Conversation Piece (1974) User Reviews

Attempt on conversation in contrary coexistence

[marcin_kukuczka · 8/10 · 13 April 2008]

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

A group of difficult tenants

[jakob13 · 7/10 · 31 December 2015]

Luchino Visconti, ailing and partially paralyzed by a stroke a year or two before, managed to finish 'Conversation Piece' (the Italian title to me seems better -- 'A conversation inside a family). He called upon Burt Lancaster to play his protagonist, the retired American professor who has withdrawn from the world, devoting his hours to his passion of minor English 18 and 19 century art and to his books, in Rome. We see not the energetic hero of 'The Leopard', but a tired older man without qualities, in a well ordered arrangement of taste for tradition and patterns and philosophical musing. And his apartment is the embodiment of that world that is not only antiquated but which time has passed by. His is a bourgeois order that belongs in history books or literature. And into his quiet world burst with great energy is the modern temperament of a dysfunctional family of the upper class, filthy with money and decadent. The beautiful Sylvana Mangano is the marchesa who finagles the professor to rent a vacant apartment above his museum like apartment with its stuffy furniture, it corridors brimming with portraits of bucolic scenes from the English gentry or great men and family, It is in a sense as musty and locked away as the long f=vacant apartment he lets for the marchesa's kept German lover Conrad (Visocnti's own lover Helmut Berger), as well as her daughter and friend. And suddenly, the upper floor is transformed, as a contrast, with a modernism that is loud and vulgar and in stark contrast to the professor's mausoleum, as he quietly awaits death, as much as he values his solitude and the silence of his own carthusian-like order. The marchesa is temperamental, demanding and will have her way with her rent lover, if he doesn't slip through her greedy grasp. The professor's world is turned upside down, as he is drawn into this world of his madcap tenants. As such, images of his mother (Dominique Sanda) and his wife (Claudia Cardinale) in brief scenes bring him back to the world he has shunned. And with a turn of the wrist, Visconti has hooked up the older bourgeois order to the new one, but his professor remains aloof until it is too late. For, despite his reluctance, the marchesa, her daughter, her daughter's friend and mercurial Conrad, a refugee from the turbulent 1960 radicalism, in the professor's mind have become his 'adopted' family; yet, the professor maintains his value free mind and refused to become engaged and with responsibility, until the tragic end. And then you have to wonder. Somehow, 'Conversation Piece' sets off bells in our minds today: its vulgar display of money, the absence of responsibility, the money cultural of a decadent capitalist class. Visconti with a year or so from his own death still had a vision of his own class and its failure to live up to values it espoused. It won't please everyone's taste, but it is worth seeing for the curious.

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

[Ben_Cheshire · 6/10 · 9 June 2004]

(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.

A Piece of Visconti Magic

[werefox08 · 9/10 · 6 October 2012]

Luchino Visconti co-wrote and also directed this from a wheel chair, after his first heart attack. The movie reminds me of playwright Henrik Ibsens style. Indeed this is very much like a play. All the action taking place in a retired Professors (Burt Lancaster) plush house in Rome. When a brash young group of mis-fits rent a room upstairs ..the Professors sedate life changes completely. The subtext is vital here, and more than one viewing is recommended. The professor has long given up on communication between humans, and the clash of the old and the new makes him even more certain. Its a brilliant piece of work--although the sound track which was added later is sometimes annoying. Lancaster is great --indeed all of the main players do a wonderful job. Visconti is credited for ushering in the neo-realist cinema. Later he departed from this style and became more melodramatic--with intense character development. This movie is from his later style.

Interiors

[uhmartinez-phd · 9/10 · 23 November 2007]

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.

a film by Luchino Visconti

[Kirpianuscus · 11 April 2018]

You discover entire his universe in this film who seems be an elegy. a film about solitude. and about family. politics. and love. dark. bitter. cruel. and precise definition of Visconti filmography themes. a film who works in admirable manner against the small not inspired details. more than other films, it represents a confession. honest. and terrible. about a world, about the others, about abdication, about force of challenges. about the way to define yourself.

