THE NIGHT PORTER

Italy, 1973, 118 minutes, Colour.
Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Leroy, Gabrielle Ferzetti, Giuseppe Addobbati.
Directed by Liliana Cavani.

The Night Porter is a controversial film. Many critics have carved up the production on qualities (sets, colour, sound) and sneered at its derivative approach, reminiscent of The Conformist, The Damned, Last Tango in Paris. While much of this is true, the film is quite a fascinating look at an ugly, weird phenomenon, the Nazi opportunity for victimisation, sadism, sexual cruelty, corrupting of conscience. Exploring its themes in a 1957 setting, the film shows that you do not need a concentration camp for these drives to operate; our society can create a bunker at any time. Contrived in conception and portrayal, naturally lurid in theme and tone, the film is nevertheless a contribution to the nostalgia for guilt genre. It is a film for limited audiences.

1. Could this film be called enjoyable? How interesting and impressive was it? How valid its themes and their representation in these days? The values of the film makers?

2. The film was very much praised by many critics. Why? It was equally attacked by many critics? Why? Why should this film create controversy?

3. The film was attacked as being derivative. Was it? Does this matter? How well did it use the modern freedom of the screen? Did it abuse it in any way and make the treatment offensive?

4. How well did the film create and communicate its atmosphere? Some critics were strong against the use of colour, shoddy photography, poor sound recording. Do you agree? What impact did the colour make, the shabby and confined sets, the use of the striking music and themes, the use of opera music and the classics?

5. How symbolic was the film meant to be? Was this evident? Where? How realistic was it meant to be? Dates and places? The historical references? Did the screenplay show a clash between realism and symbolism? What did audiences mainly respond to. symbols or reality?

6. How effective was the structure of the film? Max and his background and memories, contrasting with Lucia and her background and memories? The memories of the audience and the people concerned in the film? The film as a purging of memories?

7. The importance of the focus on Max? 1957, at what stage of his life was he? The background of his SS experience, his sadistic nature, the Nazi ideology? Had he changed after the war or not? Why was he involved in a menial job? Retired like a church mouse? Pandering to people like the Countess hotel visitors, putting the spotlights on Burt's ballet dancing etc.? How guilty did Max feel at this time? How guilty was he? Why did he have such a reaction against the trial and the psychological purging of guilt? Why did he try to retain his individuality? What needs did a man like this have? How did he satisfy them. how did he survive? Was Dirk Bogarde's performance consistent with communicating these themes?

8. Comment on the tone and quality of Max's memories. What was revealed about him and his attitudes, about Lucia and her response as he saw it, about the war, Nazis, sadism and cruelty, sexuality and perversion? How important was the flashback to Lucia's dance and his giving her the gift of a head, and his biblical commentary? Why did he tell this to the Countess? How did Lucia change him in these flashbacks? Were the flashbacks coloured by post-war experience? Max as a master, master of his fate? The importance of killing Mario and controlling? The initial impact of meeting Lucia again retaining dominance, the visit to the opera and remembering her as a victim? Yet becoming her prisoner in his apartment? His succumbing to the reversal of roles? Was this by the power of love? The final need for them both to make affirmation of their experience? was death inevitable? Was Max purged?

9. Lucia in 1957, marriage and its effect on her, her elegance, the encounter with Max? Her memories and their horror, her fears, the impact of his watching her at the opera? what hold did he have on her? Did she deliberately reverse the process? Her response to sexuality and the games? The importance of the chain and her staying? The humiliating experiences of them both? The experience of hunger, her affirmation with Max and her death? Had she purged the experience of the war?

10. What was the purpose of the psychological atmosphere of the film? The discussion of trials, purging (in Vienna), guilt? What was the effect of this on the audience and audience response to the proceedings?

11. The contrast with the modern American attitudes, music, the reviews, insensitivity to Lucia?

12. The influence of Hans and Kurt as visualised in the memories, the reason for holding the trials and investigations, the hold on one another, the Nazi ideology and the rooftop salute?

13. How pathetic a character was Burt? The dancing in the past, the homosexuality, his dancing in the present, its purpose, the fact that he had been purged? For what? (What would purging have meant for Max?)

14. The death of Mario after the fishing and encounter? The hostility of Greta? The sound effects for visualizing the murder of Mario? The callousness of Max, the funeral?

15. What was the role of the Countess in the film? Max's pandering to her, her protection of him? Why did she tell them the story? The role of Adolf as a go-between, the fact that Adolf watched him and was the cause of his death? With Burt?

16. The sequence with the neighbour and a touch of reality?

17. Comment on the style of the flashbacks: that they were distanced from the audience, stylizing the horrors and sadism of the past, the ugliness of the sequences, the drab colour. the musical backgrounds, the posings in the dormitory, of the officers, the tableau, the song as one of the most detailed memories? The quality of memory? The significance of the song: the sex, the unisex, the head?

18. What comment did the film make on Nazism and the 20th century world and its illnesses? The setting was the Nazis but it was a world for anyone? The contrast between the War and 1957? Or were the worlds really the same, the same things happening? The relationship of Nazism with sex, lust, power control?

19. How apt was the visualizing of such themes in this film?

20. The final significance of the deaths? What was achieved in the deaths? A final stance? Any heroism? In reviewing the whole film could it be called pessimistic or optimistic? Was there any redemption? Or was man damned to his evil and to his hells?