An Ode to a Friend - Boogie Nights Up Close

To be completely honest, Boogie Nights is nowhere near the top of my list of favorite films. But, after this most recent third viewing, I’m starting to see why it could be for so many others. After all, it’s a film that has so much to recommend it - from a groovy score to meticulous period production design, a full bevy of character actors and some old favorites in a different guise (looking at you, Smokey), memorable sequences, touchstones to pantheon filmmakers, bravura cinematography, and a triumph-to-tragedy and back again arc which just never fails to elicit a response. In sum, it’s a very busy, chaotic and cluttered collision of events and human beings, a bifurcated hangout flick and cautionary tale to the nascent realization of cocaine’s many dangers.

That’s a full menu to choose from, but let’s start with the titans of cinema. Boogie opens on a sizzling oner through a club that would catch the attention of the director of Goodfellas. It ends with a mirror monologue right out of Raging Bull (though there’s an added, er, element to this one). But in between, this baby is all Altman. The massive cast of characters, intercutting stories and narratives will, of course, recall Nashville. But, the human drama and edgy events are as much Short Cuts as anything else. (This is helped, no doubt, by the presence of Julianne Moore in both films).

You may think I’m making these up, but PTA himself cites them (always best to honor your elders). He would also want to point to the works of Jonathan Demme, and with the steady close-ups and concerted effort to humanize the inhumane, he just may be right. All in all, not bad for a mid to late twenty something helming his sophomore work.

Speaking of Julianne Moore, Amber Waves was the REAL standout for me this time around. It’s fairly easy to play detestable, self-centered, and broken. It’s exquisitely difficult to play all those things AND saccharine sweet and oddly maternal (in that Oedipal kind of way). I never stopped wanting her to get her life together.

Of course, the same could be said for many of these folks. It’s a total late career stroke of genius for the grizzly alpha Burt Reynolds to don a wig and play a sweet figure with a passion for “true art” in adult cinema. Reynolds’ Jack Horner slides from endearing mentor to avuncular rah-rah guy to a post-sexual pot stirrer with an oddly auteurist vision and back again. It’s a real shame that he hated the picture and the virile young kid directing in whom he likely met his match, or Oscar history may have been written differently.

From here, I could trot out another 10 names and their idiosyncratic performances. But what is truly remarkable about the film is not merely the roles but the almost perfect time in their careers at which Anderson caught all of them. Who knew the closeted boom mic man with ill-fitting raiment dubbed Scotty J would go on to become about the best character actor of his generation (RIP Mr. Hoffman), for instance. Or that John C. Reilly’s Reed Rothchild, in amazing sequences like the one where he chops it up with Eddie about weightlifting while mixing a marg in a blender, would be as much of an audition for Step Brothers and Walk Hard as PTA’s next, equally star-studded work Magnolia.

There are so many others: The helpless impotence (perhaps figurative and literal) of William H. Macy’s Little Bill, Don Cheadle’s beleaguered stereo salesman Buck Swope, and Heather Graham’s ever-submissive, yet always wheeling Rollergirl. And this is BEFORE Philip Baker Hall, Robert Ridgely, and Thomas Jane just show up an hour in with their own acts perfectly attuned to the unfolding party (and drama that would follow).

Party is actually an important word to turn a corner on. For the first hour and a half of this film are precisely that, namely a scene and a cadre of performers who chop it up together, sometimes snort what they’ve cut, and just enjoy the good life in each other’s company. This section of the film is often funny, extremely quotable, and genuinely washes over you like the high that it is. Everyone knows the “rise” section of these familiar tales, but with clever writing at every turn, pitched performances, and some shots that are just remarkable, PTA ensures that we get to enjoy the show as much as these libertines.

Even so, I must now turn to some more critical analysis. I suspect that for those whom this is a Mt. Rushmore-type pic, much of the affection comes in this opening section. Those folks who just love to have it on in the background, or catch the sick shot of spun film reels and stunned looks during the first sex scene captured on celluloid. They howl at the Colonel’s jabs when the young lady is OD’ing or delight in Ricky Jay talking about camera positions while the real life Nina Hartley puts on a “show” for a crowd gathered in the background. This is all well and good. Even once the comedown starts, Dirk’s miserable crooning to some kind of 80’s balladry is hysterical.

But to me, the final 45 minutes of Boogie Nights is about ten times the picture of all that has gone before. The intercut sequence of Dirk and a certain voyeur in a parking lot with Rollergirl’s violent assertion of her own autonomy (finally!) is one of the ten best scenes of the entire decade. It’s also one of the greatest things PTA has ever done. The entire scene is backgrounded by a repeatedly tolling bell which is so unlike all of the soundtrack which had played before that it stops us in our tracks.

It’s funny that Marty and Robert Altman get all the love from Anderson, because it could be argued that Boogie’s VERY best moments share a strong affinity with one of his 90’s auteur peers. I’m speaking, of course, about Quentin Tarantino. The bell toll moment rolls right into a donut scene with Buck Swope which could have played in Reservoir Dogs or any other of the latter’s pics. Then, as the comedown reaches terminal velocity, we meet an absolutely WILD Alfred Molina in a firecracker-littered drug den. Over “Sister Christian” we witness the madness of Thomas Jane. It’s a sequence balanced on a blade between gut laugh and erupting violence, just like, you know, Quentin would spend the next three decades perfecting.

Some may say, “So what? You get the laughter and the drama, the rise and the fall. With all the character actors to boot. Sounds pretty perfect to me.” I believe this is certainly my best friend’s take, and I can’t say I begrudge it one bit. Yet, you’ll notice above that I never mentioned the star, Mark Wahlberg, in all of the acting accolades. That oversight was deliberate. In truth, I’m still puzzling over the Diggler performance. Was it really good? Or was it quite bad? Or was it good bad? As in, was he intentionally playing this doe-eyed, “big stick”-wielding toady who had ONE great gift (the corollary being not many brain cells in his other…head). Or, was every move and expression, the evolution from naïveté to arrogant braggart conceived long before the performance? The likely answer is somewhere in the middle.

What is clear is that, some time on the way from being an underwear model to the scene-stealing blowhard in The Departed, Wahlberg found some real chops. I can point to scenes here - like the outburst with his abusive mother or the showdown with Jack by the pool - of his rising craft. Yet, what is equally clear, to me at least, is that the man at the center of nearly every frame of this bad boy isn’t even the 5th best performance of the whole picture. I suppose I can let the other questions lie in obscurity.

Again, I’m not saying he was bad. He wasn’t. In fact, I’m not sure if anyone else could have really done it better. Look, some of these things just come down to preferences. In that same vein, I think the real reason I don’t absolutely ADORE this film is due to how overtly and matter-of-factly it’s sexual content is delivered. In truth, I’m as fascinated by the psychology and ritualization of sex as I am the physical act of bumping uglies. In one sense, Boogie has this down. For a film all about making pornos, it’s actually kind of remarkable how un-erotic it is from bow to stern. Still, I’m always going to be drawn to content that deals in repression or the dissection of societal norms a la Eyes Wide Shut or Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Whatever else Boogie Nights is, it is decidedly not interested in this exploration.

And it’s probably a good thing too. Because it is SO many other things all at once. In the end, this does not rank at the top of the PTA pantheon for yours truly, but with its astounding ability to fold drama and tragedy, pinnacles and valleys, and about 20 well-honed characters into its fold, I can see how some would consider it breathtaking. As for me, I am not sure that I will visit it again any time soon. Some falls just leave a mark. But I’m happy to admire this daring work from afar.