, but I'm going down swinging at Nazis and I'm not pulling punches.
3. I am a dude that talks shit about movies on the internet and not a professional critic or any kind of actual political commentator. I present this material as nothing but my own opinion and I'm under no obligation to moderate my rhetoric for propriety or even for effect, because I'm not trying to convince anyone of my politics -- just my film takes. I represent no institution but myself, my politics are what they are, and I'm open about that and issued the relevant disclaimer. If they're still too spicy for you, then I'm afraid you may just have a problem with the fare at this particular restaurant.
This is a good take, highlighting what does and doesn't work in the movie and pointing out a lot of the flaws in the way it is structured. However, I think you get hung up on what you wanted the movie to be rather than what it is. Rather than being about the details of what would really happen in a conclave to choose the pope, it's about the moral dilemmas the characters are facing and their desire to make the right choices so that they can do some good in the world.
Of course, that's exactly what I see as the movie's failing, and you do a good job of pointing out that it takes what should be a complex set of conflicts and simplifies them so much that it basically loses all meaning. The movie seems to want to believe that the majority of the guys ruling the Catholic church are morally forthright people who will put the good of the world ahead of their own petty schemes, which is a prospect that I find to be pretty dubious. It also tries to argue that when presented with some basic moral arguments, people will be able to overcome fear, hate, and other negative emotions and make the right choices, which is an idea that has been very definitively disproved by recent events.
So yeah, you're not wrong in your assessments, and even if some arguments could be made about various details and plot points, the movie as a whole is a failure. It's one that I had positive feelings about after watching it, even if I found its conclusions to be overly naive and simplistic, but as time has gone on, I think it has continued to fall in my estimation. And it will probably lose all relevance whatsoever when the Catholic church decides to choose a reactionary conservative pope who sides with the oligarchs who are currently doing everything they can to make the world worse.
Your review boils down to, I wanted the film to be like this but it was like that, therefore it's a bad film. Nope. It was a great film, just wasn't doing the things you wanted it to do.
My dude, I wrote at some pretty extensive length about that very thing in this. I assure you I did not miss it -- it is the film that fails to develop it properly. Because Lawrence is so passive as a character, it's not a "battle" the audience has any real access to, except by implication. And a "battle" also requires tension between two opposing sides. I see no evidence in the film of Lawrence *actively* indulging such a craving. There are hints that he *might* secretly have one, but since he doesn't actually *do* anything about it, it's irrelevant to the film.
A deep internal struggle between opposing psychological drives is rich material for a *novel* -- in which we have direct, unmediated access to characters' interiority -- but it is simply not sufficient for the visual medium of film. "Drama" -- whether on stage or on screen -- is driven by *action*; characters have to *act* upon their internal drives for them to become relevant to plot. Lawrence staring at stuff and looking real sad and tormented does not constitute sufficient action for dramatic purposes in screenwriting, I'm sorry.
I know this shit is long, but if you wanna chirp at the professor, you gotta at least have done the reading, man.
No, I read it. I just think the battle is internal: the two sides are in his head. I get your argument about the narrative passivity but I think your framing is awry. Ditto your argument that the views of a pope don’t matter much. I say this as a non Catholic. I am not of the faith but I recognise the Roman Catholic Church is influential. And the death of Francis puts into relief the way a pope can shape that influence.
I invite you to turn in a screenplay that features a purely internal conflict that a character never outwardly acts upon to a Film 101 class at any film studies program in the entire world and see how that goes for you...
That's fair enough, I appreciate that. I've popped off with unwarranted snark plenty, so, I get it.
There's always a ne plus ultra with these things where it does ultimately just come down to taste. I always argue my case for or against a film *as if it were objective*, but I hope everyone understands that, at a certain point, "It worked for me" is a totally fair off-ramp from any debate. I made my case, you decided you're not buying what I'm selling, we can shake hands and call it a day that we're just not gonna agree on this one. And that's cool, that's the way it should work.
I respect you taking the time to read the entirety of my diatribe despite disagreeing with it so much.
I mean look, this was based on a novel, and no one got the job because they were interested in radically changing the novel's narrative. And the novel was written and then published a wee bit before the current decade of fuller trans awareness and understanding. (At least regarding the public writ large, even the liberal public.)
