The second to last feature by the great Italian director Luchino Visconti, Conversation Piece is a witty, darkly humorous and ultimately tragic tale of the unwelcome intrusion of modern life onto a wealthy nobleman (Burt Lancaster), who would prefer to be alone with his art, books, Mozart and memories. He owns a palazzo in Rome and a pushy Marchesa (the gorgeous screen goddess Silvana Magnano) talks the reluctant professor into renting the upstairs apartment for a year for her young boytoy Konrad (Helmut Berger), her daughter Lietta (Claudia Marsani) and her daughter’s passive boyfriend Stefano (Stefano Patrizi). They loudly come and go at all hours, push their way into the nobleman’s living quarters, do unwelcome renovations which cause water leaks and the ceiling to crack and crumble.
The nobleman wearily puts up with all of it because he becomes intrigued with the handsome boyfriend Konrad (Berger). He even attends to him when he finds him beaten up and bloody on the stairs. The upstairs interlopers are a demanding, vulgar bunch- even the police show up to question the professor about Konrad and drug smuggling. But as much as the noise and chaos infuriates him, he is pathologically drawn to this decadent bunch.
Visconti had suffered a stroke before making the film and only after Burt Lancaster agreed to step in at the helm if there was a problem did the movie get insured. The film feels achingly personal too, with Lancaster as the alter ego of Visconti, facing failing health and death with a bitter, jaundiced, Proustian eye on the future generation. There are brief flashes from the professor’s past and of his beautiful mother (an uncredited Dominique Sanda), who kept a secret room in the house during the war to hide dissidents. That’s the room the professor uses to hide Konrad and lovingly care for him after he is beaten up.
Infuriatingly dismissed by critics at the time of its release in 1974, this gorgeous 4K restoration will possibly cause audiences to see this film in a fresh light. I’ve always had a soft spot for this movie and think it’s an important later work by a truly gifted filmmaker.
This sparkling restoration is screening at The Film Forum (209 W. Houston Street).
Thanks for the reminder!