The Visconti microscope.

[DukeEman · 7/10 · 12 February 2003]

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.

A drama of solitude and misunderstanding.

[Angelly-black · 10/10 · 18 October 2002]

"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.

CONVERSATION PIECE bemoans a bygone era of blue-blooded etiquette, it speaks volume, but frisson however, never materializes.

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 29 August 2016]

Visconti's penultimate feature, CONVERSATION PIECE is made after he suffered from a stroke in 1972, and would pass away in 1976 at the age of 69. The context might make plain that why this chamber piece is entirely set inside an old but palatial palazzo in Rome, where lives the retired professor (Lancaster) who is a conversation pieces collector, and a pall of nostalgia has been waywardly infused through his twilight year rumination over senescence, facing the imminent death and contending with hedonistic younger generations.

The professor's solitary life is interrupted when he reluctantly agrees to rent out the apartment to Marquis Bianca Brumonti (Mangano), a middle-aged nouveau riche, soon he will get wind of the fact that Bianca has rented the place for her 12-year-junior kept-man Konrad (Berger), her teenage daughter Lietta (Marsani, Miss Teenage Italy 1973) and her pallidly handsome boyfriend Stefano (Patrizi), the latter two are quintessential rich kids wrapped in cotton wool, impressionable and capricious respectively. His young neighbors have no qualm about encroaching on his territory and breaching his equilibrium of tranquility and detachment, but the most egregious one is Bianca, a wanton intruder who takes Professor's courtesy for granted, her laissez-faire approach towards Lietta, her strained relationship with Konrad, her condescending ordering around Professor's diligent maid Erminia (Cortese), Visconti patently wears his heart on his sleeve that Bianca is an outrageous entity under the aegis of wealth, and Silvana Mangano never disappoints, she can be unapologetically ferocious, which pierces through her ageless make-up and hammers home to the point we cannot help but wondering why and how the professor must countenance such a prima donna!

A more plausible reason is the Adonis-like Konrad (although Berger's exquisite look has begun to shown a smidgen trace of waning at this point), who is radical, cynical and self-destructively antagonistic towards the status quo which he has no power to change, and the professor harbors an almost reflexive and one-sided feeling of tendresse to him, Visconti cautiously skirts around the gay undertow, and instead foregrounds professor's reminiscence of his youth (where two legendary actresses Dominique Sanda and Claudia Cardinale appear uncredited in brief flashback as the professor's mother and his wife) and characterizes Konrad as an ideal force of beyond-the- pale dissolution, whose ultimate vengeance is harrowing but futile, soon to be forgotten.

Over a decade has passed since THE LEOPARD (1963), Burt Lancaster returns to a similar niche in this elegiac think-piece and stays in top form with opulent compassion where his restrained self- pity, behind-the-time humility and an underlying disillusionment conflict to retain the vestigial of nobility. The professor's study is ornately-decorated in baroque majesty, in sheer contrast with Bianca's modern taste, in Visconti's eyes, the world has not progressed into a better world, CONVERSATION PIECE bemoans a bygone era of blue-blooded etiquette, it speaks volume, but frisson however, never materializes.

Luchino Visconti's minimalistic film about the intellectuals of his generation

[ilpohirvonen · 9/10 · 8 September 2010]

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.

Tenants from the grab bag

[markmuhl · 7/10 · 21 April 2021]

After about two thirds of the movie, Burt Lancaster declares to have captured the most terrible tenants imaginable. How right he is. The behavior of countess Brumonti and her companions is without doubt impertinent and I found it hard throughout the movie to show any sympathy for them, maybe except for the daughter, who can partly be excused for still being a teenager and one with a certain charm on top of it.