But while the story is flawed and the messages in the third act muddled, the movie is still very good when its good. Fiennes' speech on "certainty" being a highlight. His character wasn't having a crisis of faith in god or his religion, btw, he was having a crisis of faith in the church as an institution, which is a very different thing. He believed it had become too political, too reactionary. I feel the same way about my American political system - but my lack of faith in the system and the wisdom of the majority makes me care ALL THE MORE about how it operates and what it results in, not less.
Regarding the bomb / deus ex machina, this event isn't what turns the tide - if anything, it almost undoes what little progress was being made. Yes, it's "random", but so was an assasssin failing to kill Trump and turning him into a heaven-sent chosen-by-God mother fucker. These things happen, and they do change the tide of politics when they do, one way or the other. In the case of the bomb, it almost allows the conservative side to sway the middle, to point out the "animals" that need to be controlled, not understood in the world.
Where the movie slips for me is a) the comparatively weak speech by Benitez, mild mannered and soft spoken, and this somehow sways unconvinced centrists right after a violent attack? Coming out of recent elections in this world, this was laughable. And then yes, b) Benitez being intersex. I don't mind how it was handled to be hidden - savvy politically-minded individuals would know not to tust their congregation with the truth. I think they're right not to. But the messaging with being intersex - with Benitez exclaiming they decided to "remain as God made me" was an iffy message at best in a world full of trans people. But it plainly didn't intend the message to be a positive, "pro" one, not an "anti" anything, it's heart was in the right place, just messy and unfortunate. (And this doesn't even begin to addrress how our forcing intersex unborn into specific sexes - typically into the male sex - often contrributes to trans identities later in life.)
I hated the last act, but overall still give the movie decent marks. It's very solid until it suddenly isn't.
Well, first: nobody "got the job" -- that's not how screenwriting works, at least for something like this (Marvel does do stuff like gun-for-hire writers because their content is predetermined by the Peoples' Commissariat for the Production of Film Slop's latest 5 Year Plan, but that's a separate issue...). Peter Straughan *chose* to adapt the novel into a screenplay, and he *chose* to adapt it the way he did, so, he gets to stand out front and bear responsibility for the film those choices produced. And the film sucks because those choices were universally bad.
If he *didn't* change anything from the novel, then that was an incredibly stupid choice because -- leaving aside any socio-political messaging and whether or not it ends up dated today -- while deeply internalized psychological conflicts are rich ground in a novel -- where we have direct access to characters' interiority -- they are fundamentally inadequate material for a "Drama" on stage or screen, where all we really have access to is *action*.
I like Lawrence's speech on certainty to be sure, it's a nice piece of dialogue writing. But all that stuff is just window dressing that becomes even more frustrating because of its ultimate irrelevance to any kind of actual dramatic plot. And, please watch the film again, because Lawrence very specifically mentions that he has lost the ability to pray to God as part of his crisis of faith. Now, I'm not a religious person particularly, but I cannot imagine that is the kind of thing which happens to someone who's solely disillusioned with an institution -- if anything, I'd imagine such disenchantment with the works of man would *strengthen* one's direct relationship to God in the search for guidance. But it really doesn't matter either way, because the film never engages with the nature of Lawrence's crisis of faith beyond just having him sigh a lot and look real sad about everything while continuing to do his job exactly as he would otherwise.
And finally, yes, random events *do* happen in real life that affect the outcome of things like the papal conclave. I'm not denying that. It's potentially realistic...but it's shitty screenwriting. Movies are not real life -- narratives have their own logic and structure by which they live or die. There is a very good reason that "deus ex machina" has been a *major* pejorative for the the way a drama is concluded for the last, oh, let's say 500 years or so of human narrative theory. It's a stupid and unsatisfying way to end a story because it's not connected to anything that happened before -- it makes everything we've invested our time and emotional involvement in as an audience up until that point basically irrelevant to the outcome.
All rules exist to be broken, of course, but if you're gonna break a biggie like "Don't do deus ex machina endings"...it better fucking work, or else it proves why the rule exists. And, if nothing else, Conclave is an excellent instructive text on that front at least...
Good points here. Clarified my own thoughts on this. I was not totally mad about this film despite that it was laid up for me to love it. There was a better, more cohesive (and weirder?) movie inside this one, and I'd love to see it.
Yeah, I mean, frankly there were multiple interesting movies it could have been and they somehow managed to make it none of them. There's the like "tragic practicality" version where Lawrence has to squash Benitez's candidacy to claim his votes for himself because Lawrence realizes that even though Benitez is the most worth, only he himself has any realistic shot of beating Tedesco and keeping the papacy from a conservative swing.
