(I started this blog and got lazy after 3 reviews. Now rather than putting up a new review I am publishing a discarded rough draft for my MA dissertation here. How I treat my blogspace so indignintly. But to my credit I edited the draft a bit and spruced it just a little bit. Though it scarcely helps for it still looks contrived and tries a bit too hard to end up sounding highbrow. Nonetheless, dear invisible faithful readers. Dig in....)
Boogie Nights is loosely based on real life porn actor John Holmes life by the way of nodding Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990) and very much in the style of Altman films with its wide array of supporting yet equally important characters.
Remarkably Paul Thomas Anderson made Boogie Nights when he was 26 and even more remarkable is the fact that at this age this was his second feature after the still lesser seen Hard Eight (1996). Boogie Nights is a film of scale and breadth, spanning over a period of seven years in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley from 1977 to 1983 and a running time of 2 and a half hours. With one central character and nine supporting characters, each with their own well defined substories, the quasi epic structure of the film goes through the highs and lows of the central characters over the course of years with at least four choreographed elaborate scenes and a wall to wall soundtrack of hits from the period. At 26 Anderson's grip over the film is assured and giddy with the joy of making a film. Consider the opening of the film, the title of the film appears on screen but not as a font but a shot of a club signboard in bold neon lights and from there on the camera pulls away and cranes to the other side of the street to another club where we see a car pull by. Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) and Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) get out of the car and greeted into the club where in the next 3 minutes we are introduced to most of the principle characters in one unbroken take. All this time the camera glides, swirls and floats fluidly in the middle of a bustling recreation of a 70s disco club with dozens of extras swinging away and in this brief time we just get to know enough about most of the central characters. In the first three minutes we know that Jack Horner is a filmmaker, Amber Waves is his leading lady, Maurice Rodriguez (Luis Gazman) owns the club but wants to break into Jack's films, Buck (Don Cheadle), a regular of Jack's cast has found a new look as the black cowboy but only he is enthusiastic about it. We get to meet Rollergirl (Heather Graham) and at the end of the extended shot/scene ofcourse, Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) as a busboy. The opening unbroken scene clearly joins up the ranks of similarly dazzling scenes such as the opening sequence of Orson Welles' A Touch of Evil (1958), Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and more notably the scene when Vince and Mia walk into Jack Rabbits Silm in Tarentino's Pulp Fiction (1994).
Apart from establishing the mood and setting of the film this scene also informs us about the ambition of the film. A party by the pool at Jack Horner's villa provides the second extended set piece of the film. Again we have a multitude of people though all spread over the place, inside the house by the swimming pool and in the pool. More characters are introduced in this scene, Colonel James (Robert Ridgely) and Scotty (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and more is revealed about other characters like Amber Waves has a little boy and we get to know more about Reed. The energy doesn't let up and the camera moves from one character to the other even following them under water. More cinematic tricks are employed as in when Scott looks at Eddie/Dirk for the first time and the iris closes in on Dirk. Again this sequence is instrumental in recreating a time gone by and is more effective for it takes more time to develop its digetic world.
Moving on to the next elaborate ensemble sequence it takes place on an eventful night of New Year of 1979/1980. This is a turning point in the narrative of the film since the excess of the 70's would take their toll after this into the 80s. Again at Jack's place is an extravagant new year's party. This sequence is significant for a number of plot developments (no less than seven) occur here. Two pair of characters meets and find understanding and love, Buck and Jesse find a common interest in sunrises, Becky meets Jerome for the second time and this time she takes an interest in him, both pairs are married later in the film. Two new characters are introduced; Todd (Thomas Jane) who will eventually befriend Dirk and be his coke dealer as well as being the catalyst in the climatic scene towards the end of the film. The other character being Floyd Gondolini (Philip Baker Hall), another porn producer who announces the days of film are over and video is the new medium for porn. Dirk is introduced to cocaine by Amber, to which he gets increasingly dependent in later scenes. Two characters have breakdowns. Scotty devastatingly tries to kiss Dirk and Little Bill (William H Macy) finally snaps at his wife's infidelity and kills her and the man she's having sex with before blowing a bullet in his mouth. Immediately after the gunshot there is a title card simply saying 80s.
Interspread through out the film are other visual treats, brief and extended. Like Eddie having an epiphany about his stage name and describing Jack the name the way he sees it, in big blue neon lights with purple outline bright and sharp, the sign just blows up because its so powerful and the scene cuts to exactly what’s Dirk talking about, A sign With Dirk Digller written on it in big blue neon lights with a purple outline blowing up in flames.
Consider Dirk's first sex scene with Amber Waves. As the sex scene proceeds first we see the whole shot as it looks from the camera. At one point during this scene the camera zooms into the camera filming Dirk and Amber. It cuts to the inside of the camera with reels and sprockets and all. The moans of Amber and Dirk are drowned by shutter sound of machinery at work and we get to see the inverted image of Amber and Dirk having sex in close up inside the camera.
