Viking Night: Boogie Nights
By Bruce Hall
January 8, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
And of course, there’s the inevitable crash-and-burn, but with a twist.
Boogie Nights begins with a wonderfully elaborate tracking shot, bookended by the film’s glowing pink logo on a neon marquee, and a dirty old man eye fucking a busboy in a nightclub. In between, we meet most of the film’s main characters as they get the party started. It’s Saturday night, and porn king Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) is treating his stable of sexy stars to a night on the town. His leading lady Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) and her protege Roller Girl (Heather Graham) are in attendance. Reed Rothchild (John C Reilly), Buck Swope (Don Cheadle) and Becky Barnett (Nicole Ari Parker) are killing it on the dance floor.
And the busboy in question is Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), a confused looking lad who has big dreams and an even bigger...um...we’ll get to that in a second...
Eddie’s father ignores him, his mother verbally abuses him, and college is out of the question, because neither one of his parents is exactly the intellectual type. He has a big heart, but he’s a dopey man-child, determined to make a living with his junk. Yes, Eddie’s empty mop-haired melon is starkly contrasted by his massive personal package. So despite his humble past and unsophisticated nature, he knows that he’s got at least 13 things going for him, and is determined to make the best of it.
Luckily, business has been good to Frank, and he’s been looking for the Next Big Thing. After chatting Eddie up a bit, Jack sends Roller Girl ahead to...er...”soften” him up...before swooping in for the Big Pitch. With his two sirens at his side, Jack fills the boy’s head with visions of wealth, hot sex and unlimited partying. It’s just what Eddie needs to hear, and within a day he’s part of the Horner Stable. He proves to be natural born for porn, and soon he is the most decorated stud in the industry. Eddie is now known far and wide by his stage name...
Dirk Diggler.
But Jack dreams of making porno flicks with stories, with heart - with pathos! Dirk and Reed - two big dumb peas from the same big dumb pod - are on board with this, and together they create Brock Landers, a suave private dick who spends slightly more time slapping women around (with one appendage or another) than he does solving cases. Even so, the character is wildly successful and this enables the gang to reach the very heights of fame and stardom they’d always imagined. Jack fulfills his promise to Dirk - everyone’s rich, everyone’s getting laid, and the party never, ever stops. Of course there’s a price to pay for all of this. The second half of any cautionary tale is where everything invariably falls apart and as the ‘80s approach, so does the Reckoning.
Amber has a drug problem that causes her to lose custody of her son to his clean and sober father. Buck is a man without identity, looking for the future in his wardrobe. Roller Girl is in high school for at least the first 20 minutes of the movie. Video is quickly replacing film, rendering Jack and his old school business model obsolete. Dirk discovers the burden of hard drugs, egos flare, friendships are tested and the future begins to look as dark as the tawdry, damp cinemas where Jack’s movies are shown.
One of the great things about Boogie Nights is the measured way in which it delivers the story. Obviously, this subject matter is uncomfortable for most people, but Anderson delicately blunts some of this with subtle humor. Most of these characters are comically oblivious to their own lack of intelligence, so little effort is required to make Dirk sound amusing when he compares himself to Napoleon, King of the Romans. Boogie Nights is not a comedy, but it doesn’t shy away from letting its characters look laughably shallow for their appetites.
Considering the subject matter, the story merely dances around subject of STDs, allowing the malaise of drug addiction to function as a metaphor. To some this is a cheat but it’s okay with me - one can destroy your life as easily as the other, and if the point was to underscore the risk inherent in this line of work - message received. All in all the film feels authentic, and it’s almost overwhelmingly sincere. In fact, it has all the hesitant self assuredness that most real adult films have (oh, stop pretending like you’ve never seen one), only it’s determined to provocatively straddle the often fuzzy line between tragedy and satire.
Anderson also does a great job of recreating the look and feel of the ‘70s on a very small budget. The hair, the clothes, the cadences of speech - it all feels real, at least to someone who’s barely old enough to remember the time. Period film stock is occasionally used to recreate the experience of watching Dirk and Company act on screen, and explain themselves to the world in a series of hilarious faux documentary clips. And the soundtrack itself is worth whatever you’re willing to pay for it.
My only real complaint with this film is that it’s way too long, and it’s a little too in love with its characters. The last quarter of the film kind of falls off a cliff, as the ‘80s swallow everyone up and the Piper finally gets paid. Some of it feels frivolous, but some of it serves to drastically undermine the “cautionary” part of the tale. In this case, the decision whether or not to leave your audience with hope ultimately says what kind of film you were trying to make, and in the end I suspect Boogie Nights is meant to be a movie ABOUT hope.
It’s also possible that immersing yourself in the lives of these people for 40 minutes too long forces you to understand them. It’s worth it, if only just barely.