Liliana Cavani on The Night Porter

Italian director Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter, about the sadomasochistic bond reignited after World War II between a former Nazi commandant (Dirk Bogarde) and a concentration camp prisoner (Charlotte Rampling)—shocked audiences on its release in 1974 for its eroticism and the boldness of its themes. For our new edition of the film, we interviewed Cavani in Rome; in these excerpts, she discusses the crucial casting of Rampling and talks about the shooting of one particular scene and how committed her leading actors were to their roles.