Nonetheless, the retired apartment owner, who lives a solitary life in an elegant palazzo in Rome just underneath the let apartment, feels in a way attracted to the countess' young German lover Konrad Huebel, who is also interested in art but in a rather superficial manner. Maybe he sees in him a character to be rescued or even the son, he has never had, but I found it hard to share such feelings to someone, who can be only described as selfish, manipulative and boorish.

Anyhow, this does not mean that the movie does not have its strong sides. The basic conflict between the unsociability of the old professor and the continuous excitement of the much younger tenants comes across quite realistically. Likewise, the fact, that the professor after a while feels grateful for someone breaking into his self-imposed isolation, is in a way comprehensible even though he is confronted with a for him disconcerting lifestyle that is also open to promiscuity.

There is also interesting discussions about society, especially about the bourgeoisie defending its privileges against a self-assured working class. The countess Brumonti maybe sums it up best with the ironic and rhetorical question: 'A left wing entrepreneur, does this really exist?'. It is quite evident, that the activity of the Red Brigades in the Italy of the 1970s had a certain influence on Mr. Visconti when directing this movie.

Last not least I would like to mention the good acting performances. Especially the portrayal of an arrogant and selfish young man by Helmut Berger excels, although I am not sure, whether this was really far off from Mr. Berger's true personality ...

A film that got completed because of the lead actor--and a superb swansong for a great director

[JuguAbraham · 8/10 · 2 September 2016]

On a second viewing after a 35 year gap, I am convinced this is indeed a lovely work and a major work of Visconti. This is is also one of those rare films that an actor--Burt Lancaster--helped a director to make a great film. (One recalls Kirk Douglas prevailing on Stanley Kubrick to change the ending of Paths of Glory, only to make it a major work of cinema). Here, Burt Lancaster, staked his own money to complete the film as producers backed out noticing the director was ill and could die before the film was completed.

One major fact that I did not realize was the title did not relate to conversations in the movie but was a well known (in the world of paintings) title for a series of paintings. That makes you to reassess the entire film. The film is a study of Italy through the eyes of three generations and their varied values on social interactions, art, politics, architectural design, music, et al.

Once you evaluate the film on the basis of the painter's decision to change the very trees and objects in his painting compared to the photograph taken of the same scene, the movie's stature itself changes. The opening credits that begin with a blast followed by the electrocardiogram graph roll streaming out unattended is a Visconti masterstroke.

That the film was made by the director sitting on a wheel chair is impressive. Is it a film about acquiring possessions or about understanding people? Both. One realizes the importance of understanding human behaviour of strangers, as one educated professor was withdrawing into solitude surrounded by books, works of art and great music. And his life changes for the richer experience in his sunset years. A great film indeed with superb performances from Burt Lancaster and Silvana Mangano. The cameos of Claudia Cardinale and Dominique Sanda do not contribute much except in providing insights into the character of the professor.

Highly recommended for serious viewers of good quality cinema.

A lesser version of Il Gattopardo?

[haasxaar · 6/10 · 22 June 2007]

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.

Doesn't work.

[bjacob · 4/10 · 3 January 2019]

The film, in a nutshell: in a very theatrical set, setting and manner, an ancient intellectual gets truly obnoxious tenants. Unsurprisingly, it ends in tragedy.

Admittedly I am not a big fan of Visconti but this seems to me his worst work among those I've seen. The dialogues are horrendously stifled and the delivery is artificial; everything and everyone is pompous and replete with self-importance. At the beginning it's quite amusing to see the old protagonist squirm at the mores of his vulgar tenants, but soon you start to lose patience: with them because they are a bunch of narcissistic idiots. With him, because he can't summon the courage of kicking them out and locking the door. When the theme starts to steer towards the political, it does so with the agility and subtlety of someone walking in a full body plaster cast. The problem is that you're supposed to understand why the professor needs his tenants, even if they end up pulverising him like a breath of air in a sarcophagus; but for this to happen, they would have to have at least some redeeming quality. They have none. They aren't interesting nor smart, and the figure of the German gigolo, which is meant to be tragical, it's just farcical, possibly also because of the very modest ability of his actor. You feel sorry for the poor professor, whose loneliness is merciless exploited, but ultimately he's two-dimensional a character like all the others in this remarkably bad film.

