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| CONVERSATION
PIECE (GRUPPO DI FAMIGLIA IN UN INTERNO)
(director/writer: Luchino Visconti; screenwriters: Suso
Cecchi d'Amico/story by Enrico Medioti/Enrico
Medioti; cinematographer: Pasqualino De Santis;
editor: Ruggero Mastroianni; music: Franco Mannino;
cast: Burt
Lancaster (Professor), Silvana Mangano (Bianca Brumonti), Helmut Berger (Konrad), Claudia Marsani (Lietta), Stefano Patrizi (Stefano), Elvira Cortese (Erminia), Dominique Sanda (Mother),
Claudia Cardinale (Wife);
Runtime: 125; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Giovanni
Bertolucci; Raro Video; 1974-Italy/France-in English) "A minor Visconti piece." Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz The talky
drawing room comedy is the penultimate film
directed by the acclaimed 66-year-old Italian
filmmaker Luchino Visconti ("The
Leopard"/"Ludwig"/"Death in Venice"), who at the time
was still recovering from a stroke and chose to do
this play-like film rather than the more difficult
Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain. It's about
loneliness, being an intellectual in a world that
promotes a popular crass culture and of an aging man
facing the generation gap of his younger guests. In
some ways it's autobiographical of the director, even
if Visconti claims in public that's not so. It's based
on the story by Enrico Medioti and is co-written by
Visconti, Medioti and Suso
Cecchi d'Amico. A
refined, self-absorbed, intellectual, retired and
withdrawn American history professor (Burt Lancaster),
who remains unnamed, lives surrounded by books and
paintings and memories of living a more full life in a
palatial apartment he inherited from his Italian mom
and is obsessed with collecting 18th-century British
paintings of family life in domestic settings that are
called in the art world a 'conversation piece.' The
professor's quiet life is challenged when he is roped
into renting his top floor flat for a year to a
vulgar, aggressive and wealthy noblewoman, Marchesa Bianca Brumonti (Silvana Mangano), who brings along her
lively pot-smoking teenage daughter Lietta (Claudia Marsani), the daughter's wealthy
boyfriend Stefano
(Stefano
Patrizi) and
mom's angry young bi-sexual kept man, the former
student revolutionist, Konrad (Helmut Berger). The intruders involve the
loner professor in their many spats, annoy him by
frequently using his phone, break his tranquil mood by
playing loud rock music and in hosting a loud sex
orgy, and illegally tearing down the walls in the
apartment. The professor, it's sad to say, puts up
with their crudeness, rudeness and noise and even lets
his hair down to their vulgarities because he realizes
this is the only family he has. Also, the professor's
latent erotic homosexual desires are aroused when he
pines after Konrad and begins to face his own
approaching death. It's a minor Visconti
piece, but it maintains a certain mystery, class and
richness, as it never stumbles into going down a
tawdry Hollywood screwball comedy path. REVIEWED ON 4/18/2012 GRADE: B+ Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |