boogie

What is an epic? Traditionally, in the cinematic sense, epics are those lengthy costume dramas, period pieces, they span decades, lifetimes, eras. Gladiator and Titanic are our most recent epics because of their Roman grandeur and larger than life/expensive vision, respectively. In the past, epics refer similarly in this way to a production's sheer size. Often in looking at the films of Cecil B. Demille, the message or heart of his works was minimal in comparison to the vast "cast of thousands!" production mentality. Titanic, again, is an example of this- the romance between Leo and Kate seems like an afterthought next to the pains taken by James Cameron to float- and sink- the infamous oceanliner. One movie wrongly never referred to as an epic, but equal, if not superior, in breadth and dramatic narrative structure due to its own oftignored contemporary use of the period piece and the costume drama is Boogie Nights.

Strictly looking at the story, Boogie Nights has no fewer than 14 notable supporting characters- except for Mark Wahlberg as Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler, Boogie Nights has no real central characters but thrives, rather, as an ensemble piece- and balances them all flawlessly as the narrative deems necessary and each character's purpose to the narrative is gauged. Most centrally, as noted, is Mark Wahlberg. Personally, I love Mark Wahlberg and think he only gets better and better with each new challenge of a movie he accepts. He is still, unfortunately a bit of an enigma as far as leading man status is concerned. Directors, starting with the then-risktaking PTAnderson, repeatedly give him the chance to carry their pictures actingwise, but his name has yet to become large enough or important enough to launch a marketing campaign around. Watch for Wahlberg to lead the pack again in Tim Burton's The Vistor, a Planet of the Apes remake in which he takes over the role first played by Charlton Heston, and Rock Star, a George Clooney production whose title says it all. Clooney and Wahlberg are fast becoming the Newman and Redford of today as Rock Star will be their 4th collaboration in not even as many years. (Three Kings, Perfect Storm, The Visitor, Rock Star) As Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler, Wahlberg is a bit of a revelation. How PTA's people could have chosen this former MTV lackey and known he could be the centerpiece for their already gorgeous table setting (just look at the rest of the cast) is beyond me, but thank goodness they did. He's perfect.

Colonel James and Floyd Gondoli played by Robert Ridgely and Phillip Baker Hall, respectively. Watch how PTA directorially shows us the transfer of power from one mogul to another. The Colonel is Horner's producer with a ballsy approach to business and a weak approach to life. His weaknesses get the better of him just as Gondoli is introduced. A threat to Reynold's director, Floyd proposes that there is no money to be made in film anymore and that videotape is the wave of the future. Jack takes much offense to this as it challenges his artistry as a filmmaker. The Colonel, as played by Ridgely, I have some sympathy for as he is so backwards and doesn't realize until it's too late for him. Phillip Baker Hall, on the other hand, I do not like. He is as appalling to Jack Horner as he is to me. Having previously talked about the father/son relationship between him and PTA, look for him in all future PTA projects for better or worse. One of my favorite characters in the movie and the genuine comic relief is Reed Rothchild, the second banana of porn/sometimes magician(!). John C. Reilly betters every scene he appears in. Many of his scenes were clearly adlibbed in part and are all priceless- namely listen to his fateful introduction to Eddie Adams early in the film talking about benchpressing and Star Wars, later his poetry recital to Eddie in the hottub, and watch his eager-to-please yet X-rated magic act towards the movie's conclusion. Reilly is a great and underappreciated actor, in appearing with Phillip Seymour Hoffman on Broadway in the award winning True West they would switch roles every night flawlessly. Here he is the very loveable sidekick and he's great. (also appears with Wahlberg in Perfect Storm) Heather Graham has a large role as Horner's sortof-surrogate porn star

Two earned and very honorable mentions for supporting characters in this film not directly linked to the Horner clan are Todd Parker played by Thomas Jane and Rahad Jackson played by Alfred Molina. Todd is a friend of Reed and Dirk who dances in a male strip club and parties at the Horner pad. He is partially responsible for keeping the two of them hooked on coke as his drug habit seems to take over his good sense on more than one occasion. Perhaps as a sign of the times, Jane is not madeup to look like any sort of beefcake, his stripper job seems almost to be a joke. However, he is always an intense onscreen presence. When he truly blossoms is in hatching a get-rich-quick scheme in trying to con Rahad out of $40,000 selling baking soda off as coke. Rahad is an offkilter playboy who loves to throw parties and get his guests high. as Parker reveals, he'll buy anything. In the movie's most wild, unsettling, hilarious, and allout fun scene, the three guys go to Rahad's place to make the deal. While there, Rahad seems more interested in making chit-chat about mix tapes than about the coke. This is the film's real actorly moment, part surreal/part beautiful. As "Jessie's Girl" blasts from his stereo he suddenly stops his movement, turning his body into a writhing personification of the pop tune. "OO OO! I love this part. Quiet! Listen!" It's a very private moment made public and over-the-top. Again, not to blow anything, let's just say that between Todd and Rahad things get a little out of hand. Only onscreen for short periods of time, both Molina and Jane grab for the spotlight and don't let go. The scene where they meet is truly one to behold and one that will not soon be forgotten by the viewer.

