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Conversation Piece More at IMDbPro »Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (original title)

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35 out of 43 people found the following review useful:
Interiors, 23 November 2007

Author: Ubaldo Martinez from United States

This is Luchino Visconti's first feature film after his almost fatal heart attack. He was in a wheel chair and his left side was completely paralyzed. Enrico Medioli's original story about a man who's facing the end of his life, whether consciously or unconsciously seemed very close to the knuckle. I've read a lot of material and talked to people connected to the production before actually seeing the movie. Nothing had prepared me for what the film presents to the audience and I wondered if the film that ended up on the screen was the film that Visconti intended. Starting from the cast: the first rumors that Visconti was ready to go back to work, announced the film with Laurence Olivier and Audrey Hepburn in the roles that went to Burt Lancaster and Silvana Mangano. Anne Marie Philipe and Martin Donovan (the director) in the roles that went to Claudia Marsani and Stefano Patrizi. For what I gather, Olivier was sick at the time and couldn't accept. Audrey Hepburn turned it down, Donovan and Philipe found themselves outside the co-production regulations where two Italian nationals were required for those roles. Helmut Berger was the one who survived all the changes and I'm tempted to say: unfortunately! His character is the one who doesn't ring true. Clearly, Lancaster's character would have seen through Berger's. There is nothing in his character that made me believe Lancaster would feel attracted and fall for. Berger is a prissy, emotionally flabby, pretty boy. He is also unbelievable as Silvana Mangano's lover. The film as a whole takes place in Lancaster's dark and elegant apartment. Against his better judgment he rents the upper floor to this new, rich, beautiful and vulgar family. His world is going to start to collapse under the weight of the young invaders without soul. Solemmn, sad and a bit static the film however has a masterful center that makes it compelling viewing. Two brief cameos by Dominique Sanda as the mother and Claudia Cardinale as the dead wife bring some unexpected oomph to the grim proceedings. Even if I sound a bit down on the film I'm actually recommending it.

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18 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
A drama of solitude and misunderstanding., 18 October 2002

Author: Angelly-black from Russia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

"Gruppo di famiglia in un interno" has a special meaning for me, `cause it was the first Visconti`s film I`ve seen. It was a successful beginning for "Gruppo di famiglia" has concentrated all the most significant themes of his late works - death, solitude, disintegration of family and decay of traditional values, human searching for harmony in conditions of hostile environment and internal dissonance. I guess this movie is a kind of psychological puzzle - the director gives us some fragments of picture and a slight allusion how to make it up. So you'd better watch this movie several times ( at least two).

Is it a precise sketch of decaying society or a drama of solitude and misunderstanding? I think both. The old Professor fenced himself off with beautiful pictures, classical music, exquisite trinkets. He seems disillusioned, he dislikes people and prefers things, they create. We conceive the environment from the Professor's viewpoint, the action of movie is restricted with his apartment - so we have exact and oppressive sensation of his voluntary hermit-existence, externally calm, but desperate like the Death. This measured life is abruptly broken off by the group of people - eccentric, tactless, obtrusive and noisy. Despite the Professor's resistance, the newcomers involve him in the storm of their passions and collisions. The epicenter of this storm is Conrad - an unscrupulous young man, a gigolo of the rich marchesa. But it's just one side of his figure, the first and quite deceitful impression. It also refers to other characters who turn out to be different from the impression they produce at first. The part of Conrad was gorgeously played by Helmut Berger who seems to embody in last films of Visconti the dangerous temptation of beauty - fatal for other people and finally for its owner. Suddenly it becomes evident that the unapproachable Professor dreams of family. The reality is pierced now and then by his reminiscences of the youth, of his mother, his young wife who'd left him (or he'd left her?). Those memories are always interrupted by irritating noise of his guests. The Professor exists at the joint of two realities and rush from one to the other with torment and hesitation. At last he realizes that feels more affection to those people with all their problems then to his exhausting reminiscences or imaginary interlocutors from "conversation pieces". He told sensitively: "It could have been my family!" Blinded with this unexpected affection he doesn't notice the doom sneering at him. He doesn't realize that he neither knows nor understands those people and there's very little time to achieve something new. There's only death ahead for him. That's why like a sudden intolerable blow he takes a suicide of Conrad who attracted the Professor most of others. Indeed Conrad is the least false figure in that "family". Beside his ruthless awareness the Professor looks like a naive idealist. His bedroom transformed into a hospital ward, a tape of cardiogram - it's a price he pays for his illusions.

