Director/writer: Paul Thomas Anderson
Photography: Robert Elswit
Music: Michael Penn, Emotions, Apollo 100, Melanie, Three Dog Night, Eric Burdon & War, Elvin Bishop, Hot Chocolate, KC & the Sunshine Band, Sniff ‘n the Tears, Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, Brook Benton, Roberta Flack, Rick Springfield, Beach Boys, Electric Light Orchestra
Editor: Dylan Tichenor
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Heather Graham, Luis Guzman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, Don Cheadle, Robert Ridgely, Philip Baker Hall, John Doe, Joanna Gleason, Laurel Holloman, Thomas Jane, Lil’ Cinderella, Melora Walters
I like director and writer Paul Thomas Anderson’s treatment of what Wikipedia calls “The Golden Age of Porn,” 1969 to 1984. Boogie Nights starts at the halfway point, in 1977, a kind of high-water mark from the look of it here, where the work is fun and the living in Southern California is easy. The picture bounds with bottomless energy and a rollicking jukebox soundtrack that rarely stops or slows. It is a basic rise and fall movie—of one Dirk Diggler nee Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), porn star with a legendary cock. Dirk prefers the term “actor.” He is prone in his exuberance to throwing spontaneous kung fu moves all over the place. He is 17, 18, 19, and in love with his body.
There are problems in Boogie Nights as it moves from the high points of its characters’ lives to the lows, but they are relatively minor. It is one of those long movies that feels short. Scanning the credits, you might think it was Oscar-bait. Most of these players were just starting their careers at the time. Burt Reynolds is one exception, playing porn producer and director Jack Horner, who has ideas about being an artist. At the time, I recall, it was taken as attempting what John Travolta had managed with Pulp Fiction—a “comeback” role that redefined him ironically. Philip Baker Hall is another exception, playing porn industry titan Floyd Gondolli. Hall may be the only one who could deliver the classic line, “I like simple pleasures, like butter in my ass and lollipops in my mouth.”
I like director and writer Paul Thomas Anderson’s treatment of what Wikipedia calls “The Golden Age of Porn,” 1969 to 1984. Boogie Nights starts at the halfway point, in 1977, a kind of high-water mark from the look of it here, where the work is fun and the living in Southern California is easy. The picture bounds with bottomless energy and a rollicking jukebox soundtrack that rarely stops or slows. It is a basic rise and fall movie—of one Dirk Diggler nee Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), porn star with a legendary cock. Dirk prefers the term “actor.” He is prone in his exuberance to throwing spontaneous kung fu moves all over the place. He is 17, 18, 19, and in love with his body.
There are problems in Boogie Nights as it moves from the high points of its characters’ lives to the lows, but they are relatively minor. It is one of those long movies that feels short. Scanning the credits, you might think it was Oscar-bait. Most of these players were just starting their careers at the time. Burt Reynolds is one exception, playing porn producer and director Jack Horner, who has ideas about being an artist. At the time, I recall, it was taken as attempting what John Travolta had managed with Pulp Fiction—a “comeback” role that redefined him ironically. Philip Baker Hall is another exception, playing porn industry titan Floyd Gondolli. Hall may be the only one who could deliver the classic line, “I like simple pleasures, like butter in my ass and lollipops in my mouth.”
Seeing Boogie Nights again made me realize we haven’t figured out yet what to do about pornography. There are always arguments it should just be illegal, straight up and down, and for much of the last century that was that. In the sexual revolution that followed the birth control pill the pendulum swung back to porn as one more item in the libertine pill box. The Supreme Court gave it a semi-official thumbs-up in 1973, making “contemporary community standards” the defining legal standard. Beautiful. It was the golden age of porn because suddenly there was enough financing and enough public tolerance for directors like Gerard Damiano (Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones) to believe they were making serious movies. The industry even developed an annual celebrity and awards infrastructure like the Academy Awards. Then VCRs came along and it all changed.
Boogie Nights charts that transition, drawing skillfully on the ambition and pastiche energy of manic Scorsese exercises like Goodfellas and Casino to tell the story of this chapter of porn. The cast is large and talented. The parts may be small in some cases but the most is made of them. Joanna Gleason as Dirk’s mother, for example, explains a number of things about Dirk in an amazing, explosive scene early on. Any number of well-conceived set piece scenes propel the momentum. Boogie Nights dances around and ultimately ducks away from its farcical central story, the legend of a big cock. People tried—notably in this very golden age—to make movies that included both dramatic or comic interest along with sex, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. It seems to be very hard to balance narrative tensions with depictions of the deed. For now, in fact, it appears that porn has almost entirely eschewed the effort and perhaps lives most effectively as 7-minute video reels online.
The insoluble problem that Boogie Nights butts its head against is exactly that. How do you make a movie about the porn industry without being pornographic? There is some nudity here but the picture is obviously shooting around the porn, cutting away, resorting to tight close-ups of faces, switching the visual mode to old film stock and a shrunken image size, and in other distancing ways. Anything to not show porn. And you can’t blame Anderson even if you leave out the commercial considerations. Damiano and his peers demonstrated the difficulties in their work. I remember director Rinse Dream’s 1982 Café Flesh, for example (not that I’ve studied this stuff so closely!), had a science fiction premise that seemed like it might work. Only a tiny minority of people in that postapocalyptic world were capable of sex and they were required to perform in nightclub settings. But again, once the sex started any interest in the story largely fell to the leering side. Maybe Nicolas Roeg, Julie Christie, and Donald Sutherland had the right idea in Don’t Look Now, if those rumors are even true.
