CONVERSATION PIECE

Italy, 1974, 121 minutes, Colour.
Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger, Silvana Mangano.
Directed by Lucchino Visconti.

Lucchino Visconti died at the age of 69. This film is one of ageing gracefully after a life fruitfully lived, as well as of confrontation with the hedonistic materialism and selfishness of today. Is leisurely detachment possible? Is involvement, even though almost Ineffectual, to be avoided? These questions emerge from a dignified, sometimes ponderous, elegy on the 20th century spirit. The Panavision photography, confined to a house interior, gives both vastness and intimacy. The clash between the old and’ modern is embodied well in Burt Lancaster's impressive retired professor, not so well in Helmut Berger's social-minded, hustling "innocent". Engrossing Visconti themes and treatment.

1. The work of Lucchino Visconti? This film coming at the end of his career? Influenced by his own life and career? A portrait of Italian society? The '70s? Symbolic family? Realism? The memories of World War Two? The style of the '70s? Aristocracy? Espionage? Terrorism? Multinational business? Visconti's operatic style? His skill - even directing it from a wheelchair?

2. The title and the reference to the art description? The importance of Italian culture and style? Visconti and his appreciation of the classic and the modern? The static and the dynamic? The classic being destroyed? Rightly or not?

3. Production values: the Todd-AO colour photography? The importance of the use of wide screen for a film of interiors? The large house and room yet a claustrophobic effect? The professor and his confinement? The family and their changing the apartment? The windows and the memoirs? The rooms: space and confinement? The corridors? The changes upstairs? The reference to an external world: France, Spain, borders? The use of the phone for outside communication and contact? The importance of the visual style - references to art and artistic compositions? The contribution of the classic score, Mozart, the songs?

4. The film with the emphasis on the aesthetic? The director's sensibility? The professor's sensibility - and the clash with the family? The buyers and the initial money discussions? The family and the buying of paintings? The professor's aesthetic theories? His exclusivism? Snobbery? His memories of his mother and his wife? His work in science and the transition to art? His examination of various works of art - and the magnification of portions by the magnifying glass? The professor and his involvement and detachment? The family's intrusion into this world, its garish taste, his loss of control? His ultimate gratitude for the intrusion and the change of his life? His discovery that life was not meant merely to be a 'conversation piece'?

5. The Italian heritage and its inclusion in the screenplay: the Italian cultural past, the wars? The professor symbolising
the end of an era? The isolation of his death and the passing
of an age? The new era with youth: morals, racy - yet pleasant? The younger generation needing a family? Attitudes and behaviour, drugs, sexuality, violence, the police, financial deals, bashing, gambling? Italian politics and society - right-wing businessmen and political and financial coups? The film's attack on the bourgeoisie?

6. The portrait of the family - as a 'conversation piece'? The introduction to Bianca and her push, intrusion into art, self-centredness, her control of Lietta? Her relationship with Conrad? Its ambiguities? Her love - or lack of it - for her husband? Boorish and presumptuous attitudes, intrusion, changing the apartment, changing the professor's life? Her arrival and her demands on Erminia, the coffee etc.? Her use of the professor's apartment? The holding of the party - and the telling of truths? Her becoming softer and freer? Attitude towards marriage, morality, sexuality? The daughter as mirroring her mother or contrasting with her? Her name and the overtones of joy? Her talking, seeing the possibilities of relationship with the professor? Her changing? Stefano and her relationship with him? Prospect of marriage? The sexual encounter in company with Conrad? The apology to the professor? The phone call and the arrangement of the dinner? Supporting the professor? Stefano and his background and similarity in views to Lietta? Involvement with the professor? Their attitude towards him at the end? The intrusion?

7. Burt Lancaster's presence as the professor? His apartment, the magnifying glass and the focus on his eye examining the details of art? The question of the sale - and the fraud of the dealers? His depending on Erminia and her looking after him? His apartment and its decor? The opening of the windows - and opening the memories of the past? Did he come to terms with them? The puzzle about the family? His way of talking? Fascination with the younger generation - yet some revulsion? His taking Conrad in? His being affected by him? Seeing him sleep, shower? Talking with him? His becoming a father-figure? The exploration of his own quality for relationships? Mother, wife? Latent homosexuality? His not wanting to be involved with the younger generation? Shocked at the discovery of their behaviour, sex and drugs? The police and the encounter with them? His disgust and accusations? The police intruding on his life and its serenity? His refusal of the party? The dinner and its elegance? Possible peace? Disruption? His sickness, being alone, seeing himself as hold, hysterical? His attachment to Conrad and his grief at his death? His wanting the family to be his? The letter? His final illness and the loneliness of his death? The passing of an era? The glimpses of his mother and wife and what they revealed about him? A portrait of an ageing and dying man of a different generation?

8. Conrad and his place within the family? Appearance? His story and background -true or not? Relationship with Bianca? Student protest? Sexuality? Women and their use? His weakness and gambling, sex, drugs? The accusation of terrorism, drug peddling? His being bashed? The professor looking after him? His insinuating himself into the professor's apartment? Was he aware of his effect on the professor? His relationship with each member of the family? With the absent husband and his financial deals? With his fascist plots? His being bashed - and the effect on his nerves? His listening to the professor? The dinner and its tensions? The attack and the fight? Mozart? The phone? His death - suicide or murder? The letter and its expression of himself? Its effect. on the professor and his reaction? The reaction of the other members of the family? (A figure of change - the echo of the Christ-figure with its ambiguities and seductions as in Pasolini's Teorema)?

9. Erminia and the portrait of the servant, her devotion? Her reaction to Bianca and the family? To Conrad?

10. The background of the dealers and their frauds, the police and their interrogations? The outside world of crime and corruption?

11. The use of Dominique Sanda and Claudia Cardinale as the professor's mother and wife? His relationship with each? Sexual relationship? Failure? His becoming a recluse? Tones of homosexuality?

12. A portrait of individuals? Groups? Italian society? The relationship between aestheticism and reality? A film of insight?