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10 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Attempt on conversation in contrary coexistence, 13 April 2008

Author: Marcin Kukuczka from Cieszyn, Poland

Beautiful interiors and the detail of a picture by Arthur Davies observed through magnifying glass by an elderly Professor. The picture occurs to show a family... Can anyone realize that this painting shall soon constitute a prelude to such unpredictable events and reflections?

Luchino Visconti did not make many movies in his career because he insisted on saying that his films related to the things that really captivated him. When he wanted to say something significant, he just made up his mind to commit himself to another production. And of course there are better and worse movies of his, naturally; however, I personally think that CONVERSATION PIECE (or rather the more accurate title GRUPPO DI FAMIGLIA IN UN INTERNO - group of the family within) is one of those movies that intensely reveals a desire to convey a message. Count Visconti is much different and older here than 30 years earlier in his OSSESSIONE but equally powerful.

It is truly a psychologically captivating image of a communication among people who are absolutely different in their coexistence. The Professor (Burt Lancaster) is a man of clearly defined ideas, an elderly intellectual who has already set down his life and seeks to be left alone among his "mute pictures." However, a group of people intervene and insist on him to rent the elegant upper flat. These are Marchesa Bianca Brumonti (Silvana Mangano) with her lover Konrad (Helmut Berger), and her daughter Lietta (Claudia Marsani) with her boyfriend Stefano (Stefano Patrizi). Although they seem to be nice people at first sight, they occur to be a true riddle for the Professor who is gradually losing contact with reality. Their vulgar talk harms him and their open bisexuality shocks him. Things turn worse and, consequently, the suspicious events make the Professor more and more annoyed till the climax of events: emotional conversation. Then, the atmosphere gets most exciting, Marchesa drinks rare evening coffee and people harm themselves: some physically, some emotionally and some in both ways. Yet, no one can predict what this horrific climax moment will cause...

Thanks to unpredictable content and good action, the film occurs to be the Visconti's production of particular impression and interest. But that is not the only aspect that talks for the movie. Art is expressed in beautiful images, excellent interiors comparable to IL GATTOPARDO and some brilliant performances. I say "some" because not everyone gives a top notch performance. Burt Lancaster does the continuation of the magnetic job he did as Prince Salina in IL GATTOPARDO: he is very convincing as the Professor portraying a man desirous of stability, a bit intolerant and maniacal as he described elderly people, but overall a warm hearted reliable character so anxious with all sorts of sudden changes (moral ones too). Silvana Mangano is appealing as Marchesa Bianca: eminent, partly decadent, very elegant and nervous. She represents the other side of the older generation escaping not to books or paintings like the Professor but rather to life of luxury and extraordinary journeys. Yet, consequently, she also loses link with reality. She is more acknowledged of the world and alleged information than real dangers within her family. Youngsters, however, do not appear that convincing. Helmut Berger, though a good actor especially after his role in LUDWIG, appears to be a bit pathetic in the role of Konrad, Claudia Marsani is rather sensual and beautiful than talented and Stefano Patrizi does not appeal to me at all. Some good job among the supporting cast is done by Elvira Cortese as Erminia, the housekeeper who has some wonderfully witty moments.

But finally, I should address the most important aspect of the movie that makes it so impressive and so unique. It is the psychology of what is going on in the entire film, it is the constant attempt at communicating rather simple ideas, yet failing to do that. Why? Because the contrast is too serious: intellect vs parroting, mutual goodness vs hedonism, good will vs good fun, idealism vs materialism, the old vs the young with all specific fears and desires. That is the gist of the movie, that is what made the Professor realize and makes us realize a significant fact: it's really possible to speak one language, use the same codes, yet absolutely fail to communicate and coexist. It makes people remark the division of society, which is not a very privileged fact, but true one, unfortunately.

