by Emma Johnson, Fall 2021

The life of a dreamer. 

The days of a business and the nights in between.

1977. San Fernando Valley. High school dropout Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) works as a dishwasher at the Hot Traxx nightclub. There, he is discovered by pornography film director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) who stumbles across that one special thing Eddie is blessed with. Unlike the average 17-year-old, Eddie’s gift immerses him in the lowbrow luxury of the late 1970s adult film industry. Along with money and fame comes drugs, death, violence, and exploitation. Boogie Nights chronicles the transformation of one individual, from Eddie Adams into Dirk Diggler, paralleling the transformation of the adult film industry from plot-driven feature-length films into voyeuristic videos lacking the artistry and vision of previous forms. 

For many viewers, their first interaction with Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights was the trailer. Mine was not. I came across the trailer a few months ago, trying to decide if Boogie Nights still had the luster I remembered, whether it was worth spending a few months writing about. I was already intimately familiar with the film, watching it for the first time out of adoration for the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Playing the supporting role of Scotty J., Hoffman’s performance of the insecurely eccentric boom operator got me hooked. I could not help but return to the film again and again; it is quotable, wildly entertaining, and occupies the ever-appealing aesthetic niche of “porno-chic.” Only recently did I watch the trailer, and I am thankful I saw it after falling in love with the oddly charming portrait of the pornography world. 

The trailer for Boogie Nights is engaging, albeit quite misleading. The film’s trailer, produced by New Line Cinema’s studio-hired marketing team, not Anderson himself, features an all-too-conventional voiceover, catering to the customs of the average movie-goer. To anyone who has seen Boogie Nights, it is abundantly clear that Anderson’s second feature-length project is anything but conventional. However, this marketing approach introduces a set of preconceptions regarding the film that are meant to make its taboo subject matter palatable and marketable to mainstream audiences. The design of this trailer is all about access, context, and mood. We are introduced to the cultural pastiche of the late 1970s; Eric Burdon’s “Spill the Wine” grooves through the airwaves, neon signs populate the bustling on-screen space, and Anderson’s charged visual grammar establishes a tone of cultural euphoria. It’s 1977, and Boogie is alive and well. 

Although the trailer’s conventionality strays from my understanding of Boogie Nights, it still gives me the feeling of impossible nostalgia that makes the film so captivating. Watching Boogie Nights for the first time, around 2016, two years after the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, I was brought into a world and an era that I could never relate to. My parents, maybe, but even then, the culture of the adult film industry in the San Fernando Valley could not be farther from the conservative values of my suburban midwestern town. That was the appeal. Boogie Nights is an escape to somewhere impossible, somewhere I have never been and can never go. To me, it is not a surprise that Boogie Nights quickly became a sensation to viewers spanning generational divides. Whether or not you lived through the 1970s, Anderson makes you wish you had.

Boogie Nights, only Anderson’s second feature-length project, was met with immediate and immense critical praise. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert summed up the film’s success simply and eloquently: “Boogie Nights has the quality of many great films, in that it always seems alive.”[footnote]Roger Ebert, “Boogie Nights Movie Review & Film Summary (1997) | Roger Ebert,” RogerEbert.com, October 17, 1997, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/boogie-nights-1997.[/footnote] In his review, Ebert draws comparisons between indie darling Anderson and some of the titans of American filmmaking, comparing Boogie Nights to Robert Altman’s Nashville and The Player for their shared breadth and depth of characterization, and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction for their balance of comedy and violence. Ebert highlights the direct references to Robert De Niro’s mirror scene in Scorsese’s Raging Bull and to the legendary long-take Copacabana nightclub entrance in Goodfellas. This nearly 3 minute-long single-take shot is directly paralleled, even one-upped, in Boogie Nights’ iconic 2 minute fifty-two second-long single-take introduction shot of the Hot Traxx nightclub. Unlike the documentary authenticity that characterizes Scorsese’s Copacabana shot, Anderson’s introduction to Hot Traxx is primarily a sensory experience, one bathed in an electric red-orange glow that makes you feel like you have been invited to the party too.[footnote]Kevin B. Lee, “The Career of Paul Thomas Anderson in Five Shots,” 2012, https://vimeo.com/56335284.[/footnote] The camera smoothly winds its way from the marquee displaying the title of the film, to the entrance of the club, then well into the depths of Hot Traxx. We are introduced to eight major characters, with a moment spent lingering on each one. Despite the visual stimulation, the movement through this scene is linear. The camera focuses us on one character at a time, at times using a spotlight to cue entrances and shift attention, and circling movements, as if dancing, to surround the subject intended for our consideration.[footnote]Lee, “Career of Paul Thomas Anderson.”[/footnote] Boogie Nights is a legendary party through and through. Anderson is its welcoming host, opening the door to the 1970s and inviting us in, showing us around, introducing us to his guests, and even asking us, why don’t you take off your coat and stay a while longer? We cannot help but accept his invitation.