*Or* there's the cynical twist version where after winning, Lawrence turns out to have been Keyser Soze-ing the proceedings the whole time through his "humble conciliator" act to become pope himself and reveals everything to Bellini just to fuck with him because now it's too late for them to undo him.
*Or* there's a like a Sorkin-eque procedural version where Lawrence does manage to push Benitez to victory by getting himself dirty to keep his idealistic candidate clean.
And a zillion other options, but somehow they managed to find an ending that made literally everything that happened and everyone's real intentions totally irrelevant.
Just a maddening film.
Haha, I vote for number #2.
This is an interesting take.
I disagree due to my own personal experience as a lapsed catholic, but I understand what you’re getting at with the essay.
Personally I see the film as doubt vs certainty, and how does faith fall within that spectrum to the individual. The lynchpin of the narrative is universal, what exists for the church next is only defined by what actions are taken going forward.
Well, thank you for reading and commenting.
To be clear though, I don’t disagree at all that those are the intended themes of the film; the issue is that the film is so structurally poor as a dramatic narrative that nothing deeper about it comes across as mattering very much.
I disagree with you on the narrative. The weight or gravitas of the dramatic narrative is completely subjective. From my perspective the narrative was what it needed to be for the central theme.
Honestly, having read the book, I think the film failed to convey it well. Most of your issued are addressed in the book. There are so many pivitol moments and issues the movie leaves out.
(The scene where he stares at a section of a painting on the cieling is suppossed to such a big moment and for some reason they include it without any context. WHYYYY EVEN PUT IT IN THEN?!)
And I think the film had a hard time conveying the deep inner struggle of the main character without a narrator. I loved the book. However, considering some of the people the author is friends with...I personally try not to recommend buying it.
I loved this, an excellent summary of its faults. I agree with your thoughts on 'The Twist' being rather lacklustre. How did you view the nuns? I felt they were criminally underutilised, and expected them to have more influence than they did.
Yeah man, I actually laughed out loud at Isabella Rossellini getting a Supporting Actress nom for this movie. I mean, she's a legend and I love her body of work, but come on guys, we have to at a certain point get a bit more serious about what "Supporting" actually means. Her role in Conclave is *barely* above background work and frankly, it would have been insulting if she'd won for it.
It genuinely felt like she was there *solely* to avoid the film having no female speaking roles at all. Which -- I do get why everyone involved would be sensitive about such things, but in that case, you guys truly picked a stupid-as-fuck story and setting if you're worried about failing the Bechdel Test...
“Crypto-fascist freaks” with “their own prejudice and evil.” Lol.
You’re free to hold whatever political opinions you believe are right, but using such extreme, alarmist language only reinforces the kind of strawman the “crypto-fascist freaks” use to generalize the left.
You're right, qualifying with "crypto" only reinforces stereotypes of liberal weakness and equivocation. What I should have said was they are Nazi scum.
When leaders are doing open Nazi salutes at rallies and laughing about deporting citizens without due process into foreign black-site concentration camps, there's nothing "alarmist" about calling that fascist or prejudiced -- that's just what it is. There is no sense equivocating on it, and if you think "respectability politics" are going to save your bootlicking ass, how's that centrist neo-lib "do nothing" playbook worked out as a political strategy recently, hmm?
I hear where you’re coming from — I agree that we shouldn’t downplay authoritarian rhetoric or actions, and calling those things what they are matters. But at the same time, the language you’re using here — “Nazi scum,” “bootlicking ass,” “‘centrist neo-lib do-nothing’,” etc. — feels so extreme and confrontational that it risks reinforcing the exact kind of polarization and caricature we’re trying to challenge. ‘Fascist’ is a serious word with real historical weight, and if we use it too loosely, we may end up weakening our ability to call it out when it truly applies. We can be clear-eyed and firm without losing rhetorical discipline.
So, to give you similar credit, I get that you're coming at this from a place of basically good intent. I think you're just mistaken on the approach for a number of reasons:
1. "‘Fascist’ is a serious word with real historical weight, and if we use it too loosely, we may end up weakening our ability to call it out when it truly applies."
I'm gonna start with this because it's the most dubious statement here, and we all are just not gonna be entertaining this New York Times intelligentsia-style equivocation on whether or not the American far right is fascist anymore. They are. Here's the most commonly cited definition of the characteristics of fascist movements, from historian Stanley G. Payne:
' - "Fascist negations" – anti-liberalism, anti-communism, and anti-conservatism.
