Conversation Piece

A retired art history professor lives alone in a luxurious mansion in Rome, isolated from the world, accompanied only by his works of art. His solemn solitude is disturbed when the vulgar Marchesa Bianca Brumonti, wife of a right-wing industrialist, persuades him, through deception and force, to rent one of the mansion's apartments. Forced to interact with the turbulent group consisting of the Marchesa, her lover Conrad, her daughter Lietta, and her boyfriend, the Professor finds himself increasingly fascinated by his new guests. One of Visconti's most personal films (and his penultimate), Conversation Piece is an elegiac meditation on politics, culture, and sexuality, marked by the melancholy of changing times.