A Matter of Time

Minnelli is a hot new movie star in the middle of a press conference during which she recalls her past and the time when she and cousin, Aumont, went to work in a tacky Roman hotel as maids. One of the guests is Bergman, looking frightful as an aged kook who escapes her present life in reminiscence. Minnelli pictures herself in the longwinded stories that Bergman, a contessa, relates. The film is a series of flashbacks (within Minnelli's flashback) that culminates when Minnelli is discovered by a producer and Bergman dies. Next to the old woman at her death is a nurse who looks oddly like the deceased must have looked in her youth, and for good reason: the role was played by Bergman's daughter, Isabella Rossellini. Minnelli's father, Vincente, directed. (official distributor synopsis)