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Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson) 1997
**** 11/14/01 Jeremy Heilman
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The excitement that surrounded the release of Paul
Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights made
the film sound like the Second Coming of Scorsese, and his later Magnolia
seems to have proven that his backers might have been right, if a tad premature.
Boogie Nights is a shockingly well-made film. It is as cinematically
assured and technically proficient as anything to come out in 1997 (with the
possible exception of Irma Vep). Few
recent filmmakers have carved out films with so many good ideas. It can easily
be argued that Boogie Nights, which is
set in the porn film industry, has too many good ideas for its own good.
Certainly, the milieu is a rich one, but the film’s two-and-a-half hour
running time doesn’t really get around to showing us as much of the skin trade
as we might enjoy. Also, while the characters are full-bodied, many of their
stories feel a bit truncated. There’s a specific reason for this, however.
Anderson was not simply content to tell the story of
the porn industry in the 70’s and 80’s. He chooses to tackle the state of
all cinema in this time period. The concept of family and the characters arcs
(which all seem to combine two cliches to become original) seem to be the least
developed aspect of Boogie Nights. The
film's overriding structure seems to deal instead with the assertion that the
70's made good films where artistic creativity was strived for, then in the 80's
things went bad because of the creation of video (special effects) and the focus
on young faces. Every character in the film takes a backseat to that theme. The
story lines for almost every character accommodate it, and it feels somewhat
artificial when they do. Even worse, the film’s second half feels a bit like a
heavy-handed condemnation of the hedonism on display in the first act. This is
unfortunate, since Anderson treats events of the first half of the film with so
much of the goodwill and so little condescension that it’s refreshing. The
biggest complaint against the film seems to be that the bad times of the 80's
feel forced, and the film’s failure to separate it’s main theme from its
individual character arcs is, indeed, its biggest fumble.
Nonetheless, Boogie
Nights is a great flawed film. The cast is wonderful and the dialogue is
superb. There is a great deal of sympathy generated when you look at the film as
an allegory of the American auteur filmmaker. Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), the
film’s porn director, strives to make a porn film with enough substance that
people would want to stay to watch it after they got off. That so many modern
films are nothing but climax makes him seem a prescient, unfortunate victim of
the system. The film’s ending seems to be Anderson’s admission that he
really loves his characters, and had gotten in over his head in an attempt to
make something great. I certainly don’t want to be the one that knocks him for
trying when this is his “failure”.