177 - The Night Porter, 1974, Italy. Dir. Liliana Cavani.

Monday, June 26, 2017

177 - The Night Porter, 1974, Italy.  Dir. Liliana Cavani.

It's a story from the Bible.

That is what Max tells Countess Stein.

Lucia danced for him.  She danced a cabaret.  She pleased him.  So he gave her what she wanted.  The head of Johann.

Johann was a prisoner who used to torment her.  So of course Max rewarded her with Johann's head.

OK.  So maybe Max is not exactly Herod, and Lucia is not Herodias' daughter Salome.  But Max compares the situations.

After all, there is nothing like the love between an SS officer of the Nazis and his female prisoner from the concentration camp.

Except maybe when that love is reunited years later.

And the prison camp is recreated in his apartment.

Max works as a night porter at a hotel in Vienna.

Lucia comes to stay at the hotel.  She asks for her key.  He gives it to her.  Her eyes grow large.

She knows him.

She has come with her husband, the American composer.  He has an opera performing in town.  After that, Frankfurt and Berlin.  Then home.

But no.  Lucia has run into Max.  She will run to him.  She will run away with him.

This chance encounter brings back the memories of their past, shown to us in flashbacks.

And it opens the door for them to get together again.

The Night Porter was co-written and directed by Liliana Cavani, who had come up through Italian film school and directing for television, making historical documentaries.

She directed History of the Third Reich (1961-2) and Women of the Resistance (1965).  The first was the result of many hours of research using original footage.  The second consisted of interviews with Italian female survivors of the prison camps.

She had a long connection to the subject and personal access to primary sources.  Her choice to make The Night Porter must have been deeply, personally felt.

The film stars Dirk Bogarde and the great Charlotte Rampling.  If you know her, you already love her.

She starred opposite Sean Connery in John Boorman's Zardoz.  She starred opposite Robert Mitchum in the Philip Marlowe remake of Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely.  She won hearts opposite Woody Allen in Stardust Memories and joined Paul Newman in Sidney Lumet's directing of David Mamet's The Verdict.  She appeared in Tony Scott's Spy Game, starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.  She starred in the independent film Swimming Pool.  She was nominated for an Oscar for 45 Years.