So: stereos, painters, porn stars, magic, drugs, sex, violence and I haven't even mentioned Kozmo, the dance sequence, or "The Touch"! Also of course, everybody knows about what makes Dirk Diggler so special. Boogie Nights is a sacred object movie. All the story aside, the one congealing element is, in fact, Dirk Diggler's 13" penis. One of the film's subtle joys comes in watching each character see it for their first time, a look of astoundment and shock on his or her face. But actually, for those who are able to get over the concept, the penis represents the moral at the heart of this film. There is so much to think about even after just one viewing, however, with sacred object movies, one object serves as either a goal or a representation of metaphor wherein the physical becomes the mental. What in reality can be touched stands in place of that ideal which cannot be tangible. Here, Dirk Diggler's penis is referred to as special, wonderful, his gift. As Eddie Adams speculates early in the film, everybody is given one special thing. As his mother berates him, he screams back in defense, "You don't know what I can do. I have a gift and I'm going to be somebody." Why do you think a story about roughly 15 losers who crash and burn hard in the 70's porn industry is so compelling? Most of us are not pornographers or drug dealers. Our lives are not meant to be reflected in this text. It is compelling because these sad characters, like us, also have that gift. Theirs is not, perhaps, a physical gift. Who knows? But it's in them. Just as Jack Horner is the human presence around which all rotates, Dirk's penis is the physical presence around which all of these characters' lives are impacted. Without, this story would not be told because Eddie Adams would be just Eddie Adams. He would presumably have a gift, but not the one he is given that allows his transformation in becoming Dirk Diggler. By the end of the film he is Dirk Diggler, there is no more Eddie Adams. This is also why acting is such an appropriate profession for him. Rehearsing his lines, he directly refers to himself as Brock Landers, he's totally lost in this world created by the power of his sacred object. As it should be, we are not shown the penis until the very end and I have no problem in saying that seeing his penis finally at the film's conclusion is a beautiful and important moment for the film as well as for the audience. We have spent a good deal of time invested into these characters all in some way motivated or provoked or changed or touched by Dirk Diggler's gift, not physically but mentally. Seeing it, in the film's long final shot, we understand its importance. We understand why it is so essential to Dirk's very being. As earlier mentioned, the one-by-one viewing of this object is like each character being shown the light. They have encountered the object and are now touched and motivated by its presence. We are in this way treated as one of the characters. It is not so much a "money shot" and certainly not the filmmaker trying to be perverse, it is simply our turn. Arguably a new use of the fourth wall, we are now touched in the final moments of this great journey by this sacred object. We all have that gift and can use it for greatness or use it for harm. In Boogie Nights we have seen the effects of both of those chosen paths.

Fearing the recognition of such racy subject matter, Boogie Nights, which found its way on most every major publication's/critic's top ten list, was all but wholly ignored in the awards season. Thereby I would like to finally proclaim vehemently: Boogie Nights is not pornography, it was not made to be pornography, the adult film industry in the 1970's happens to be the backdrop for this particular costume period drama. There is no difference between using the porn industry here and using shoguns in Fuedal Japan or peasants in Elizabethian England. Clearly, in choosing this place and time, the viewer has to accept the constructs that that entails. Yes there is nudity, yes there is sex, yes the film is not the easiest for the prude or weak-willed. But please, understand Boogie Nights is not pornography. It is a brilliant film by a wunderkind director that spans an era and lets us in on the dreams and heartache of an unconventional family hit by the change in times from the 1970's to the 1980's. Through character, performance, attention to detail in costumes and sets, innovative camerawork (watch the opening shot which shows us almost every character in the movie in the first 3 minutes and check out the party scene where a guest is followed from the house and then underwater into the backyard pool), and bold direction, Boogie Nights truly does go where no film has dared to tread before. Its arresting breadth will knock your socks off. Please don't mistake this for exploitation as it tries desperately to teach you something deeper than that which you may see immediately presented on the screen. Boogie Nights deserves for all time not to be bogged down by ignorant controversy but to be regarded as one of the great epics of our time, a title as rightfully bestowed here as on any Cecil B.

