Must We Burn Cavani? Moral Ambiguity in The Night Porter

This chapter explores Beauvoir’s notion of ambiguity through two essays, Pyrrhus and Cineas (1944) and “Must We Burn Sade?” (1955), which, when placed together, illustrate the early and later inflections of her thinking. Two features of Beauvoir’s notion of ambiguity - our interdependence on others and reciprocal recognition – are explored through the interplay of privilege and violence as it occurs within the erotic experience screened in Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter (1974). These two concepts are treated as embodied phenomenological and political experiences, through the ambiguous, sadomasochistic relationship of Max (Dirk Bogarde) and Lucia (Charlotte Rampling). This chapter argues Cavani’s use of violence illuminates the destruction and oppression those in positions of power and privilege enjoy and are oblivious to; further, it reads The Night Porter as making an appeal, a demand for action.