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IMDbPro

Conversation Piece

Original title: Gruppo di famiglia in un interno
  • 1974
  • R
  • 2h 1m
IMDb RATING
7.4/10
4.9K
YOUR RATING
Conversation Piece (1974)
DramaRomance

A reclusive retired professor is faced with confronting modernity when a group of vulgar youths led by an obnoxious marchesa take up residence in his unused upper residence.A reclusive retired professor is faced with confronting modernity when a group of vulgar youths led by an obnoxious marchesa take up residence in his unused upper residence.A reclusive retired professor is faced with confronting modernity when a group of vulgar youths led by an obnoxious marchesa take up residence in his unused upper residence.

  • Director
    • Luchino Visconti
  • Writers
    • Enrico Medioli
    • Suso Cecchi D'Amico
    • Luchino Visconti
  • Stars
    • Burt Lancaster
    • Helmut Berger
    • Silvana Mangano
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    7.4/10
    4.9K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Luchino Visconti
    • Writers
      • Enrico Medioli
      • Suso Cecchi D'Amico
      • Luchino Visconti
    • Stars
      • Burt Lancaster
      • Helmut Berger
      • Silvana Mangano
    • 22User reviews
    • 50Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 13 wins & 5 nominations

    Videos1

    CONVERSATION PIECE (Masters of Cinema) Original Italian Theatrical Trailer
    Trailer 3:50
    Watch CONVERSATION PIECE (Masters of Cinema) Original Italian Theatrical Trailer

    Photos121

    Burt Lancaster and Helmut Berger in Conversation Piece (1974)
    Helmut Berger and Silvana Mangano in Conversation Piece (1974)
    Burt Lancaster and Helmut Berger in Conversation Piece (1974)
    Conversation Piece (1974)
    Conversation Piece (1974)
    Burt Lancaster in Conversation Piece (1974)
    Burt Lancaster in Conversation Piece (1974)
    Silvana Mangano in Conversation Piece (1974)
    Burt Lancaster in Conversation Piece (1974)
    Silvana Mangano, Claudia Marsani, and Stefano Patrizi in Conversation Piece (1974)
    Claudia Marsani in Conversation Piece (1974)
    Silvana Mangano in Conversation Piece (1974)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Burt Lancaster
    Burt Lancaster
    • Il Professore
    Helmut Berger
    Helmut Berger
    • Konrad Huebel
    Silvana Mangano
    Silvana Mangano
    • Marchesa Bianca Brumonti
    Claudia Marsani
    Claudia Marsani
    • Lietta Brumonti
    Stefano Patrizi
    Stefano Patrizi
    • Stefano
    Elvira Cortese
    Elvira Cortese
    • Erminia
    Philippe Hersent
    • Portiere
    Guy Tréjan
    Guy Tréjan
    • Venditore di quadri
    Jean-Pierre Zola
    Jean-Pierre Zola
    • Blanchard
    Umberto Raho
    Umberto Raho
    • Commissario
    Enzo Fiermonte
    Enzo Fiermonte
    • Commissario
    Romolo Valli
    Romolo Valli
    • Micheli
    George Clatot
    Valentino Macchi
    Vittorio Fanfoni
    Lorenzo Piani
    Margherita Horowitz
    • Domestica
    Claudia Cardinale
    Claudia Cardinale
    • Moglie del professore
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Luchino Visconti
    • Writers
      • Enrico Medioli
      • Suso Cecchi D'Amico
      • Luchino Visconti
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Because Luchino Visconti was severely affected by a stroke, the insurance companies refused the risk of insuring the production. The filming could begin only after Burt Lancaster promised to replace the director behind the camera if necessary.
    • Quotes

      Marchesa Bianca Brumonti: He was too young to have learned this final nasty fact: grief is as precarious as anything else.

    • Alternate versions
      The original UK cinema version was cut by the BBFC to remove two uses of the word 'cunt'. When the film was resubmitted in 2003 only one use of the word was present in the version and this was passed uncut.
    • Connections
      Featured in Temporada de Caça (1988)
    • Soundtracks
      Vorrei spiegarVi, oh Dio!
      Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

      Performed by Emilia Ravaglia soprano

    User reviews22

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    7/10
    A group of difficult tenants
    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.
    helpful•8
    1
    • jakob13
    • Dec 31, 2015

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • June 23, 1977 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • Italy
      • France
    • Official site
      • Official site (Japan)
    • Languages
      • Italian
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Gewalt und Leidenschaft
    • Filming locations
      • Dear Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy(Studio)
    • Production companies
      • Rusconi Film
      • Gaumont International
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 1 minute
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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