Kurt Longjohn (Ricky Jay), and Scotty (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Kurt is really a standby character, but a trooper. Little Bill and Scotty, though, may be competing for the most tragic character award. Little Bill's wife constantly cheats on him sexually and he knows because he walks in on her over and over again. In what I still don't know whether to laugh or cry at, everytime Bill walks in on his wife naked with another man, she isn't startled, she tells him to stop embarrasing her and to go away, to stop causing a scene. The men she is in the process of fornicating with also seem to not be scared but just interrupted saying, "Yeah, go away Little Bill." It's pretty awkward, but Bill Macy, as always, pulls it off as gracefully as one could. Watch during the porn movie sequences how importantly he runs the sets for his director, Jack Horner. Scotty is the boom mic operator with a small envy of the new kid on the block, Dirk

With such a large supporting cast, I will try to cover it all as best I can- if you watch the movie, you'd understand how much of a wealth of information I'm trying to convey here- the movie, its ideas, cast, plot, characters, it's all HUGE! But here's my best shot at capturing all the stars under Jack Horner and Dirk Diggler's sky: There's Becky Barnett, a porn star whose style is all "chocolate love." We follow her relationships from romance to marriage. Becky is wary of public situations in case she is recognized for her adult film work. Very much a background character but nonetheless part of the Horner clan, unknown Nicole Ari Parker plays the small role efficiently. Luiz Guzman is Maurice, the zealous owner of Hot Traxx, where everybody goes to dance. Maurice is begging to be in one of Jack's movies so he can send it back to his brothers in his native country and show them all the beautiful women he is with. Always with perfection and good humor, Guzman has quickly become one of my favorite character actors, thanks to his many varied roles, primarily in the films of PTA and Steven Soderbergh (The Limey, Out of Sight, Traffic, Hard Eight, Magnolia). Fellow PTA/Soderbergh crossover partner, Don Cheadle, another brilliant character actor (go rent his Emmy-award winning A Lesson Before Dying, he's amazing) here plays Buck, the "actor" of the porn bunch who loves stereos and tries to move away from the porn biz and open up his own stereo store, Buck's Super Stereo World. Watch his ever changing fashion styles from the cowboy look to his 80's get-up which you have to see to believe- think Rick James goes to church. Buck falls into a beautiful relationship with painter Jessie St.Vincent played by the beautiful waif Melora Walters. Another smaller character, she nevertheless is always by Buck's side. Several of her better scenes were cut, but she remains in the film a very likeable character and faithful to the end. On Jack Horner's film crew are Little Bill (William H. Macy),

daughter/high school failure. I would have to say this is Graham's only great role to date. Too often, as in Austin Powers 2, for example, she is exploited merely for her good looks and blonde hair. I would love to believe that she is a great actress, but this is my only proof. In Boogie Nights, her Rollergirl is bubbly but not stupid, she clearly has cut her life short thanks to poor decisionmaking, the absence of parents, and a general affable nature. Deep down I believe Rollergirl shows us that she is ashamed of herself but does not have the sense of mind of how to correct her life. Late in the movie it becomes almost unbearable to watch as a former schoolmate recognizes her and demands, "You're Brandy, right? We went to school together." In her face you can see the pain at being

Horner. Burt Reynolds plays Jack Horner in the role of his career with grace and style. Perhaps I was wrong in asserting that Diggler was the most central character. The more one looks at the ties between these many characters, the more raods lead back to Jack. From his plush SoCal pad, Horner reigns king among the dissident. As he opens the door for Eddie Adams in the beginning of the film, you can imagine that all in the family had a similar welcoming at one point. Jack took in the ones who hurt, who were misunderstood. He makes deviants gods through the use of sexual prowess. Wanna be in movies? Wanna be accepted? Come on over. Turning a blind eye to difference, Jack Horner is the porno Moses, parting the sea for those without resources or means to fend for themselves. His dream, ironic or not, is to make a real film, one in which the audience doesn't just pleasure themselves while watching but actually gets sucked in by the story. A movie where the audience can't- not won't, but cannot- leave until they see how it all ends. Thanks to Dirk Diggler, he finds his muse and creates the Brock Landers/Chest Rockwell series starting with Angels Don't Live in My Town. As tragedy strikes his household, he remains above the fray, trying to be the stolid bow of a crumbling ship,

discovered for having become something not as attractive or glamorous as many of us believe the porn world may very well be. "Some life you've made for yourself," her former classmate taunts. Unfortunately for Graham's Rollergirl, too, she has a terrible example of a surrogate mother in Julianne Moore as Amber Waves, Horner's wife. Waves is already a terrible absence in her own child's life. Calling her son in between snorting lines of coke, her former husband chose to retain full custody after their divorce, ignoring the visiting terms decided upon previously. Her world, he sees, is unfit for children to be around. Meanwhile, Waves is also enamored with Eddie Adams from the second he jumps into her pool. One may guess that he makes her feel young again, as she is quickly becoming a hasbeen porn matron. Amber is also to thank for both Rollergirl's and Dirk's eventual, horrible coke addiction. She remains the "foxiest bitch around" nevertheless to husband and king of the porn castle, Jack

though he himself slowly, quietly becomes a hasbeen, too. Reynolds was Oscar nominated and won the Golden Globe along with many critic's prizes for this performance. He probably would have clinched them all if not for the fact that he publicly denounced the picture upon its release. He has since recanted, but it is very unfortunate. As Horner says in the film, "I want this to be the one they remember me by." Reynolds has never been better and it is a shame that he has since resorted back to films such as Mystery, Alaska and The Crew. This is a brilliant performance that truly ties the film together. Horner probably needed Diggler to come along, but everybody, including Diggler, needs Jack Horner.