Good, very good...

[RosanaBotafogo · 8/10 · 28 May 2021]

From disrespect without size, from total inelegance, apart from the unreasonable aggression of the gigolo, drug addict and leftist, and the jet set fell on the floor, that renovation in a (centenary) property that was extremely unpleasant... However, what follows is exquisite, a beautiful ménage à trois, poetic even, in the final rites a debate that is valid for every film, social criticism, social inequalities, and politics, questioning Franco's tyranny, a melancholic and exquisite outcome, adorable... "The character of the teacher played by Burt Lancaster is openly inspired by the figure of Mario Praz." "The role of Marquise Bianca Brumonti was initially proposed by the director to Audrey Hepburn, who refused to declare that she did not want to link her name to a murky and immoral role like that." "People get married to form a family, and divorce to get rid of it. - And get married again. - No! To be free."

the disintegration of a family

[morelligomes · 9/10 · 13 June 2001]

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.

Visconti's Crossroads

[tieman64 · 27 September 2010]

"Conversation Piece" stars Burt Lancaster as 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 secluded, 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, in typical Visconti fashion, what we have here is a film about very specific 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/or 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 web of relationships is too complex to be reduced to such simple binaries. 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 Assayas' "Summer Hours" for a sort of modern masterpiece which covers similar material. Worth one viewing.

Aptly named

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 19 April 2017]

Possibly due to illness of director Luchino Visconti, but Conversation Piece no way is up there with other of his work that I've seen like The Leopard, The Damned, and Death In Venice. It was interesting to learn how star Burt Lancaster's contract called for him to step in and direct if Visconti wasn't up to it.

Lancaster plays an American classics professor, retired living a well ordered existence among paintings and books and other such Conversation Pieces. But his palazzo which looks like a museum has a big upkeep and he's hammerlocked into renting his top floor to a rather course and vulgar widow Silvana Mangano and her daughter Claudia Marsini. Marsini comes along with boyfriend Stefano Patrizzi and Mangano has tagging along after her boy toy Helmut Berger.

The subject of Conversation Piece is decadence, a topic that Visconti loved to make movies about. Still those other films I cited really showed it well. Conversation Piece was aptly named as what we did in a beautiful setting is talk about it.

Helmut Berger has the most interesting part and he springs quite a surprise on Lancaster toward the end of the film.

Conversation Piece is a beautifully photographed film, but quite static.

Conversation Piece Review!!

[sauravjoshi85 · 8/10 · 13 May 2022]

Conversation Piece is a drama film by director Late Luchino Visconti. The film stars Late Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger, Late Silvana Mangano, Stefano Patrizi and Claudia Marsani.

A Professor very reluctantly lends his home for a rent to a countess, her lover and her family.

One of the greatest film made by Late Luchino Visconti and the film is not for everyone, the film can be called as a perfect illustration of degrading family values and shown beautifully from the eyes of an aging professor.

The film is masterfully backed by superb acting, great screenplay and good climax, very little but very effective background music is been used for the film .

A Must Watch.

bringing your drama into my life

[Rob-O-Cop · 7/10 · 4 March 2022]

I loved the set up of this film. Total strangers impose their mess of a life on the unsuspecting Professor. It's done very well, they just edge themselves into his space, mess him around and muck up his pleasant life. They try and debate it's for the better at the end but there was no need to go there. The movie stands strongly with how it plays out. Hey you, keep your nonsense to yourself, I'm trying to have a pleasant life here!

The one drawback was in the ending. It didn't seem to go anywhere and felt a bit of a let down to the previous 90 mins.