Pornography is principally only for the stimulation of one's basic sexual urges, the aim being to arouse. By this unconventional shot we interpret pornography as something mechanical, cold and unemotional. The moves are right the moans sound amplified cutting down to its basic, the whole procedure is impersonal. The actors (performers) have sex in front of a cold camera and indifferent crew and cast. On another note I would like to make the observation the particular shot where the actual/non-digetic camera zooms into the Jack Horner's porn camera/digetic comes off as something incestuous. One camera staring at another, capturing it on film. The particular shot where Amber and Dirk's writhing body are shown inverted gives an almost transcendent effect.
In another scene Jack is reading aloud a review on one of his films complimenting Dirk and the camera zooms in to the written text of the magazine and the screen splits into two with Dirk in a saloon and Jack's voice replaced by a woman's voice reading the same script, the screen splits into 3 and now the woman's voice is replaced by Reed's and the third screen occupies him and Becky in a sex scene and going on to splitting the screen in four with the fourth panel having Dirk and Reed dancing and voice over (with Dirk this time around) concludes and the rest of the three screens give way the last screen which has Dirk and Reed with a collective of people on a disco dancefloor dancing away in true disco garb and motions to The Commodores' Machine Gun. This scene is a piece of cinematic imagination and virtuosity playing with various cinematic tricks indicating the rise of Dirk Diggler and the crest of the wave he's riding on. Joyous, decadent and carefee. The reconstruction of disco's heyday is spot on and further contributes to period authenticity.
Interspersed through the length of the film are the scenes from Jack's films. Anderson lovingly reconstructs these scenes replete with bad acting, cheap film stock, cheesy titles, trashy lighting and sets and ridiculous dialogues. Merged in the serious narrative of the film with A class actors these scenes do come off as humorous but consider the dead solemness with which Jack and his cameraman/editor view the rushes and compliment each other on this being a real film and with even more conviction Jack declares this being his best work and stating this would be the film people would remember him by.
Other than the cinematic trickery that highlights the highs of Dirk and company the scenes set in the 80s may lack the visual pyrotechnics but as the lighter scenes from the 70s are about a group of people going on with their glamorous lives the 80s have them cracking up and sliding down a spiral. After his falling out with Jack, Anderson shows Dirk's drug habits employing some more visual tricks like quick cuts, freeze frames, zip zooms. Gradually the tone of the film turns more somber and foreboding.
A key sequence set in the 80s cuts between two plotlines more or less happening at the same time. Succumbing to video, Jack is set on making film history (on videotape) by attempting to pick up a guy at random from the street onto the limo he's in and film the guy having sex with a garishly made up Roller Girl. At the same time down on his luck and with no money to fund his cocaine habits Dirk is reduced to make quick money by letting guys see him masturbate, the same what he used to do before meeting Jack. Parallel cutting advances the plot with a foreboding consistent strain of music in the background. The guy Jack invites into the limo is a former bullying classmate of Rollergirl. She refuses to recognize him and reluctantly puts on the show. Dirk gets in the truck of a redneck and goes to a vacant lot where he is asked to perform masturbation for 10 dollars. To add to his despair and frustration Dirk can't get it up. Things end up ugly on both sides. In the middle of sex on the backseat of the limo, Rollergirl refuses to go on with this. Frustrated, he insults Rollergirl and before getting out of the car insults Jack. Jack jumps at him and both he and Rollergirl beat him into a pulp. On Dirk's side the redneck turns out to be a redneck homophobe, another truck pulls over and three other guys get Dirk out of the truck and beat him up.
The intercutting of the scenes economizes the narrative at both ends also serves to build up the tension and offers a contrasting low to the glamorous sun bleached highs of the 70s.
Though the climatic low of the 80s come a couple of scenes later when unshaven and disheveled Dirk, Reed and Todd go to a playboy, Rahad Jackson's (Alfred Molina) place for a drug deal, selling him baking soda as cocaine. This particular sequence is built taut and unnerving owing to the unsettling and despairing position Dirk and Reed find themselves in aided by a manic playboy, his gun wielding bodyguard and a Chinese boy throwing firecrackers around making the three men almost jump out of their skins. Boogie Nights finds moments of transcendence in the most unlikely situations. First it was through the nuts, and bolts and cranks of a film camera and inverted images of a couple copulating and now it is a static shot of a disheveled Dirk for almost a whole minute to the loud blaring sound of Rick Springfield's Jersey Girl. This shot is preceded and followed by loud clatter. The loud fire crackers and Rahad's manic sing along is drowned by the actual song and the whole static shot of Dirk has him fidgeting and settling down to an almost stupor like state. He smiles very briefly and one can only wonder what is that all about. A brief act of disassociation from the situation at hand, a state of understanding and acceptance of how things have turned out or simply giving the thing a re-evaluation. This is one of the gray areas of the film that somehow stands out of the entire narrative and gives this particular shot some sort of transcendence which might have been lost if the shot would have lingered or ended a bit more or less.
