“They say there is no small role,” says Conclave star Isabella Rossellini. “You still have to create a character. Sometimes, in a supporting role, you have less of an opportunity to create a complete character, so your aim has to be very, very precise. If you miss your chance in your one, two, or three scenes, then the character is diluted and you don’t understand it. It does require a certain amount of precision.”
Rossellini, speaking with That Shelf over Zoom, has more lines during our conversation than she gets in Conclave, Edward Berger’s Vatican-set thriller. However good Rossellini is with words, though, she arguably steals the film with a mere minutes of screen-time and even fewer moments of dialogue. Her performance as Sister Agnes, who runs Casa Santa Marta inside the Vatican and ensures that the Cardinals are tended to, is one of great silent power. Her poise and watchful eyes tell audiences everything they need to know about this observant leader.
“The character was written to be silent because, in the Catholic Church, women, nuns have a very subservient role,” explains Rossellini. “The way the script was written was that she present, but silently present—but also with great authority.” Rossellini says that she drew upon the quiet authority she observed during her days attending Catholic school.
In that, she says she could conjure the strong presence for women in an ensemble dominated by men. “They were women who chose the life. They chose the destiny. It was a calling for them,” she says. “I was very aware of it because I grew up in Rome and went to the Catholic Church. Although they have a subservient role, I didn’t have to play her as subservient. I could play her with enormous authority, although silent,” she says, drawing a hand sharply across her throat with a smile.
Sister Agnes displays enormous authority in Rossellini’s pivotal scene late in the film. She speaks up and reminds the Cardinals about the sisters’ watchful eyes. Rossellini draws upon the nun’s graceful, physical presence by punctuating the speech with a mic drop of a curtsy. It’s one moment that brought an eruption of applause at the Toronto International Film Festival and is a key reason why she and Conclave are earning Oscar buzz this season.
The actor adds that silence and gender dynamics are evident through the visual framing of Conclave. She points out the early scene when everyone convenes at the Vatican for the vote. The entrances fall strictly along gender lines, which Berger evokes in the composition.
“The camera was placed very up high, so we were just dots. The way we moved in the crowd arriving in the Vatican, the nuns were all blue dots and we walked across the frame very fast,” says Rossellini.
“You could tell from the way we walk that we were destined to go somewhere, probably the kitchen, while the men—they were red dots—linger, talk to one another, create a different group, and then broke away because they were chitchatting and talking,” she explains. “They never blended either. It was never, the blue was here, the red was here. Edward Berger is like a painter: visually it can translate the hierarchy just by photographing. The crowd’s movement spelled out the hierarchy, the non-mixing of the sexes and women’s duty and men’s duty.”
Rossellini says that people may sometimes take for granted the influence that sisters in the Church have even though men like the Cardinals get the votes and say the mass. “The nuns had more influence on me as a little girl than the priests had,” she says, looking back to her school days. “Maybe just because they were my teacher or they were women, I could ask questions about menstruation. It was difficult to talk to a priest about that, but when you are 13 or 14, you can talk about the nuns: what is the menstruation, what or should I do, what should I look out for? It was easier to talk to them than to talk to a priest.”
The role of women saying mass arises during the collegiate bickering that ensues between the Cardinals. Conclave raises questions for the audience about the Church’s place in a contemporary society as the Cardinals vote for its future. Rossellini hopes that audiences listen closely to the provocative sermon that Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) delivers before voting commences. He asks the Cardinals to consider the role of doubt.
“As Cardinal Lawrence says, if there was no doubt, you don’t need any faith, so that was very inspiring to me,” she says. “I grew up in Rome, and if you grew up in Italy, you’re very familiar with the debate within the church. The debate within the church is very similar to the debate within society: the role of women, are gays accepted? What about education? Everything that we discuss in our society is also discussed in the church. What I love most about the film is this homage to doubt. We have to know what we don’t know.”
The acclaim for Conclave offers something of a full circle moment for Rossellini’s career. The role is a sharp contrast to her breakthrough performance as troubled nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet—a woman tormented by men who silence her through brutal violence. However, one reading that keeps Blue Velvet relevant is its spiritual element: the palpable fight between good and evil in Dorothy’s quiet little town.
“The role was very controversial because I played, basically, a battered woman,” says Rossellini. “I don’t think there were many roles yet that talked about that. But if you want, Dorothy is the opposite of Sister Agnes. Dorothy is a night club singer, but she’s totally a victim of men. She’s totally under their power and she’s kind of terrified, while Sister Agnes, who has accepted to have a subservient role, has incredible authority. So, in a way, it is the opposite. The nightclub singer was suffering, being dominated, and the nun you expect that she’s dominated in a patriarchal society. She’s not at all. She has a lot of authority. I think the Cardinals were a little bit afraid of her.”
Even as Rossellini ends the conversation with a big smile, one can’t help but feel not necessarily afraid, but certainly a little intimated. That’s authority.
