The Two Popes (2019) is a biographical drama directed by Fernando Meirelles and written by Anthony McCarten, based on McCarten’s play “The Pope”. The film centres on an imagined series of private conversations between Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis, during a period of crisis inside the Catholic Church. Anthony Hopkins plays Benedict as an intellectual, traditional and isolated figure, while Jonathan Pryce plays Bergoglio as a more informal and reform-minded church leader shaped by his years in Argentina. Although the film is inspired by real people and real events surrounding Benedict’s resignation and Francis’ election, it uses dramatic invention to explore guilt, faith, institutional responsibility, personality and the transfer of spiritual power.
The Two Popes is set mainly in Vatican City, Rome, Castel Gandolfo and Argentina, but the production could not film inside the Vatican’s most restricted spaces. Instead, the film used a combination of real locations, palace interiors, studio recreations and digital work. Cinecittà Studios in Rome was used to build a full-scale reproduction of the Sistine Chapel, allowing the film to stage the conclave and private conversations in a space that closely resembles the real chapel. St Peter’s Square was recreated with visual effects, while other Vatican interiors were represented by the Royal Palace of Caserta and Villa Farnese in Caprarola. The area around Castel Gandolfo was used for scenes connected to the papal summer residence, and various Rome locations stood in for parts of the Vatican world. The Argentina material was filmed on location in Buenos Aires and other areas connected to Bergoglio’s background, giving the film a contrast between the formal architecture of the papacy and the streets, churches and poorer neighbourhoods associated with the future Pope Francis. The result is a film where the Vatican is partly real, partly reconstructed and partly substituted, while Argentina provides a more grounded biographical landscape for Bergoglio’s earlier life.
Royal Palace of Caserta
Royal Palace of Caserta has appeared in Star Wars – The Phantom Menace, Star Wars – Attack of the Clones, Mission: Impossible III, and many more.
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