Anderson’s pastiche of beloved 70s cinema references is essential to the legitimization of a film whose central subject is taboo. Through aesthetic association with widely acclaimed films, Anderson borrows some of their prestige, bolstering the cultural value of Boogie Nights from the get-go. The ambitious opening scene is Anderson showing all of his cards. He addresses the audience directly, telling us that what we are watching is a legitimate film, and he is a legitimate filmmaker, lest we think otherwise and resort to our preconceived notions of cultural hierarchies invariably associated with pornography. 

Parallel to the legitimization of Boogie Nights through association with iconic American cinema, the film is also indebted to those that were integral to the development of the “Golden Age of Porn,” or “porno-chic.”[footnote]Susanna Paasonen and Laura Saarenmaa, “The Golden Age of Porn: Nostalgia and History in Cinema,” Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture, 2007, 23.[/footnote] This 15-year period, spanning from 1969-1984, refers to a moment in which sexually explicit, often hard-core, pornographic films occupied a position of popularity and praise in the mainstream.[footnote]Paasonen and Saarenmaa, “The Golden Age of Porn,” 23.[/footnote] The film Deep Throat (1972) is almost synonymous with “porno-chic.” Gerard Damiano, a veteran pornographic filmmaker, shot the 35mm hard-core film starring Linda Lovelace on a budget of $25,000. Grossing over $3.2 million total, and 28 times its production cost in New York alone, Deep Throat is the greatest porno hit to date.[footnote]Ralph Blumenthal, “‘Hard‐core’ Grows Fashionable—and Very Profitable,” The New York Times, January 21, 1973, sec. Archives, https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/21/archives/pornochic-hardcore-grows-fashionableand-very-profitable.html.[/footnote] In preparation for the shooting of Boogie Nights, Anderson interviewed Gerard Damiano, describing him as “the best of the hardcore directors,” and noting “he went through a period of believing he could make art films about sex. Home video came along in 1979 and destroyed that illusion.”[footnote]Quoted in Alex French and Howie Kahn, “Livin’ Thing,” Grantland (blog), December 10, 2014, https://grantland.com/features/boogie-nights/.[/footnote] Deep Throat epitomized the Golden Age of feature-length narrative pornos. Its mainstream vogue allowed for the proliferation of a distinct cultural attitude that was warming up to, or at least intrigued by, pornographic films of the 1970s. With Deep Throat came Behind the Green Door (1972), The Devil in Miss Jones (1973), The Opening Of Misty Beethoven (1976), and Debbie Does Dallas (1978), all widely screened in the U.S. and internationally.[footnote]Paasonen and Saarenmaa, “The Golden Age of Porn,” 23.[/footnote] At the age of 9, Anderson was one of the many who saw these mainstream household name pornos, watching The Opening of Misty Beethoven on VCR, calling it “one of the best.”[footnote]French and Kahn, “Livin’ Thing.”[/footnote] Alongside Deep Throat and the porno-chic pictures that followed, the adult film industry, some burgeoning pornographers, actors, and audiences entered the cultural consciousness in a way that had never been seen before. Without Deep Throat, there could be no Boogie Nights.