- "Fascist goals" – the creation of a nationalist dictatorship to regulate economic structure and to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture, and the expansion of the nation into an empire.
- "Fascist style" – a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth, and charismatic authoritarian leadership.'
There is not a single one of these characteristics that does not fully and completely describe the contemporary character, rhetoric and openly stated aims of Donald Trump and the current Republican party. I don't necessarily know if that label matters that much at this point since they themselves clearly don't much care about being tarred with it, but if there is in fact any value whatever in calling things what they are, they *are* fascists. And since, with increasing openness, they utilize the symbolism of the Nazi party, they get to be called that too. These are guys that do Roman Salutes in public and cheer on followers wearing swastika shit. So, genuine question -- if those aren't fascists and Nazis, then what the fuck *would* you call them?
2. Anyone who is not in bed with these guys needs to get real serious about something real quick if there's going to be any hope of undoing this shit -- the current liberal democratic playbook *does not work*. I very much understand that center-left people are so outraged by Trump that they have trouble seeing and grasping this important fact, but it's extremely necessary to get to grips with this reality that they find so distasteful, which is: people *like* Donald Trump. They don't really give a shit about or even understand his policies -- they just like *him*.
This comes up over and over and over in dissecting how Democrats keep managing to bungle these elections, but the party just will not assimilate this lesson. There is a *big* -- meaningfully big -- outer layer of soft Republican support from people who simply gravitate to Trump's personality as a politician. "He tells it like it is," "He's not afraid to fight," "He means what he says" etc etc etc. I know that you've heard/read this stuff, because we all have.
And the flip side to this is also true: these same people *hate* -- *HATE* -- the way modern Democrats comport themselves. They see them as weak, spineless, corrupt, two-faced liars and hypocrites...which, quite a few of them are, I'm sorry to say. The American people have signaled very clearly in the last several elections that they do not like and do not want "politics as usual."
The "We go high when they go low" approach has been the move for the last decade...and it doesn't work. People don't like it. The current mood of our culture doesn't favor it. I don't think that's good, per se, but it's just the reality. Terry Goodkind might have been a Randian nutcase, but he was very right about one thing: "The aggressor makes the rules. You must play by them, or you will surely die by them."
And what's more, when Democrats *have* come out swinging with spicier rhetoric against the far right -- like Tim Waltz did before the galaxy-brains in the DNC ordered a muzzle on him -- it's fucking worked! It does huge numbers. People respond to it. There is a *massive* chunk of the American electorate who is hungry for change and whose interests actually much better align with left-leaning policies, but who just simply will not vote Democrat right now because they find the Democrats so repellently spineless and useless.
The inner hardcore of Republican support can never be won away, and we have to get over the idea of there existing these magical unicorn "independent" voters who make calm, policy-based assessments about who best represents their interests in each cycle and will be turned off by too overt stridency in either side's rhetoric. That isn't a thing anymore. Again, that sucks, but it just is the reality. It's all about vibes now. The Right gets this, and they cash in on it time and time again. People do not want the cutesy elitist tee-hees the #resistance libs get from trying to think up the sickest and most literate burn they can for Trump -- the "Mango Mussolini"-type bullshit that lib grifters like BrooklynDadDefiant or Jeff Tiedrich jerk themselves off to so heartily. That doesn't do anything but make the posters themselves feel smart.
What a large stratum of Americans have signaled they want is aggressively confrontational efforts towards meaningful change in material conditions. Right now, the Republicans and Trump are the only game in town actually offering that, so people who are angry and disaffected with their current situation are falling into their lap by default. But there's no reason it *has* to be that way. If there's anything to learn from Trump's ongoing success, it's that his messaging is fucking effective and the Left should be duplicating it but in favor of policies that aren't venal and/or evil.
A lot of Trump/Republican/Fascist rhetoric capitalizes on the (unfortunately) very human need to unite around a common enemy to blame for what's wrong in society. The Right offers them that -- immigrants, people of color, people of different gender and sexual identities. So fuck it, if that's the game, we're gonna play by it -- I think we should all unite around the common internal enemy of Nazis and fascists. We're gonna call them that, and we're gonna stop with the cutesy satire and just call them evil and rally people to start doing the same. They *are* freaks, they are aberrations, and they don't get or deserve the political respect afforded to normal political ideologies.
