Conversation Piece
by Luchino Visconti
1974 | Italy, France | M12 | Drama | 2h02

A retired art history professor lives alone in a luxurious mansion in Rome, isolated from the world, accompanied only by his works of art. His solemn solitude is disturbed when the vulgar Marquise Bianca Brumonti, wife of a right-wing industrialist, convinces him, through deception and force, to rent one of the apartments in the mansion. Forced to interact with the turbulent group composed of the marquise, her lover Conrad, her daughter Lietta, and her boyfriend, the Professor finds himself increasingly fascinated by his new guests. One of Visconti’s most personal films (and his penultimate), Conversation Piece is an elegiac meditation on politics, culture, and sexuality, marked by the melancholy of changing times.

Starring Silvana Mangano, Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger, and Claudia Marsani.