Steineded How sad is this?

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Kirpianuscus You discover entire his universe in this film who seems be an elegy. a film about solitude. and about family. politics. and love. dark. bitter. cruel. and precise definition of Visconti filmography themes. a film who works in admirable manner against the small not inspired details. more than other films, it represents a confession. honest. and terrible. about a world, about the others, about abdication, about force of challenges. about the way to define yourself.

tieman64 "Conversation Piece" stars Burt Lancaster as a retired science professor whose life is turned upside down by the intrusion of a rowdy family of strangers. Director Luchino Visconti goes to lengths to stress Lancaster's seclusion. He's an American born Italian-American living in Rome and has long since settled into a life of quiet study, spending long days browsing his own private art collection. He has a live-in housekeeper and is occasionally visited by art tradesmen, but for the most part Lancaster lives a secluded, contemplative life, his house a tomb of memories, his body awaiting death.Enter Bianca Brumonit, an Italian noblewoman who wishes for her daughter and son to move into the top floor apartment of Lancaster's mansion. Lancaster, of course, doesn't wish for her to move in, but after much argument eventually gives in. The lease will run a year and he will be well paid.But it turns out that Mrs Brumonit also intends for the apartment to be used by her boy-toy, a young lover and erratic Leftist called Konrad Huebel. When Mrs Brumonit's husband finds out about Konrad's existence, however, he gives her an ultimatum: divorce, or find a more suitable "extramarital lover". Brumonit chooses divorce.Unfortunately Konrad doesn't like this. He's tired of being treated as a male hustler and is tired of life itself. He commits suicide, an act which finally gets all these damned strangers out of Lancaster's house and allows Lancaster to slowly and peacefully die himself.So, in typical Visconti fashion, what we have here is a film about very specific collisions. Collisions between classes, between cultures, between classical and modern, between young and old etc. As such, Lancaster's house is clearly demarcated, downstairs secure and ordered whilst the "new order" upstairs is shown to be constantly expanding, building works not only slowly taking over and encroaching on the rest of the house, but destroying the very history, customs and artwork stored within. Meanwhile the Brumonit family is portrayed as the outdated remnants of a selfish aristocracy, the mother trying to retain her status and relevance by latching onto feisty youths who would have opposed her family during its heyday. Like Visconti's own "The Leopard" and "The Damned", the film thus watches as a man witnesses his world vanish into modernity (in contrast to Visconti's "The Innocent", in which a man cuts himself off from the past by embracing a sort of Nietzschean hedonism and/or defiance).This has led to some believing that Visconti feared social change and romanticised the "old order", painting them as men of intellect, art and reason. But the film's web of relationships is too complex to be reduced to such simple binaries. It criticises both the old and the new, and paints Konrad as a sort of synthesis of the two, his inability to exist in these spaces, or synergize the two worlds, resulting in his death. Visconti's question is, with the death of Lancaser and Konrad, who inherits Italy? The film's answer seems to be: the worst of both worlds.7.5/10 – Visconti's style had long since changed by this point, the energy of his early films ("White Nights", "Rocco and His Brothers" etc) giving way to an approach that's just too theatrical and dialogue driven. See Assayas' "Summer Hours" for a sort of modern masterpiece which covers similar material. Worth one viewing.

Ilpo Hirvonen Luchino Visconti's career is unusual compared to his companions, because he started it in his forties - by directing Ossessione (1943). Shortly after Ossessione Visconti became well known as a controversial artist. After many decades of filmmaking he met his end in 1976, but still in his latest days managed to make few masterful films. His second latest film is Conversation Piece (Passion & Violence) it's also a story about the disintegration of a family as many other films by Visconti have been; The Leopard, The Damned etc. The film was planned on the basis of the fact that Visconti was in a bad condition. He couldn't move much, so they needed to make a film that didn't require a lot of space, which was quite easy because Conversation Piece happens only in one building.A retired professor (Burt Lancaster) collects paintings from the 18th century. He likes to live a peaceful, quiet life, but one day a woman appears to his door demanding him to rent the upper part of his apartment. Quickly we find out that three other people are moving there, two of her children and a friend of them. Slowly, but eventually a bond start to build between the lonely professor and the family.The paintings the professor collects are called conversation pieces; paintings of the nobility or the bourgeoisie with their children, servants and dogs. Paintings, whose wicked backgrounds are fascinating to research. This film by Luchino Visconti is actually one of these conversation pieces. It's a portrait of a family, the most obvious scene that reveals this is the scene where the five main characters gather around the table. In this scene the characters are finally against each other and say the most cruel truths.Conversation Piece is a film about an intellectual of his own generation who collides with the new generation and who cannot live in a harmony in the modern world. A major point in the film is that; nothing good can come of it when an elderly man tries to approach younger people as his children. They are too different, they can never understand each other. The professor is an egoist, manic collector who hates noise and other people. He can't accept that the actual things that mean are the people, their problems not the products and paintings they've left behind. He rather discusses with the paintings that people have left behind than with the actual people.Luchino Visconti tells that through Burt Lancaster's character he tried to interpret the position of his generation's intellectuals. Through this character he was able to present a generation, a class which he was a part of too. Visconti's films are often stories about families about the disintegration of them. Only in Bellissima the family sticks together in the end. He says that he tells them as a requiem and the form of tragedy seems to suit him the best.In result of the choices made by the characters they end up being face to face with themselves. The safety created by the family is gone and the privileges of money and power can't save them now. They are alone, and they cannot change their situations. Luchino Visconti has always been interested in researching a rotten society and even that Conversation Place takes place in one building, it manages to create an impressive portrayal of the Italian society in the 70's.The professor never understands the events that happen around him. When Konrad (the most immoral of the youngsters) tries to reveal the fascist plot of a right-wing extremist, the professor doesn't understand it, because he doesn't think that the threat of fascism is real anymore. The scene is very touching - when Konrad actually is in need of trust, support and loyalty, the professor turns him a blind eye. When the fascists have murdered Konrad, the professor cannot believe it and he excludes in his grief.Conversation Piece is a very multidimensional film. I went to see it with high expectations, but somehow it still managed to surprise me. It's a portrayal of a family and the disintegration of it. It's also a survey of Visconti's generation's intellectuals, but it certainly isn't autobiographical, the other characters of Conversation Piece are also very well crafted. Conversation Piece is a story about loyalty, fascism, politics, loneliness, destruction of family, passion, love, the collision of young and old. It's a beautiful conversation piece.

morelligomes An intelectual professor, played by Burt Lancaster, has his retired life interrupted by a wealthy arrogant family who moves upstairs in his Roman apartment. A male hustler, who fascinates and controls all the characters, shows a dated display of the disintegration of an Italian aristocracy, which Visconti knew so well.