CONVERSATION PIECE is a film I'd recommend you to see. But remember one thing: it really has to do with the theme you are not likely to find elsewhere: shallow understanding of nothing and profound understanding of everything. 8/10

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12 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
All about subtext, character interrelations. You realise its resonances second run through. Don't be put off by the performances - the voice performances, recorded later, are weak. Think of the dialogue trac, 9 June 2004

Author: Ben_Cheshire from Oz

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

(spoilers)

I don't know why they changed Visconti's italian title for US/UK release - because the entire film only works in reference to that title. What the hell does "conversation piece" have to do with this movie? The "Family Group" title is a cue to the subtext - of the inter-relationships between these characters. That is where the story lies, not in the "plot," the events.

Subtext

It only really works on the subtextual level - i noticed this when i saw it a second time. I did it by accident - i watched all but ten minutes one night, then decided to start again instead of trying to pick up the ending, and all of a sudden i noticed the subtle changes in the relationships between the characters, i noticed character motivations i hadn't noticed the first time.

These five people are not a family: there is a biological mother and daughter, the daughter's fiance and the mother's casual sex partner - and Burt Lancaster, the retired professor whose apartment they insist on renting. Visconti is saying something about the family, the upper-class family in particualar - what it has become. And it is a modern de facto family - with Lancaster at its head contrasting this state of affairs with the old-world family. The film is about the great difference between young and old, like Death in Venice - and how much had changed in that generation gap - especially true back then - think about the difference between the 50's and the 70's! This is why Lancaster is such an important choice - he is an icon of classic Hollywood, of that golden age in the 40's and 50's, inserted in a modern world, yet totally isolated from it, as if he'd rather not know that the world has gone on outside his apartment since the 50's.

So while the dialogue at times does not seem to ring true, it gains a deeper resonance the second time through, when you're more aware of character motivations and less concerned with "what will happen next."

Performance

I won't hear anyone say Visconti can't direct actors: some of the finest performances i've ever seen can be found in his debut film Ossessione. But i'll admit that several European actors sound like they've just done a crash course in speaking English before filming began, which understandably mars the film's genuineness.

Second time through, i reevaluated: indeed the performances aren't as subtle as in Death in Venice or Ossessione. Burt Lancaster is magnificent, naturally - the problem is limited to the italian actors, and it seems to be a product of their struggling with speaking, or perhaps just mouthing the english words. Don't get me wrong - the performances are still disappointing, especially for a Visconti film, particularly the two women and the dark haired young man. But i can't help thinking that these actors gave much better performances on the set than the (or the American/Italian actors who have dubbed their voices, perhaps - the maid certainly can't speak english) dialogue track indicates.

Watch Helmut Berger (Konrad Huebel), for instance, playing a number of emotional scenes. If you turn the sound down or try to ignore the sound of the speech - his performance is actually quite wonderful - on the set, when they filmed it, he gave a great performance - but by the time they recorded the sound, the actors were not able to recapture the emotion of the moment.

So the poor quality of the voice acting, and the hammy performances from the women in particular are a shame, because the music and composition are gorgeous.

To say it is a Visconti film is to say that it is exquisite to look at: beautifully composed, with rich tones.

The real subject of the mournfulness that underlies Gruppo di famiglia seems to be that Visconti was nearing the end of his life. The aging professor who can't understand the younger generation and understands only his art and music, is a personal expression from Visconti. This aspect of the character takes on a particular relevance when you consider that Visconti died two years later. Lancaster lived thirty more years! Visconti still made another film after this, but this is a definite swan song, a goodbye message from him. The last scene from Lancaster is touching and brilliant. One of the best things Visconti has ever done.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Visconti's Crossroads, 27 September 2010

Author: tieman64 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Burt Lancaster plays a retired science professor whose life is turned upside down by the intrusion of a rowdy family of strangers.

Director Luchino Visconti goes to lengths to stress Lancaster's seclusion. He's an American born Italian-American living in Rome and has long since settled into a life of quiet study, spending long days browsing his own private art collection. He has a live-in housekeeper and is occasionally visited by art tradesmen, but for the most part Lancaster lives a quiet, contemplative life, his house a tomb of memories, his body awaiting death.

Enter Bianca Brumonit, an Italian noblewoman who wishes for her daughter and son to move into the top floor apartment of Lancaster's mansion. Lancaster, of course, doesn't wish for her to move in, but after much argument eventually gives in. The lease will run a year and he will be well paid.

