Conversation Piece

Conversation Piece follows a retired American professor living alone in a luxurious Roman palazzo, surrounded by his art and books. His orderly existence is disrupted when the Marquess Bianca Brumonti persuades him to rent the upper-floor apartment to her young lover, Konrad. She is soon joined there by her daughter Lietta and Lietta's boyfriend Stefano, and the professor finds himself pulled into the lives of this unruly household despite his resistance. What begins as an intrusion gradually draws the solitary intellectual back toward human contact, though the arrangement cannot remain as it is.

Luchino Visconti directed and co-wrote the film with Suso Cecchi d'Amico and Enrico Medioli, working with producers Edilio Rusconi and Giovanni Bertolucci. It is the fourteenth of the fifteen features Visconti directed, following Ludwig and preceding The Innocent. Burt Lancaster plays the professor, heading a cast that includes Silvana Mangano as the marquess, Helmut Berger as Konrad, Claudia Marsani as Lietta, Stefano Patrizi as Stefano, and Elvira Cortese as Erminia, with 48 credited crew members.

Released in late 1974 and running 121 minutes, the Italian-French production is classed as drama and romance. On IMDb it holds 7.4 from about 5,700 votes, and on TMDB 7.4 from roughly 170 votes, an unusually close match between the two audiences. A film critics' rating of 6.5 from 12 reviews places professional assessments somewhat below those viewer scores.