The Night Porter (1974)

Philippe Leroy: Klaus

Photos 

Quotes 

• [last lines] 

  Bert : Well?

  Klaus : He doesn't answer. It's off the hook.

  [lights a cigarette] 

  Klaus : Tell me, Bert. How long have you known Max?

  Bert : Let's not talk about it.

  Klaus : You don't, er... dance for him anymore?

  Bert : I've lost him.

• Hans : Remember. We must try to understand if we are victims of guilt complexes or not. If so, we must be *freed* of them. A guilt complex is a disturbance of the psyche, a neurosis.

  Klaus : Let's not delude ourselves. Memory is not made of shadows, but of eyes which can stare straight at you and fingers which point at you.

• Klaus : Even if it says a thousand persons on paper - ten thousand - it still makes less impression than one witness, in flesh and blood, staring at you. That is why they are so dangerous, Max. My task is to seek them out, wherever they are... and to see that they are filed away.

• Bert : Max, we all want the same thing - to live as peaceful citizens. Each of us has a respectable profession. Even I have some honorable duties. If you had wished, you could have had another career.

  Max : Look, Bert. If I choose to live like a...

  [directed to Dobson] 

  Max : Like a church mouse - I have a reason. I have a reason for working at night. It's the light.

  [to the others] 

  Max : I have a sense of shame in the light.

  Klaus : We are proud - of having been officers of the finest corps of the Third Reich. And if I were born again, I would do exactly what I did.

  Max : [does a Nazi salute]  Sieg Heil!

  Bert , Klaus , Kurt , Dobson : [instinctively do the same]  SIEG HEIL!

  [Max breaks out of the salute, and ruefully notes that the others still have their arms outstretched. He walks away, shaking his head] 

• Kurt : Why this unexpected meeting?

  Klaus : Max is hiding a dangerous witness in his apartment, and he won't conclude his trial.

  Kurt : It will be concluded. Max, answer me honestly - it'll simplify everything. Have you become a Communist?

  Max : Oh, God - the usual accusation, even for the newly born!

  Dobson : I know you're not a Communist; you're not a defeatist. You're one of us!

  Max : Which means I'm rotten and I stay rotten.

  Dobson : YOU BASTARD!

• Max : I don't give a damn about this trial. It's a farce.

  Klaus : The trial is not a farce.

  Max : Yes, it is! It's a farce! It's a game - a game for freaks!

  Klaus : The freaks are you and your whore.