“A rather incestuous family”
A Review
Out of all the many films Luchino Visconti made, and all the collaborations with actor (and lover) Helmut Berger, Conversation Piece (1974) remains my favourite. It is not easy to explain why since the film is not a gorgeous epic like Ludwig (1972) or The Leopard (1963). It has more in common with Visconti’s camp Nazi drama The
Damned (1969) in the stilted English dialogue (some actors horribly dubbed) and
disturbing family dynamics.
The plot, or what there is of it, revolves around The Professor (Burt Lancaster, who
also starred in The Leopard) an ageing, reclusive man who prefers art to people. He
is harassed by a decadent, wealthy middle-aged woman, Bianca (Silvana Mangano).
Who, after somehow gaining entry to his home succeeds in pressuring the Professor
into showing her the upstairs apartment. Then, with the help of her nubile and rather precocious daughter, Lietta (Claudia Marsani) they get the Professor to agree to a one year lease.
The Professor’s decision to allow them to stay means that he has opened his doors to
not only the mother and daughter but also the daughter’s lover, Stefano (Stefano
Patrizi) and the mother’s ‘kept boy’, Konrad (Helmut Berger, star of Ludwig and The
Damned). The Professor is thrust suddenly into the inner workings and turmoil of this odd family. They are careless, noisy and disruptive, unheeding of the Professor’s insistence that he does not wish to be involved with them.
The main focus of the film is on the strange relationship that the Professor develops with Konrad. It has echoes of Dirk Bogarde and Bjorn Andresen in Visconti’s Death in Venice (1971) in that the Berger and Andresen characters make the Bogarde and Lancaster characters wish/ or recall their own youth while also seemingly speeding along their death. This also has echoes of Visconti’s own real-life relationship with Berger; an old man in love with someone much younger. It is Konrad’s youth and beauty that draw the Professor to him. Whether the attraction is a sexual one is never made specifically clear. It is suggested in anger by the mother and indeed Konrad seems to enjoy presenting himself to the Professor in a sexual way. For example, one night, after he has stayed in the Professor’s apartment after a beating by some thugs, Konrad invites the daughter and her lover over and they have sex in the Professor’s sitting room. Music is played loud, though Konrad is aware that the Professor is trying to sleep. He is almost inviting him out, coaxing him out to see what is happening.
As they invade his life the Professor begins to daydream of his own mother, his wife
etc. But these dreams are always interrupted by this new family. In the daughter
Bianca’s words the Professor becomes the father, Bianca is the mother and she,
Konrad and Stefano are the children. At this observation one of the characters remarks
“A rather incestuous family”
Earlier on Bianca had pressed the Professor, jokingly, into adopting Konrad as his
son. This scene takes place directly after the Professor has found them naked in his
sitting room. Indeed by the end the Professor is ready to accept the unexpected
affection he had found for them. “It could have been my family!” he cries, not
realizing that he still does not know these people. They are a mysterious force that
seems to destroy most of what they touch, whether it be when re-modelling the
upstairs apartment against the Professor’s wishes or when Konrad (eventually
shunned by the rest of the ‘family’ for his political beliefs) takes his own life. This destruction of Konrad, whose youth the Professor seemed to cling on to, fast-
forward’s the death of the Professor.
After discovering Konrad the Professor breaks down. He is confined to his bed, his
bedroom transformed into a hospital ward. The end has come.
The central themes of Conversation Piece are similar to those in most of Visconti’s
later works; inevitable death, the disintegration of tradition and family, the temptation of youth, the solitude of old age. All presented here in a claustrophobic, confining apartment where the characters feel too big to fit inside the walls. Indeed in the upstairs apartment, where Konrad and the daughter and her lover stay, the walls are literally knocked down. It is only where most of the action takes place, in the Professor’s apartment with its multitudes of paintings and books, that the characters seem stifled.
Much of Visconti’s work hinges on the melodramatic and this style, used in the
confining apartment of Conversation Piece helps the viewer to feel as the Professor
does; annoyed and yet curiously drawn in to the lives of the visitors. As the Professor starts, from some unconcious longing for family, to care about them, so does the viewer.
The casting choice of Burt Lancaster (first used by Visconti in The Leopard) is again a good one. Though Lancaster is well known as the ‘all American hero’ type actor in his few European films he has a gravitas, a solemnity missing from his previous work. He is also easy to like, despite the Professor’s sometimes hostile nature. Helmut Berger, who some claim was only cast by Visconti because he was his lover (and those who claim that feel that Berger was undeserving of the title role in Ludwig etc) gives here an acceptable performance. It is not his best, that would indeed be his role as Ludwig, but he manages to have enough charisma ( and his looks do not hurt) that he is not overwhelmed by Lancaster. In fact the two seem to gel nicely, Lancaster’s thoughtful, measured performance complimenting Berger’s impulsive, sometimes rushed style.
From the rest of the cast Silvana Mangano emerges the best. Another Visconti regular she brings a sense of familiarity to the role. It is a pity, somewhat, that due to the Italian practice of dubbing the dialogue later (after the film had been shot) some of the nuances of the performances have been lost. Sometimes the delivery of Berger’s lines does not match the intensity in his eyes etc. The daughter Lietta and her lover suffer the most from this. They seem to have been dubbed by different actors entirely, both of whom sound like pupils at an English boarding school. Unfortunately this can cause a few unintended laughs.
But despite this problem the film works. It is disjointed, perhaps confusing, needing a repeated watch, but the situations are interesting. Like the Professor the viewer is drawn in rather against his will. It is the flaws, and its echoes of Visconti’s real life that make it interesting. It will never be remembered as one of Visconti’s master works ( and it is perhaps his least known) but it certainly is a film that, if you are a fan of any of the stars, or Visconti himself, should be checked out. Conversation Piece was Visconti’s last completed film before he too, like his Professor, succumbed to death. In a strange reverse echo of the deaths in the film Berger (after Visconti’s death) then attempted suicide. Fortunately he survived but never again had the same quality of career without Visconti to direct him.
