Conversation Piece movie storyline. A 60-ish American art collector and former scientist (the Professor) lives beautifully and alone in Rome but his life is radically disrupted when the wife of a rightist industralist, the Marchesa Brumonti, her young lover, Konrad, teen-aged daughter, Lietta and her daughter’s boyfriend, Stefano lease the upper apartment of the luxurious palazzo he has inherited from his Italian mother. Against his judgment, the Professor becomes involved in the affairs of these distasteful strangers who begin to hold a strange fascination for him.
The Marchesa is beautifully dressed and coiffed, but her behavior is loud and vulgar. Konrad describes a leftist activist past in contrast to his degenerate present which may involve drug dealing. Lietta and Stefano are sexually precocious, and they are all very stylish. They encroach more and more upon the Professor’s privacy and thoughts until they become like the family he wants to disown but can’t because they are his kin. The Professor’s memories of his mother and wife intervene and his art collection and bedside reading hold clues to the violent psycho-drama that ensues. The sumptuous interiors are ravishing.
Conversation Piece (Italian: Gruppo di Famiglia in un Interno) is a 1974 Italian drama film by director Luchino Visconti. The film name refers to an informal group portrait, especially those painted in Britain in the 18th century, beginning in the 1720s. The film explores such themes as the collision between old and new, imminence of death, existentional crisis, and social gap between generations.
About the Story
A retired American professor (Burt Lancaster) lives a solitary life in a luxurious palazzo in Rome, surrounded by pieces of art and books. He barely maintains contact with people other than his long-time housekeeper Erminia, but even that contact is characterized by detachment. One day the Italian jet set in the form of the rich but vulgar Countess Brumonti (her husband is a right-wing industrialist who does not appear) rings his doorbell. The countess manages to talk the professor into renting the empty apartment on the upper floor of the palazzo to her, her much younger German lover Konrad Huebel (Helmut Berger), her teenage daughter Lietta, and Lietta’s fiancé (or maybe just boyfriend) Stefano.
The professor is calmly disturbed by the pushy new tenants, who immediately have their apartment rebuilt, examine the professor’s apartment for clues to his past, throw parties, and have amorous experiences with each other (including Konrad with the countess’s daughter). But in addition to the annoyance, the professor feels animated by the young people; he is particularly drawn to the provocative, opaque Konrad.
Konrad’s past as a gigolo and as a leftist radical in the protests of 1968, who then slipped into drugs, is alluded to — a sharp contrast to the professor’s former completely different life that had been shaped by an aristocratic upbringing and the experiences of World War II. Occasionally the professor sinks into memories of his former wife and mother. The professor and Konrad have a common interest in art and become closer friends after Konrad is beaten up one night because of gambling debts and the professor finds him and provides medical care.
The professor invites the countess, Konrad, Lietta and Stefano to a dinner at which he calls them his “new family” and at the same time expresses satisfaction that they have brought liveliness to his measured life with their move-in. However, a dispute arises among his guests about Konrad’s dubious past and his relationship with the countess.
Although she wants to separate from her husband, she does not want to marry Konrad, who is significantly younger and is socially beneath her. Konrad then reveals that he spied on her husband for supporting extreme right-wing groups. This was not for business, but for fear of being arrested in Spain’s Franco dictatorship. The countess and the young conservative entrepreneur Stefano then distance themselves from Konrad. The professor rejects their reactionary views, but does not intervene to support Konrad.
Conversation Piece (1974)
Directed by: Luchino Visconti
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger, Silvana Mangano, Claudia Marsani, Stefano Patrizi, Elvira Cortese, Romolo Valli, Claudia Cardinale, Dominique Sanda, Jean-Pierre Zola, Umberto Raho
Screenplay by: Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Enrico Medioli, Luchino Visconti
Production Design by: Mario Garbuglia
Cinematography by: Pasqualino De Santis
Film Editing by: Ruggero Mastroianni, Eliane Katz
Costume Design by: Vera Marzot
Set Decoration by: Carlo Gervasi, Dario Simoni
Music by: Franco Mannino
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Cinema International Corporation
Release Date: December 10, 1974 (Italy), June 21, 1977 (U.S.)
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