DVDs in Review

Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)

Title: Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)

Release date: June 21 2010

Certificate: 18

Format: Blu-ray

RRP: £17.99

Rating: 5/5

Reviewed by Dave Lancaster

‘Boogie Nights’ is a fantastically human film about a movie genre that bypasses human emotion and goes straight for the action – porn.  With an epic cast of characters, Paul Thomas Anderson’s ensemble piece is an intoxicating look at the sleaze, success and excess of the adult entertainment industry in its 70s heyday in California right through to the beginning of the end in the mid 80s when home video was booming and the idea of an artistic porn film was slipping fast.

Anderson built this film from a short he made called ‘The Dirk Diggler Story’, taking that film’s antihero of the title (here played brilliantly by Mark Wahlberg) to chart his rise from being a well endowed nightclub waiter to becoming a huge star in “exotic pictures” directed by Jack Horner (a perfect Oscar nominated turn from Burt Reynolds).

He put together a fine cast including career bests from Wahlberg and Reynolds as well as solid support from Julianne Moore (Oscar nominated), Heather Graham, John C Rielly, William H Macy, Luis Guzman, Don Cheadle, Alfred Molina and even an assortment of real porn stars for extra authenticity. Combining that with a directorial style that comes off as a contemporary to Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman, Anderson crafted one of the best films of the 1990s and established himself as a major filmmaking force (he solidified that assertion with ‘Magnolia’ and ‘There Will Be Blood’).  

Oddly, a lot of the sex explicit scenes in ‘Boogie Nights’ are quite tastefully shot while the violence takes on a Tarantino-esque sense of overkill. Anderson knows that it isn’t the sex that drives his film, it’s what the sex does to his characters, while the violence forms a sudden fall from grace. The violence is supposed to hit you. You’re supposed to be desensitised to the sex by the end of it.

One telling scene shows a financier requesting to view Diggler undressed. Instead of cutting away to the film or showing an over the shoulder shot, Anderson keeps his frame on the spectator and from his reaction we get the point about what’s so special about the performer. By the end of the film, we get to see for ourselves but by that point, it’s just a tool of the trade. Nobody really cares.