Violence et Passion

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.

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.

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

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.

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."