In Director / co-writer Luchino Visconti’s 1974 classic Conversation Piece (originally released in Italy as Gruppo di famiglia in un interno), a lonely yet distinguished professor (Burt Lancaster, in a seminal role, trading his trademark athletic vigor for a quiet distinction) is accustomed to living alone. He lives in a palazzo in Rome amongst his paintings and literature, enjoying a quiet life much like Tolkien’s Bilbo Baggins. A group of unconventional people, headed by matriarch Countess Bianca Brumonti (Silvana Mangano), forces the professor’s hand to become the upstairs tenants he never wanted. An insightful narrative on the power of love and the ever encroaching specter of death is the result.
Long-time writing partners Luchino Visconti and Suso Cecchi d’Amico pair up for the last time, along with Enrico Medioli, to create a haunting and compassionate portrait whose characters leap from the screen and into the psyche. Also seated in the director’s chair for his 13th and penultimate motion picture, Visconti again proves his mastery of both the lens and the pen; the result is a consummate chamber drama.
“…Countess Bianca Brumonti moves in upstairs from The Professor, interrupting his quiet life…”
In a film whose story unfolds within the confines of the professor’s home, Visconti’s hallmark style is brought to life by production designer Mario Garbuglia and set decorators Carlo Gervasi and Dario Simoni’s meticulous curation of the Professor’s cloistered, Higgins-esque world. The cinematography is brilliantly captured by the artistic eye of Oscar-winning cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis, and it looks as beautiful as ever in this stunning 4K restoration.
Centered on a small cast of five players, Conversation Piece flows from scene to scene like a well-rehearsed Shakespearean drama. In addition to Lancaster and Mangano, striking performances abound. Notably, Claudia Marsani plays Mangano’s manipulative yet charming daughter. Unwilling to take no for an answer, Marsani exudes a balance between the innocence of adolescence and the manipulative nature of a scam artist. As a student activist with a past, Helmut Berger’s Konrad commands the screen and inhabits the role with a stabilizing intensity.
With a succinct title derived from the late literary critic and art historian (also the real-life inspiration for Lancaster’s Professor), Mario Praz, Conversation Piece is an awakening for those who feel life and its pleasures are exhausted; although mortality’s shadow lurks, until the final page is turned, the future cannot be predicted. Originally released in 1974, the film’s beauty remains undiminished in this 4K restoration and theatrical re-release. Featuring a haunting score by Franco Mannino and the contrasting resonance of Italian pop artists Caterina Caselli and Iva Zanicchi, this version is sure to ignite conversations about the beauty in loss and the loss of beauty as the clock hauntingly ticks by.
"…the beauty in loss and the loss of beauty as the clock ticks by"