The ship may be going down either way -- I'm not optimistic about any of this being in time to save the situation -- but if we're all going down, well, I don't know about you, but I'm going down swinging at Nazis and I'm not pulling punches.
3. I am a dude that talks shit about movies on the internet and not a professional critic or any kind of actual political commentator. I present this material as nothing but my own opinion and I'm under no obligation to moderate my rhetoric for propriety or even for effect, because I'm not trying to convince anyone of my politics -- just my film takes. I represent no institution but myself, my politics are what they are, and I'm open about that and issued the relevant disclaimer. If they're still too spicy for you, then I'm afraid you may just have a problem with the fare at this particular restaurant.
This is a good take, highlighting what does and doesn't work in the movie and pointing out a lot of the flaws in the way it is structured. However, I think you get hung up on what you wanted the movie to be rather than what it is. Rather than being about the details of what would really happen in a conclave to choose the pope, it's about the moral dilemmas the characters are facing and their desire to make the right choices so that they can do some good in the world.
Of course, that's exactly what I see as the movie's failing, and you do a good job of pointing out that it takes what should be a complex set of conflicts and simplifies them so much that it basically loses all meaning. The movie seems to want to believe that the majority of the guys ruling the Catholic church are morally forthright people who will put the good of the world ahead of their own petty schemes, which is a prospect that I find to be pretty dubious. It also tries to argue that when presented with some basic moral arguments, people will be able to overcome fear, hate, and other negative emotions and make the right choices, which is an idea that has been very definitively disproved by recent events.
So yeah, you're not wrong in your assessments, and even if some arguments could be made about various details and plot points, the movie as a whole is a failure. It's one that I had positive feelings about after watching it, even if I found its conclusions to be overly naive and simplistic, but as time has gone on, I think it has continued to fall in my estimation. And it will probably lose all relevance whatsoever when the Catholic church decides to choose a reactionary conservative pope who sides with the oligarchs who are currently doing everything they can to make the world worse.
Your review boils down to, I wanted the film to be like this but it was like that, therefore it's a bad film. Nope. It was a great film, just wasn't doing the things you wanted it to do.
You miss the fundamental conflict in the movie, Cardinal Lawrence battling his own craving to be pope. Review fail!
My dude, I wrote at some pretty extensive length about that very thing in this. I assure you I did not miss it -- it is the film that fails to develop it properly. Because Lawrence is so passive as a character, it's not a "battle" the audience has any real access to, except by implication. And a "battle" also requires tension between two opposing sides. I see no evidence in the film of Lawrence *actively* indulging such a craving. There are hints that he *might* secretly have one, but since he doesn't actually *do* anything about it, it's irrelevant to the film.
A deep internal struggle between opposing psychological drives is rich material for a *novel* -- in which we have direct, unmediated access to characters' interiority -- but it is simply not sufficient for the visual medium of film. "Drama" -- whether on stage or on screen -- is driven by *action*; characters have to *act* upon their internal drives for them to become relevant to plot. Lawrence staring at stuff and looking real sad and tormented does not constitute sufficient action for dramatic purposes in screenwriting, I'm sorry.
I know this shit is long, but if you wanna chirp at the professor, you gotta at least have done the reading, man.
No, I read it. I just think the battle is internal: the two sides are in his head. I get your argument about the narrative passivity but I think your framing is awry. Ditto your argument that the views of a pope don’t matter much. I say this as a non Catholic. I am not of the faith but I recognise the Roman Catholic Church is influential. And the death of Francis puts into relief the way a pope can shape that influence.
"The two sides are in his head."
I invite you to turn in a screenplay that features a purely internal conflict that a character never outwardly acts upon to a Film 101 class at any film studies program in the entire world and see how that goes for you...
In this case a lot of people liked the movie, incuding me, so I guess it worked in this instance.
I do apologize for my "review fail" comment, that was snarky and uncalled for.
That's fair enough, I appreciate that. I've popped off with unwarranted snark plenty, so, I get it.
There's always a ne plus ultra with these things where it does ultimately just come down to taste. I always argue my case for or against a film *as if it were objective*, but I hope everyone understands that, at a certain point, "It worked for me" is a totally fair off-ramp from any debate. I made my case, you decided you're not buying what I'm selling, we can shake hands and call it a day that we're just not gonna agree on this one. And that's cool, that's the way it should work.
