Of all the films loosely connected in this sub-genre, Liliana Cavani’s 1974 film The Night Porter is by far the most respectable – and by far the best. TMDb "This is advice that Liliana Cavani seems to have taken to heart. The Night Porter still faced legal obstacles at home – a delegation of Italian film-makers, including Bertolucci, successfully challenged efforts to ban it. 1974 A friend had told me that The Night Porter showed people having sex on broken glass, which seemed to me reason enough to pay the £2.50 ticket price. Criticism aside (and honestly if something has to be gratuitous, let it be artistic license), I…. Nothing Ms. Cavani made after “The Night Porter” would enjoy comparable notoriety, but not for lack of trying. Was pretty captivated during the hour-long build-up, but it turns out that the prospect of Nazi SM is much more outrageous than the disjointed, superficial – and not to mention very dull – Nazi SM that we eventually get. "The Night Porter" by Liliana Cavani If movies have the capacity to assemble images that exist outside a continuum related to human awareness, then those on display in “The Night Porter” emphasize that possibility with scathing nihilism. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Then she ruts with her demon lover/controller until the past comes to kill her. Dirk Bogarde Charlotte Rampling Philippe Leroy Gabriele Ferzetti Giuseppe Addobbati Isa Miranda Nino Bignamini Marino Masé Amadeo Amodio Piero Vida Geoffrey Copleston Manfred Freyberger Ugo Cardea Nora Ricci Piero Mazzinghi Kai-Siegfried Seefeld, Barbara Alberti Liliana Cavani Italo Moscati Amadeo Pagani, Michael Billingsley Fernando Caso Eugenio Rondani Decio Trani, Iole Cecchini Cesare Paciotti Euclide Santoli, Ital-Noleggio Cinematografico Lotar Film Productions, Portero de Noche, Nachtportier, Nattportieren, Yöportieeri, De Nachtportier, 118 mins   As it turned out, he was exaggerating. The Night Porter is a provocative and problematic film. Sadomasochistic games … Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling as Max and Lucia in The Night Porter. In the scene in which Max and Lucia struggle violently in a hotel room, a curly hair dangles from the top of the frame like a cedilla or a butcher’s hook. He stares at her back and Lucia senses his presence i decided on these 250…, Darren Carver-Balsiger 1,032 films 21,630 1531 Edit. The Night Porter has been controversial since its initial release in 1974, with Roger Ebert describing the film as "a despicable attempt to titillate us by exploiting memories of persecution and suffering". There's a number of…. On the other hand, a closer reading of this English-language psychological thriller suggests a dark vision of compelling characters doomed by their World War II past. “There was a really nice atmosphere,” the director says. Report this film. Written by Cavani, Italo Moscati, Barbara Alberti and Amedeo Pagani, The Night Porter … “I’m with you on your reading of the relationship,” she says, “but I do understand what Liliana is saying. Watch the Italian documentary Women of the Resistance, A trailer for the restored The Night Porter. Is it conceivable that the 70's Me Generation was by that point too cut-off from the reality of horrors in Nazi Germany, so that a…, Review by Lou (rhymes with wow!) Director Liliana Cavani Genre Drama Rating * 6.8 Votes * 6,624 Checks 1,746 Favs 96 Dislikes 33 Favs/checks 5.5 % … “There was an attraction which marked Lucia for life,” she says. If you fixate on that hair, she says, “then the film is not worth anything. If you want to see some psycho-sexual power play between former guard and prisoner just watch Death and the Maiden, which is far from Polanski’s strongest film, but has at least some things to say about these themes. He starred as co-protagonist with Charlotte Rampling in Liliana Cavani's masterpiece The Night Porter. ", Trauma takes a taboo twist in Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter, a polarizing examination of sadomasochism and psychological chaos following the horrors of World War II as a sordid affair reignites in 1950s Vienna—one that began in the harrowing corridors of a death camp a decade prior. This list is for scripts or source material written or co-written by women. Pessimistic worldviews. The familiar '70s query, "Is it art or porn?," took on a whole new dimension with The Night Porter, a stylish and astoundingly seamy fusion of erotica and stark concentration camp trauma.While many subsequent films, mostly Italian, took the Nazi sexploitation route to unbelievably tasteless levels, Liliana Cavani's treatment remains more problematic. It’s an LGBTQ+ world and these are my other LGBTQ+ lists on Letterboxd: ➡️Minor Interest Films: In the Closet: A…, Just a list of some pretty cool movie posters on the LB database. She’s utterly amazing. En veldig provoserende film om to karakterer som treffes 12 Ã¥r etter 2. verdenskrig er over og gjenopptar et avvikende seksuelt forhold de opprettet som SS-soldat og fange i en konsentrasjonsleir.Cavani fører kamera med mesterlig hÃ¥nd, og gjør det Ã¥ observere og forsøke Ã¥ forstÃ¥ handlingen og karakterene til Ã¥ oppleves medskyldig. Soon it’s like the good old days all over again: they play sadomasochistic sex games, and Max tries to prevent Lucia being killed by his Nazi chums. Lucia was a child when they met. “That makes it a real Scala regular. Considering that Liliana