The Collector

[oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx · 10/10 · 13 March 2024]

Conversation Piece is a very important film to me for two reasons, firstly it's very easy for me to identify with "The Professor" (Burt Lancaster's character is never referred to by any other name), and if a film has the same purpose as Franz Kafka said a book has, to be "the axe for the frozen sea within us", then this film is an axe for me. Secondly it's a fascinating experiment, what we have here, in the isolation of a chamber piece, is an entire wealthy family, but we never see the far right industrialist patriarch. What we get instead is a kindly old man transplanted in his stead. It's really beautiful, the effect that has.

The movie takes place in the home of a retired professor, who shuts himself away from the masses to concentrate on art appreciation, rejecting the world in favour of his imagination and the imagination of others. Like the professor I withdrew from science after completing advanced studies due to a suspicion that it was not a liberating force. I have also surrounded myself alone with beautiful things, with music, with pictures, and with art, in an apartment in the sky; I am twenty years his younger and on his path. We shared the same perception, the public is a flock of crows, and you cannot change that, you dismay has no power, any actual positive change so rare as to be written down to fluke or accident of an evolving economy. Many choose to become crows.

A great creative choice is to use Burt Lancaster as the actor, to make the Professor someone physically attractive, so the audience doesn't cop out with, "this man is alone because of his looks". There is also the risk that we say, "he is from another, better time". In fact I think men of sensitivity and ethics have found public life impossible for millennia, and have often withdrawn into eyries (I say men because men have usually been the ones to be in the financial position to achieve solitude, as well as being under less pressure to end it). In fairness there is some sense of the contemporary to the movie, as it takes place during the so-called Years of Lead when political assassination became normalized.

The professor's home is invaded by a vibrant and spontaneous gaggle of an extended family, sans patriarch. Despite the unhappiness they bring, he also realizes too late the value in being part of the lives of others. There is also the sadness that a man such as himself is seen as a great father but not as a great sire. Evolution's trick on us that these are not the same thing.

I say, with some considerable irony, that Conversation piece is another of those movies that gives men a glimpse of what it would be like to be in love with a brilliant woman. Just as we know what it's like to kiss Grace Kelly from Rear Window, Conversation Piece shows what it's like to marry Claudia Cardinale. Irony, because voyeurism and abstraction is what has imprisoned the Professor, something he finds out all too late.

Like another great Italian chamber piece (Ettore Scola's "A Special Day"), this movie has the power to lift us out of the river of time, and to reflect sacred truths. The trouble it stirs up inside me is a precious type, and I hope I will live with this movie and use it to be happier, either that or I will stand condemned by it.

Vulgarity vs Refinement - The Conversation Piece

[arthur_tafero · 7/10 · 30 December 2022]

VIsconti has a history with Burt Lancaster; he made "The Leopard", the story of Garibaldi, with him ove ten years earlier. Lancaster was a younger and more vigorous man at that time. Visconti, the writers, and Lancaster have some very interesting and accurate insights to the aging process for the type of man that Lancaster portrays. He is a refined gentleman. The people he comes into contact with are, by any definition, vulgar and crude. However, they do possess something that the professor does not possess at this point in his life; the visceral enjoyment and pain of contrasting emotions. It is these contrasting emotions, love and hate, joy and agony, among others that the professor strangely is attracted to in the form of a young man he becomes a mentor to. As a man about the same (or older) than the professor (and a professor to boot lol), I can commiserate with Lancaster's character. This is Visconti's most introspective film; be sure to catch it.

wonders if it is more interesting

[christopher-underwood · 8/10 · 23 December 2021]

Burt Lancaster was 61 at this time and 11 years earlier he had been in The Leopard. Luchino Visconti after a stroke in 1972 he had to direct by sitting in a wheelchair. It is great that both should have been so good and interesting character's in such very difficult situations. The property is having the ceiling falling in, where an atmosphere of incest fear pervades of brothers with and sister, fight and sex with each others and their mother who seems impossible. Although Lancaster also loves the life and it seems that he had been all his time as every thing he can control and then wonders if it is more interesting.