But it turns out that Mrs Brumonit also intends for the apartment to be used by her boy-toy, a young lover and erratic Leftist called Konrad Huebel. When Mrs Brumonit's husband finds out about Konrad's existence, however, he gives her an ultimatum: divorce, or find a more suitable "extramarital lover". Brumonit chooses divorce.

Unfortunately Konrad doesn't like this. He's tired of being treated as a male hustler and is tired of life itself. He commits suicide, an act which finally gets all these damned strangers out of Lancaster's house and allows Lancaster to slowly and peacefully die himself.

So what we have here is a meditation on various collisions. Collisions between classes, between cultures, between classical and modern, between young and old etc. As such, Lancaster's house is clearly demarcated, downstairs secure and ordered whilst the "new order" upstairs is shown to be constantly expanding, building works not only slowly taking over and encroaching on the rest of the house, but destroying the very history, customs and artwork stored within.

Meanwhile the Brumonit family is portrayed as the outdated remnants of a selfish aristocracy, the mother trying to retain her status and relevance by latching onto feisty youths who would have opposed her family during its heyday. Like Visconti's own "The Leopard" and "The Damned", the film thus watches as a man witnesses his world vanish into modernity (in contrast to Visconti's "The Innocent", in which a man cuts himself off from the past by embracing a sort of Nietzschean hedonism and defiance).

This has led to some believing that Visconti feared social change and romanticised the "old order", painting them as men of intellect, art and reason. But the film's criss cross of relationships is too complex to be reduced to these terms. It criticises both the old and the new, and paints Konrad as a sort of synthesis of the two, his inability to exist in these spaces, or synergize the two worlds, resulting in his death. Visconti's question is, with the death of Lancaser and Konrad, who inherits Italy? The film's answer seems to be: the worst of both worlds.

7.5/10 – Visconti's style had long since changed by this point, the energy of his early films ("White Nights", "Rocco and His Brothers" etc) giving way to an approach that's just too theatrical and dialogue driven. See "Summer Hours" for a sort of modern masterpiece which covers similar material. Worth one viewing.

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10 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
the disintegration of a family, 13 June 2001

Author: morelligomes from New York

An intelectual professor, played by Burt Lancaster, has his retired life interrupted by a wealthy arrogant family who moves upstairs in his Roman apartment. A male hustler, who fascinates and controls all the characters, shows a dated display of the disintegration of an Italian aristocracy, which Visconti knew so well.

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0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Luchino Visconti's minimalistic film about the intellectuals of his generation, 8 September 2010

Author: Ilpo Hirvonen from Finland

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Luchino Visconti's career is unusual compared to his companions, because he started it in his forties - by directing Ossessione (1943). Shortly after Ossessione Visconti became well known as a controversial artist. After many decades of filmmaking he met his end in 1976, but still in his latest days managed to make few masterful films. His second latest film is Conversation Piece (Passion & Violence) it's also a story about the disintegration of a family as many other films by Visconti have been; The Leopard, The Damned etc. The film was planned on the basis of the fact that Visconti was in a bad condition. He couldn't move much, so they needed to make a film that didn't require a lot of space, which was quite easy because Conversation Piece happens only in one building.

A retired professor (Burt Lancaster) collects paintings from the 18th century. He likes to live a peaceful, quiet life, but one day a woman appears to his door demanding him to rent the upper part of his apartment. Quickly we find out that three other people are moving there, two of her children and a friend of them. Slowly, but eventually a bond start to build between the lonely professor and the family.

The paintings the professor collects are called conversation pieces; paintings of the nobility or the bourgeoisie with their children, servants and dogs. Paintings, whose wicked backgrounds are fascinating to research. This film by Luchino Visconti is actually one of these conversation pieces. It's a portrait of a family, the most obvious scene that reveals this is the scene where the five main characters gather around the table. In this scene the characters are finally against each other and say the most cruel truths.

Conversation Piece is a film about an intellectual of his own generation who collides with the new generation and who cannot live in a harmony in the modern world. A major point in the film is that; nothing good can come of it when an elderly man tries to approach younger people as his children. They are too different, they can never understand each other. The professor is an egoist, manic collector who hates noise and other people. He can't accept that the actual things that mean are the people, their problems not the products and paintings they've left behind. He rather discusses with the paintings that people have left behind than with the actual people.