I respect you taking the time to read the entirety of my diatribe despite disagreeing with it so much.
I mean look, this was based on a novel, and no one got the job because they were interested in radically changing the novel's narrative. And the novel was written and then published a wee bit before the current decade of fuller trans awareness and understanding. (At least regarding the public writ large, even the liberal public.)
But while the story is flawed and the messages in the third act muddled, the movie is still very good when its good. Fiennes' speech on "certainty" being a highlight. His character wasn't having a crisis of faith in god or his religion, btw, he was having a crisis of faith in the church as an institution, which is a very different thing. He believed it had become too political, too reactionary. I feel the same way about my American political system - but my lack of faith in the system and the wisdom of the majority makes me care ALL THE MORE about how it operates and what it results in, not less.
Regarding the bomb / deus ex machina, this event isn't what turns the tide - if anything, it almost undoes what little progress was being made. Yes, it's "random", but so was an assasssin failing to kill Trump and turning him into a heaven-sent chosen-by-God mother fucker. These things happen, and they do change the tide of politics when they do, one way or the other. In the case of the bomb, it almost allows the conservative side to sway the middle, to point out the "animals" that need to be controlled, not understood in the world.
Where the movie slips for me is a) the comparatively weak speech by Benitez, mild mannered and soft spoken, and this somehow sways unconvinced centrists right after a violent attack? Coming out of recent elections in this world, this was laughable. And then yes, b) Benitez being intersex. I don't mind how it was handled to be hidden - savvy politically-minded individuals would know not to tust their congregation with the truth. I think they're right not to. But the messaging with being intersex - with Benitez exclaiming they decided to "remain as God made me" was an iffy message at best in a world full of trans people. But it plainly didn't intend the message to be a positive, "pro" one, not an "anti" anything, it's heart was in the right place, just messy and unfortunate. (And this doesn't even begin to addrress how our forcing intersex unborn into specific sexes - typically into the male sex - often contrributes to trans identities later in life.)
I hated the last act, but overall still give the movie decent marks. It's very solid until it suddenly isn't.
Well, first: nobody "got the job" -- that's not how screenwriting works, at least for something like this (Marvel does do stuff like gun-for-hire writers because their content is predetermined by the Peoples' Commissariat for the Production of Film Slop's latest 5 Year Plan, but that's a separate issue...). Peter Straughan *chose* to adapt the novel into a screenplay, and he *chose* to adapt it the way he did, so, he gets to stand out front and bear responsibility for the film those choices produced. And the film sucks because those choices were universally bad.
If he *didn't* change anything from the novel, then that was an incredibly stupid choice because -- leaving aside any socio-political messaging and whether or not it ends up dated today -- while deeply internalized psychological conflicts are rich ground in a novel -- where we have direct access to characters' interiority -- they are fundamentally inadequate material for a "Drama" on stage or screen, where all we really have access to is *action*.
I like Lawrence's speech on certainty to be sure, it's a nice piece of dialogue writing. But all that stuff is just window dressing that becomes even more frustrating because of its ultimate irrelevance to any kind of actual dramatic plot. And, please watch the film again, because Lawrence very specifically mentions that he has lost the ability to pray to God as part of his crisis of faith. Now, I'm not a religious person particularly, but I cannot imagine that is the kind of thing which happens to someone who's solely disillusioned with an institution -- if anything, I'd imagine such disenchantment with the works of man would *strengthen* one's direct relationship to God in the search for guidance. But it really doesn't matter either way, because the film never engages with the nature of Lawrence's crisis of faith beyond just having him sigh a lot and look real sad about everything while continuing to do his job exactly as he would otherwise.
And finally, yes, random events *do* happen in real life that affect the outcome of things like the papal conclave. I'm not denying that. It's potentially realistic...but it's shitty screenwriting. Movies are not real life -- narratives have their own logic and structure by which they live or die. There is a very good reason that "deus ex machina" has been a *major* pejorative for the the way a drama is concluded for the last, oh, let's say 500 years or so of human narrative theory. It's a stupid and unsatisfying way to end a story because it's not connected to anything that happened before -- it makes everything we've invested our time and emotional involvement in as an audience up until that point basically irrelevant to the outcome.
All rules exist to be broken, of course, but if you're gonna break a biggie like "Don't do deus ex machina endings"...it better fucking work, or else it proves why the rule exists. And, if nothing else, Conclave is an excellent instructive text on that front at least...