Abstract
Liliana Cavani’s 1974 film The Night Porter begins when Lucia (Charlotte Rampling), a death camp survivor, and Max (Dirk Bogarde), a former SS officer, begin to replay the sadomasochistic sexual relationship they had during Lucia’s internment. The past/present timelines that emerge are not separate, but interconnected and intermeshed. This article examines the film as a “memory text,” as defined by Annette Kuhn, to explore the way memory impacts Cavani’s ethical pursuits, which is directed by Kelli Fuery’s Beauvoirian analysis of moral ambiguity in the film. Sophia Bain argues film does not endorse the relationship, but rather presents the reality of women’s submission as an embodied memory of women’s past submission.
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