The Film
From its impeccably conceived three-minute long Steadicam opening to its final shot featuring one memorable member, Boogie Nights signaled the rising of a new talent in American cinema in a big way. Those who had missed Paul Thomas Anderson’s impressive debut feature Sydney (or Hard Eight, as the studio execs preferred it) the previous year would have to try really hard to ignore his sophomore effort, a stunningly confident saga of a close-knit group of people working in the pornography industry in the late ’70s and early ’80s.
It’s easy to think about Boogie Nights in terms of its photography — Anderson’s constantly moving camera is nothing short of virtuosic — or its pitch perfect evocation of several eras, but perhaps even more impressive is Anderson’s deft handling of a massive cast, shifting characters in and out at just the right moments to give each its due and create a cohesive whole. Anderson would do something similar with his next feature, Magnolia, but I’m not sure he was able to improve on what he’d done in Boogie Nights.
At the center of the film is Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg in his breakout role), an earnest and naïve L.A. kid who’s determined to make something of himself despite his humble circumstances. The archetype is familiar, but an early scene where Eddie runs away from home, browbeaten by his mother’s cruelty, is one of the film’s few concessions to cliché.
Working at a nightclub, Eddie finds himself the object of porn director Jack Horner’s (Burt Reynolds) attention, and soon, he’s become part of Horner’s “family,” a group of hard-living porn stars that includes Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly), Rollergirl (Heather Graham), Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), Becky Barnett (Nicole Ari Parker), and Robert Ridgely in his final role as porn godfather The Colonel. Typically excellent supporting performances from Anderson regulars Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Luis Guzmán, Melora Walters, Ricky Jay, and Philip Baker Hall round out the cast.
The rise and fall of Eddie — who takes on the name Dirk Diggler — is at the center of the film, but Anderson resists abandoning his other characters for efficiency or simplicity’s sake, with all members of the family having a stake in the wonderfully paced and balanced script. At two and a half hours-plus, the film could seem bloated in lesser hands, but it's far too kinetic to ever feel that way. Even after the film appears to have run its course, Anderson tosses in a late scene featuring Alfred Molina in glorious scenery-chewing mode that is absolutely riveting and truly subverts our expectations about what kind of film this is.
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