Another point about Boogie Nights I wasn’t sure what to do with is how comically dumb Anderson makes these people. It has a lot to do with what makes this movie work. It’s often very funny. Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), for example, has a thing about wearing cowboy clothes and selling stereo equipment. Jack Horner infects his cast and crew with ideas that they are great artists, which he believes about himself. Dirk and his bro buddy peer Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) swallow the kool-aid, with absolute faith in a series of porn movies featuring super-spy Brock Landers (Dirk) and his partner Chest Rockwell (Reed). I suspect we’re laughing more at these characters than with them, but anyway we are laughing and it’s a good time. Anderson walks the line tight between farce and pathos, as in one scene with sound man Scotty J. (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who has a thing for Dirk, which erupts in a harrowingly awkward moment. Dirk is not interested, of course, but he takes it as a given that his sexual magnetism is that strong.
Then the downfalls start, which are riveting. Crew member Little Bill (William H. Macy) has a nymphomaniac wife prone to public scenes. If Little Bill signed on to an open marriage he doesn’t like it now. He finally snaps on New Years Eve heading into 1980 and that’s when the troubles seem to start for everyone. The demise of Rollergirl (Heather Graham), cruising with Jack Horner in a limo to pick up stray guys and shoot them having sex with her, is a train wreck. So is an episode with Dirk trying to make money the way he used to, charging $10 for a look. So is a donut shop scene with Buck. The most epic involves Dirk and Reed going along with their friend Todd Parker (Thomas Jane) to rip off drug dealer Rahad (Alfred Molina). The soundtrack plays “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. You know the one I mean.
It was good to get a look at Boogie Nights again because, among my various problems lately with directors Christopher Nolan and David Fincher, I have also been having problems with Paul Thomas Anderson, starting even with his next picture, Magnolia. I have been dubious or at best had mixed feelings about There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Phantom Thread. But despite any sideline issues my most recent look at Boogie Nights may have raised, I was happy to find it was so great to see it again.
Boogie Nights charts that transition, drawing skillfully on the ambition and pastiche energy of manic Scorsese exercises like Goodfellas and Casino to tell the story of this chapter of porn. The cast is large and talented. The parts may be small in some cases but the most is made of them. Joanna Gleason as Dirk’s mother, for example, explains a number of things about Dirk in an amazing, explosive scene early on. Any number of well-conceived set piece scenes propel the momentum. Boogie Nights dances around and ultimately ducks away from its farcical central story, the legend of a big cock. People tried—notably in this very golden age—to make movies that included both dramatic or comic interest along with sex, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. It seems to be very hard to balance narrative tensions with depictions of the deed. For now, in fact, it appears that porn has almost entirely eschewed the effort and perhaps lives most effectively as 7-minute video reels online.
The insoluble problem that Boogie Nights butts its head against is exactly that. How do you make a movie about the porn industry without being pornographic? There is some nudity here but the picture is obviously shooting around the porn, cutting away, resorting to tight close-ups of faces, switching the visual mode to old film stock and a shrunken image size, and in other distancing ways. Anything to not show porn. And you can’t blame Anderson even if you leave out the commercial considerations. Damiano and his peers demonstrated the difficulties in their work. I remember director Rinse Dream’s 1982 Café Flesh, for example (not that I’ve studied this stuff so closely!), had a science fiction premise that seemed like it might work. Only a tiny minority of people in that postapocalyptic world were capable of sex and they were required to perform in nightclub settings. But again, once the sex started any interest in the story largely fell to the leering side. Maybe Nicolas Roeg, Julie Christie, and Donald Sutherland had the right idea in Don’t Look Now, if those rumors are even true.
Another point about Boogie Nights I wasn’t sure what to do with is how comically dumb Anderson makes these people. It has a lot to do with what makes this movie work. It’s often very funny. Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), for example, has a thing about wearing cowboy clothes and selling stereo equipment. Jack Horner infects his cast and crew with ideas that they are great artists, which he believes about himself. Dirk and his bro buddy peer Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) swallow the kool-aid, with absolute faith in a series of porn movies featuring super-spy Brock Landers (Dirk) and his partner Chest Rockwell (Reed). I suspect we’re laughing more at these characters than with them, but anyway we are laughing and it’s a good time. Anderson walks the line tight between farce and pathos, as in one scene with sound man Scotty J. (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who has a thing for Dirk, which erupts in a harrowingly awkward moment. Dirk is not interested, of course, but he takes it as a given that his sexual magnetism is that strong.
Then the downfalls start, which are riveting. Crew member Little Bill (William H. Macy) has a nymphomaniac wife prone to public scenes. If Little Bill signed on to an open marriage he doesn’t like it now. He finally snaps on New Years Eve heading into 1980 and that’s when the troubles seem to start for everyone. The demise of Rollergirl (Heather Graham), cruising with Jack Horner in a limo to pick up stray guys and shoot them having sex with her, is a train wreck. So is an episode with Dirk trying to make money the way he used to, charging $10 for a look. So is a donut shop scene with Buck. The most epic involves Dirk and Reed going along with their friend Todd Parker (Thomas Jane) to rip off drug dealer Rahad (Alfred Molina). The soundtrack plays “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. You know the one I mean.
It was good to get a look at Boogie Nights again because, among my various problems lately with directors Christopher Nolan and David Fincher, I have also been having problems with Paul Thomas Anderson, starting even with his next picture, Magnolia. I have been dubious or at best had mixed feelings about There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Phantom Thread. But despite any sideline issues my most recent look at Boogie Nights may have raised, I was happy to find it was so great to see it again.
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