Conversation Piece

Gruppo di famiglia in un interno

Perverse aristocratic tenants wreak havoc on the life of a retired professor in this late entry from Luchino Visconti.

  • Director

    Luchino Visconti

  • With

    Burt Lancaster, Silvana Mangano, Helmut Berger

  • Italy 1974. 121min

  • 35mm

  • Certificate

    18

  • English subtitles

Visconti and Lancaster reunited for this lesser-celebrated rumination on the emptiness and melancholy at the heart of human nature. Lancaster is a dignified American professor living a solitary life in a Roman palazzo. He reluctantly takes in tenants, only to realise that they are a quartet of depraved upper-class hedonists with ties to fascist causes. As they attempt to form a new ‘family’ of sorts, destruction awaits.

35mm courtesy of Cinecittà.

Contains disturbing scenes.

The screening of Conversation Piece on Wednesday 22 January 20:30 NFT2 will be introduced by film critic Phuong Le.

Film on Film