Cavani's 1981 Mastroianni picture, THE SKIN, really resonated with me, it's all the more disappointing that the film she's widely respected for is such exploitative trash. Cavani’s style here is a fairly straightforward, direct-cinema approach to interviews with subjects detailing their experiences in the camps, though the filmmaker uses pieces of classical music, played over still images of the women, which seem to foreshadow her contemptuous use of Mozart in The Night Porter. One of those was Women of the Resistance, a 1965 study of partisan fighters, during which she interviewed two women whose stories inspired The Night Porter: a teacher who took holidays each year in Dachau, where she had been imprisoned, and another woman whose family urged her to forget her experiences at Auschwitz. More details at They can also decide whether this is a chamber piece of singular intensity or a ghoulish dalliance with fascist porn. A twisted relationship develops. She tells me she sees it as a test for the viewer. Perhaps the flaws and misjudgments in The Night Porter have done as much to keep it alive as its flashes of brilliance. The film, which has been in and out of circulation over the decades, is released this month on Blu-ray in a 4K restoration, giving new audiences a chance to marvel at the high-wire performances, rinky-dink dubbing and sustained mood of maudlin kitsch. “We mustn’t generalise. Happy birthday to Dirk Bogard, born this day in 1928. This definitive release is enabled by the generous and essential participation of director Liliana Cavani and star Charlotte Rampling. These were films that were slow to come to home entertainment, and so weren’t widely available.”, It was also part of a wave of Italian pictures confronting fascism in a sexualised context: Visconti’s The Damned (Bogarde and Rampling again), Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Pasolini’s Salò or The 120 Days of Sodom. The Night Porter is a provocative and problematic film. When Max (Dirk Bogarde) encounters Lucia (Charlotte Rampling), they are in a concentration camp: he is an SS commandant and she is his teenage prisoner, crop-haired, ghostly and gaunt. Controversial e intelectual, muestra a un Nazi que es al mismo tiempo humano y monstruoso. The film was treated largely with respect in Europe but savaged by US critics, with Pauline Kael in the New Yorker calling it “humanly and aesthetically offensive”. It is simply possible that I did not give the film the patience and effort it deserves, which is why there is not a doubt that I would come back to this in the future. In Liliana Cavani s scintillating drama, a concentration camp survivor (Charlotte Rampling) discovers her ex-torturer/lover (Dirk Bogarde) working as a night porter at a hotel in post-war Vienna. A concentration camp survivor rekindles her sadomasochistic relationship with her lover, a former SS officer - now working as a night porter at a Vienna hotel - but his former Nazi associates begin stalking them. The Night Porter depicts the consuming sadomasochistic love affair of an SS officer, Max (Dirk Bogarde), and the Catholic woman, Lucia (Charlotte Rampling), whom he both tortures and protects when she is a teenage concentration camp inmate, and who becomes his partner in a protracted liebestod when they meet by chance in Vienna 12 years after the war’s end. “It was misleading,” the 87-year-old director tells me from Rome. When the couple attempt to re-create their sadomasochistic relationship, his former SS comrades begin to stalk them. Included In Lists:Criterion Collection - #59. Cupid shoots his arrows in random directions, and these two must have been struck. “Selling it on the strength of its bad reviews,” said Vincent Canby, surprised to find that his own hatchet job in the New York Times was being used to flog tickets. Mobile site. “When she and Max meet again, the flame has not faded. She was very young and disoriented by him. Movie romances traditionally have what’s called a “meet cute”, that clinching moment when a couple-to-be first bump into one another. Anything with more than 1,000 views on Letterboxd that’s longer…, for women's history month, i decided to compile a list of 250* essential female filmmakers. Still, I enjoyed seeing their masochistic relationship unfold on screen. Max, who repeatedly abused Lucia, and now working incognito at the hotel as a night porter, comes to mutually agree to resume…, Review by Christian Doig ★★★★½. She gives him sex and he brings her gifts, such as the head of a fellow prisoner in a box. "You were always insane, and you still are. Now, over 45 years later, Liliana Cavani's film is presented in this definitive 4K restoration, overseen by Cavani herself. “She said, ‘They made me discover a part of myself capable of doing things I never thought I would do.’ I asked, ‘What was it?’ She didn’t answer.”, Cavani wrote the treatment for The Night Porter in the early 70s. Needless to say, sooner than later, these two had to resume their relationship. She believed he desired her for who she was. The Night Porter Year 1974 Runtime 118 min. The Night Porter (Italian: Il portiere di notte) is a 1974 Italian erotic psychological drama film.1 Directed and co-written by Liliana Cavani, the film stars Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, and features Philippe Leroy and Gabriele Ferzetti. Literally none of this works for me. Also similar to more than a few Trier films, this picture is yet another that could have very easily been slimmed down to 90 minutes by tightening the gratuitous artistic license knob down from 11 to about an 8. The slow buildup to Charlotte Rampling's and Dirk Bogarde's explosive reacquainting gets 4,5 stars from me, but sadly the movie takes a bit of a nosedive after that. It was seen as a sexual work and that’s not at all what I wanted to do.” Unsavoury offers began landing on her desk. I can see how in 1974 this was considered subversive in…, hamburger splash 🍔🌊 1,853 films 16,627 98 Edit, I’m sick of sorting through concerts, series, and other non-movies. She is a director and writer, known for Dove siete? Let’s be honest, nobody can really define love.”A crackling video call conducted through an interpreter may not be the best way to debate the nuances of abuse and control, so I ask Giles later what she makes of Cavani’s comments. Unsettling … The Night Porter was marketed on its bad reviews. As it returns four decades on, does director Liliana Cavani still feel their relationship was ‘beautiful’? “Germany was doing it, too,” Giles points out. We should throw it away.” But it symbolises something else, I believe: a precious imperfection. But THE NIGHT PORTER is more than a bold, almost crazed, performance by Rampling. Once upon a time, there might have been a few who took it seriously enough to enjoy it as renegade art, but today it is Nazi kitsch. Contini’s camerawork and Rampling’s performance as a horny Holocaust survivor are consistently strong, but I don’t believe for a second that Bogarde has ever been a concentration camp guard, and the last scene is the tamest way on which you could end their “provocative” relationship. Must have woman: ☑️ lead, co-lead, or subject; ☑️ director or co-director; and ☑️ writer or co-writer (screenplay or source…, 1) Films missing are mainly hardcore porn and TV shows (Hitchcock mysteries namely). Her films have historical concerns. I first saw it at the age of 15 at the delightfully insalubrious Scala cinema in London, where it could be found in outre double bills with the likes of Salon Kitty, one of the “Nazi porn” projects that Cavani turned down. It was all these elements together that made it difficult to maintain my concentration; finding myself constantly at a drift. The Night Porter, 1974, directed by Liliana Cavani, screenplay by Liliana Cavani, story by Barbara Alberti, Liliana Cavani, Italo Moscati, and Amedeo Pagani.. About halfway into The Night Porter, one character says (of therapuetic "trials," of which more later), "the more shock value they have, the more effect they have. There's a great deal to confront here, almost all of which is in regards to the film's infamy given its subject matter and core relationship. In Liliana Cavani’s scintillating drama, a concentration camp survivor (Charlotte Rampling) discovers her ex-torturer/lover (Dirk Bogarde) working as a night porter at a hotel in postwar Vienna. If Liliana saw it as a story of abuse rather than a romance, it would look completely different. Film data from TMDb. Template:Infobox Film The Night Porter (Italian: Il Portiere di notte) is a controversial 1974 film by Italian director Liliana Cavani, starring Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling. The Night Porter is released by Cultfilms on Blu-ray and digital on 30 November. She’s a provocateur, and there’s an energy which allows her to take on that sort of material. Review by Arthur Slugworth ★★★★ 6. On the other hand, a closer reading… For when you want to wallow in despair. So let's just go with "The Shite Porter, more like" and leave it at that, shall we. Nothing here should qualify it as good in any frame of mind. THE NIGHT PORTER, directed by Liliana Cavani; screenplay by Miss Cavani and Italo Moscati; story by Miss Cavani, Barbara Alberti and Amedeo Pagani; editor, Franco Arcalli; director of … The budget was tight – the production ran out of money halfway, and shooting was suspended while additional funds were raised. Or possibly both. © Letterboxd Limited. Max (Dirk Bogarde), a former Nazi officer, works as a night porter at a hotel in Vienna. Twelve years after the end of the war, they are reunited when she checks into the Vienna hotel where he is manning the front desk. “It was light, all the actors got along. Jane Giles, the Scala’s former programmer, remembers The Night Porter as a reliable money-spinner for the repertory cinema. There is nothing I loathe more than Holocaust fiction, but to make a film that tries to use Jewish trauma for transgressive erotica... No thank you. Those who see it as nothing other than sheer Nazisploitation appear to have…, Review by Joshua Dysart ★★★★½ 8. Amazon.com For those who like their love stories dipped in decadence, Liliana Cavani's dark and disturbing 1974 drama--about a concentration camp survivor who fatefully comes face to face with her ex-Nazi captor and lover--has held up quite well over the years despite its sensationalistic tone. De que ambos coexistan to censorship and classification, almost crazed, performance by Rampling was an attraction marked! Would be lying on the floor, weeping and covered in sores. ” a former Nazi officer, works a... Their masochistic relationship unfold on screen former programmer, remembers the Night Porter earnestly explores some of the,... 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