Boogie Nights can be seen as a post modern film that it connects with so many other films and genres and other avenues of pop culture. The film is heavily intertextual in weaving a template of different styles and forms. Stylistically the film resembles Robert Altman's 70s ensemble pieces like M.A.S.H (1970), Nashville (1975) and others. The way the tapestry of various actors interact with each other and in large group scenes their movements are coherently choreographed like in the party by the pool scene. Thematically though the film owes to Scorsese's Goodfellas in particular and the life of John Holmes that partly inspired the film and obviously the porn films from the 70s like Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones. The likeliness to porn films only come in the form of the films within the films Jack Horner makes. Bad acting, ludicrous dialogues, poor production values, cheap film stock inform these segments making it more authentic and the Brock Landers character is modeled after similar porn detective roles John Holmes did.
The documentary format finds it place in the film in the shape of Amber's directorial debut, a spot on Dirk. Mingling scenes from Dirk's Brock Landers films and interviews from Reed and Rollergirl and Dirk himself interspersed with a voiceover of Amber over shots of Dirk posing around and staring into the sun. We may see it as a mock documentary in the vein of This is Spinal Tap (1983), though it is easy to imagine and looks up to so many self styled serious documentaries in that style from the era. The documentary showcases the vanity, pomposity, posturings and pseudo philosophy of Dirk and Reed.
The connection with Goodfellas is not only the nod to the opening scene of Boogie Nights but also the way story takes on from the Henry Hill’s (Ray Liotta) addiction to cocaine and his falling out with his father figure in the film the mobster Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino). Henry breaks out hits the bottom and goes back to Paul whom he had offended for help and forgiveness. Unlike in Goodfellas, Dirk does find forgiveness from Jack who welcomes him back and provides a stable father figure. Though both the stories of Henry and Dirk by the way of John Holmes are factual and a strong case can’t be made between the similarity at the same time shouldn’t be considered merely speculative. As like Altman, Anderson acknowledged Scorsese as an important influence and the festive scenes in his films echo the same verve as in Scorsese's films. A more blatant influence can be seen the revealing last scene of Boogie Nights where he is getting pumped up before the shoot in his dressing room talking to his reflection in the mirror ala Jack LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980).
Boogie Nights not only celebrates disco enacting performers who were kids in Disco's heydays to perform authentic and accurate dance movements but also takes a jab at 80s synth pop and the recording industry. Consider Dirk and Reid's attempt to make it as singers and Dirk breaking into a witless rendition of "You are a Winner" actually a song from the Transformers movie soundtrack (1986).
Intertexuality is also informed by references to Star Wars (1977), appearances by real life porn star of the 70s like Nina Hartley as Little Bill's wife, John Doe as Amber Waves' husband and by the presence of Burt Reyanlds himself a big icon in the 70s.
A popular speculation has been about how Andersons equates the porn film business with Hollywood. Actors make it big; get rich and famous and decadent. Underlining the similarity is the Annual Adult Film Awards scene, which has specific categories, and winning actors make the same acceptance speeches filled with pomp and manufactured modesty. Anderson argues in his film that pornography is just a step or two down from mainstream Hollywood, just that it finds less social acceptability and taboo is attached to it. As in Hollywood or any other sphere of show business most often where performers are well equipped for one world, having good looks, rich voices and in this case well endowed for the porn films, the same people are so ill equipped for the other more real world. Amber Waves is denied custody of her child and Buck has to face the strict commercial laws of banking.
Boogie Nights gives observations on the family structure. Where real families are dysfunctional as in Dirk's case with an abusive tyrannical mother and a helpless impotent father or mismatched, the case of Little Bill and his porn star wife or simply dying or even dead as in Amber Waves and her husband not letting her close to their son, Jack Horner gives stability to emotionally shattered lives of his actors. He's the surrogate father to Dirk, Rollergirl and more like a gentle uncle like persona to Bud, Reed and the rest of the cast with Amber Waves filling in the shoes of the surrogate mother. Her affections, even love for Dirk is more maternal than sexual, the irony being that’s exactly what they do for a living. She repeatedly refers to him as his baby boy, Dirk substituting her real son, regardless the age difference though. Where Amber's affection lead to some misguided choices like introducing Dirk to cocaine at the same time her affections have also been touching and grand, even if it's in the form of a dim witted pretentious documentary piece on Dirk, Amber's poem to Dirk. Desperation for a real family also is amplified in the scene where Amber and Rollergirl snort cocaine and Amber confides she miss both her sons, the little Andrew and Dirk. Desperation for real ties bond Roller girl and Amber and both play a pretend game where Roller girl can call Amber mommy.
In the end I will give the film two thumbs up and get back to posting real proper reviews.
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