The Night Porter [Criterion Collection]

Director: Liliana Cavani

Overview

"Liliana Cavani's controversial erotic drama The Night Porter, starring Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde, comes to DVD with a widescreen transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. English and German soundtracks are rendered in Dolby Digital Mono. English subtitles are accessible. There are no supplemental materials on this release. As always, Criterion has done a fine job with this DVD, but it does not contain enough material to appeal to anyone other than the film's enthusiasts."

Product Details

Release Date:	01/11/2000
UPC:	0037429145227
Original Release:	1974
Source:	CRITERION
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[monaural, Dolby Digital]
Language:	English
Time:	1:58:00
Sales rank:	14,971

Special Features

New widescreen digital transfer; English subtitles; Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Dirk Bogarde	Actor
Charlotte Rampling	Actor
Philippe Leroy	Actor
Gabriele Ferzetti	Hans
Giuseppe Addobbati	Stumm
Isa Miranda	Countess Stein
Nino Bignamini	Adolph
Amedeo Amodio	Bert
Piero Vida	Day Porter
Geoffrey Copleston	Kurt
Manfred Freiberger	Dobson
Ugo Cardea	Mario
Hilda Gunther	Greta
Nora Ricci	The Neighbor
Piero Mazzinghi	Concierge
Kai S. Seefeld	Jacob
Carlo Mangano	Actor
Claudio Steiner	Dobson
Marino Mas?	Atherton
Manfred Freyberger	Dobson
Luigi Antonio Guerra	Actor
Daniele Paris	Composer

Technical Credits

Liliana Cavani

Barbara Alberti

Amedeo Pagani

Robert Gordon Edwards	Producer
Liliana Cavani	Screenwriter
Roberto Arcangeli	Sound Effects
Michael Billingsley	Sound Effects
Robert Rietty	Sound Effects
Barbara Alberti	Screenwriter
Amedeo Pagani	Screenwriter
Joseph E. Levine	Producer

Scene Index

Side #1 --
0. Chapters
1. Logos/Opening Credits [2:15]
2. Fried Food and Mouthwash [2:31]
3. Lucia's Arrival [2:27]
4. Mineral Water, Very Cold [2:29]
5. "You seem strange" [3:41]
6. "Do you recognize anybody?" [2:44]
7. Dancing for Max [6:00]
8. Disaster of the First Violinist [2:00]
9. Mario's Restaurant [3:07]
10. The Magic Flute [6:01]
11. The Morning After [3:27]
12. Shopping [3:31]
13. The Church Mouse [7:18]
14. Calling Frankfurt [10:53]
15. The Funeral [1:23]
16. Lucia Checks Out [7:22]
17. "It's a story from the Bible" [9:55]
18. Broken Glass [3:59]
19. "I'm here of my own free will" [5:25]
20. Noises in the Night [2:57]
21. A Game for Freaks [2:06]
22. Max Quits His Job [3:27]
23. Desperate Measures [5:19]
24. Strawberry Marmalade [3:51]
25. "Send me a box of chocolates" [5:00]
26. Blackout [5:00]
27. A Morning Stroll/Closing Credits [3:01]

Menu

Side #1 --
Play the Movie
Color Bars

Editorial Reviews

Damned in the United States yet praised in European quarters, Liliana Cavani's visceral psychosexual thriller invited controversy by focusing on the twisted bond between a Nazi and his former prisoner/lover. Max (Dirk Bogarde) and Lucia (Charlotte Rampling) cross paths once again in a Vienna hotel c. 1958, and reconsummate a depraved affair. Inevitably, some took the movie to task for what they saw as exploitative, crass and lubricious; many detractors excoriated it for trivializing the Holocaust. Historical veracity doesn't seem to be on Cavani's agenda, however. She constructs a deliberately unreal phantasmorgia onscreen, where Nazi regalia and imagery become not echoes of the literal past, but connotative symbols of sadomasochism per se, often presented in a dreamlike context - as in an oneiric (and violence-free) glimpse of a Nazi carnival torture ride for Jewish girls. Indeed, the movie feels most impressive given how successfully it cross-sections s&m as a conceptual phenomenon, severed from a historical framework. The film gradually becomes a dark immersion into the psyches of two individuals who enjoy giving and receiving pain, and an orchestra of sadomasochistic nuance. Nowhere is this more evident than in the picture's final act. Trapped by their pursuers in a barren apartment, the torturer and his victim/accomplice gradually starve themselves to death, clinging psychologically (and physically) to one other and growing wan and emaciated; at one point, Lucia walks barefoot over broken glass, lacerating the soles of her feet -- an act that single-handedly reveals her need (and desire) for self-abuse. Cavani has, in a few brilliant strokes, stripped away the sex and reduced her two diseased lovers to the core of pathological need. She is bolstered throughout by radical, courageous performances from Bogarde and Rampling, who she doubtless cast given their shared involvement in Visconti's Nazi-themed masterpiece The Damned five years earlier. Though the movie is as difficult to watch as one may expect from its premise, it is also brilliantly conceived and executed, and - in its own bizarre way - effective enough to merit serious reappraisal.