Luchino Visconti tells that through Burt Lancaster's character he tried to interpret the position of his generation's intellectuals. Through this character he was able to present a generation, a class which he was a part of too. Visconti's films are often stories about families about the disintegration of them. Only in Bellissima the family sticks together in the end. He says that he tells them as a requiem and the form of tragedy seems to suit him the best.

In result of the choices made by the characters they end up being face to face with themselves. The safety created by the family is gone and the privileges of money and power can't save them now. They are alone, and they cannot change their situations. Luchino Visconti has always been interested in researching a rotten society and even that Conversation Place takes place in one building, it manages to create an impressive portrayal of the Italian society in the 70's.

The professor never understands the events that happen around him. When Konrad (the most immoral of the youngsters) tries to reveal the fascist plot of a right-wing extremist, the professor doesn't understand it, because he doesn't think that the threat of fascism is real anymore. The scene is very touching - when Konrad actually is in need of trust, support and loyalty, the professor turns him a blind eye. When the fascists have murdered Konrad, the professor cannot believe it and he excludes in his grief.

Conversation Piece is a very multidimensional film. I went to see it with high expectations, but somehow it still managed to surprise me. It's a portrayal of a family and the disintegration of it. It's also a survey of Visconti's generation's intellectuals, but it certainly isn't autobiographical, the other characters of Conversation Piece are also very well crafted. Conversation Piece is a story about loyalty, fascism, politics, loneliness, destruction of family, passion, love, the collision of young and old. It's a beautiful conversation piece.

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7 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
The Visconti microscope., 12 February 2003

Author: mifunesamurai from Australia

Professor Lancaster leads a reclusive life in his art deco apartment, surrounded by classical paintings, books and memories. Along come new loud tenants who rent his upstairs apartment and force themselves onto the Professor who then questions his existence as a mixture of the old and new culture clash in intellectual wars and morals. Another interesting piece from Visconti's preoccupied topics of fallen aristocrats and the morality of life.

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1 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
A lesser version of Il Gattopardo?, 22 June 2007

Author: haasxaar from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

When the end credits rolled up all I could think of was Visconti trying to recreate the emotion and beauty of the last shot of his best film "The Leopard". You see Lancaster, sad and disconsolate - yet this time it didn't make me feel all that bothered.

Lancaster plays here a very similar role; a sophisticated, old-fashioned and ageing Professor. He lives in great luxury in an exquisite villa in Rome. Everything seems perfect and serene until he is coaxed into renting an apartment to a decadent family.

They behave terribly. They destroy a noble and humble abode into something crass and awfully tasteless. Yet, that is no surprise; the family comprises a sexually promiscuous daughter and her boyfriend, and a older woman who panders to a toy-boy played by Berger. They swear, play loud music, have no apparent sense of decency or morality. There is obviously a clash of belief systems here. Lancaster, an intellectual, well-educated and dour old man is confronted by the amoral youth of the 60s and 70s.

I would normally love films like this. The 60s and 70s are periods that fascinate me greatly. I love Visconti as well, but somehow I get the feeling he was drying up creatively as I viewed this. The script is so heavy-handed sometimes, just the constant cliché that Berger plays is so drawn out and predictable - the angry Communist who just hates life and society, then the older gentleman with good manners who cannot comprehend the change around him and really does not want to understand it and finally the airy, vacuous daughter who seems completely bereft of depth or emotional sincerity. It all seems a little rushed and lacking in subtlety and the very theatrical performances from the mother and the daughter do not help whatsoever.

Visconti was nearing the end of his life when he made this film, and in a way it shows - in two ways. Firstly, it seems that his zest was depleted, the screenplay and whole film are lacking in coherence and a clear structure, and secondly it appears that he was now a filmmaker in a period, a society, a culture that he did not like or comprehend. The decadence, the flamboyance and the hedonism of that time seemed to be overwhelming him; and in a sense like the framework of this film, he saw everything crumbling around him. For this alone, I could say at least watch it for the pretty pictures and a brief insight into the mind of a director who just felt lost and confused - with this film, society and with life itself.

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