Boogie Nights is a film with almost mythic origins. It was already 10 years in the making by the time of its 1997 release. Director and screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson conceived of the film at age 17, still in high school in the San Fernando Valley. Anderson was consumed by the Hollywood studios around him, sneaking onto sets and messing around with a Betamax camera at the age of 12. His father, Ernie, a voice-over actor on ABC shows like The Love Boat, associated with the likes of TV sensation Tim Conway and the acclaimed character actor Robert Ridgely.[footnote]French and Kahn, “Livin’ Thing.”[/footnote] However, it was Anderson’s obsession with Hollywood’s bizarre counterpart, the adult film industry that populated the San Fernando Valley, that led him to become fascinated with what was underneath the layers of production: the real lives of the cast and crew and the circumstances that led them to the industry. This interest set the gears in motion. Boogie Nights was born out of Anderson’s first real production, a mockumentary short called The Dirk Diggler Story based on the 1981 documentary Exhausted: John C. Holmes, The Real Story, which chronicles the life of real world adult film actor John Holmes. In many ways, Boogie Nights feels like the sophisticated feature-length version of the same vision Anderson introduced us to in The Dirk Diggler Story. Robert Ridgely even appears in both films, as Jack Horner in The Dirk Diggler Story and as The Colonel James in Boogie Nights. Other characters make repeat appearances as well, and the subject matter retains significant continuity between the films. A glaring difference lies in the narrative style of Boogie Nights, which stands in contrast to the mockumentary tone of The Dirk Diggler Story. Yet, both films successfully demystified and deglamorized the porn industry in the late 70s and 80s.

In all of my viewings of Boogie Nights, I have foremost been struck by the film’s humanity. This is most clearly articulated in the scene where Eddie is introduced to the production of pornography, beginning his transformation from Eddie Adams to Dirk Diggler. The scene begins with a handheld shaky-cam POV shot. We feel the footsteps of the camera operator as the viewer is situated in the room, directly experiencing the behind-the-scenes action of the porn shoot. We switch to a static shot of Dirk in his dressing room, asserting that the viewer has entered a private moment. Dirk dismisses Scotty and in his moments of solitude runs lines, establishing his position as an actor, not merely a pornstar. There is a clear sense that everyone involved in this production takes their role seriously. From the camera operator, worried about shadows, to Dirk, concerned with the delivery of his lines, there is an air of professionalism that guides the scene. We then shift back to the handheld camera, following Dirk and Scotty down the hall to the set. Before shooting begins, Dirk, after agreeing to go straight into the sex scene, asks Amber earnestly, “Is that okay with you?” There is an emphasis on consent as the two discuss the content of the scene; they set boundaries and expectations for what is going to constitute the content of the film. Solidifying the emphasis on craft that occupies much of this scene, Dirk tells Amber, “I just wanna do good. I just want it to be really good, you know? I was wondering if it’s okay if I really try to make it look sexy? Would that be okay?” Dirk’s nervous energy surrounding the shoot and direct communication with Amber underscore his sincere desire to be a part of a legitimate film, as a legitimate actor, conducting himself with the respect and professionalism expected of co-stars.

The shoot begins and we follow Dirk through the doorway, onto the set. Amber delivers the first scripted line of the “porn-in-film” and we switch immediately to a diegetic 16mm camera and adopt a distinct 70s aesthetic: reduced contrast, cool shadows, faded colors with warm sepia tones, film-grain, subtle vignetting, and soft blurring of the camera quality. Anderson creates distance between two distinct spaces, behind the camera and in front of it, playing with operational aesthetics. We even get a shot of the mechanics of the film camera itself, lingering here as the roll of films runs out mid-shoot. The creation of aesthetic distance away from the pornographic content of production is a significant removal of the audience from what could be a titillating sex scene. At this moment, the naked bodies on screen are not there for audience arousal, but for realism. Additionally, Anderson highlights the legitimacy of the porno being shot on film, bolstering Boogie Nights’ characterization of the industry in the 1970s, and alluding to the notion that part of the legitimacy of the industry resides in the manner of production, a point Anderson will circle back to later in the film. 

The other purpose of this aesthetic choice is to emphasize the difference between the film and the “porn-in-film.”[footnote]Catherine Zuromskis, “Prurient Pictures and Popular Film: The Crisis of Pornographic Representation,” Velvet Light Trap, no. 59 (Spring 2007): 5.[/footnote] One of the functions of pornography in the film is to signal this is not that. Boogie Nights is a film that portrays the industry and relationships that surround the adult film industry, but Anderson seems to be emphasizing through this distancing that what you are watching is not an adult film. Setting these two distinct spaces of the film apart, Boogie Nights and the diegetic “porn-in-film,” Anderson relies predominantly on the appearance and demeanor of actors, and the operational aesthetics of camera movement, framing, and the visual language of 70s cinematography. In this scene, we are aligned with producer Jack Horner, experiencing Dirk and Amber having sex as he would; there is no arousal, but rather an almost clinical interest in bodies in motion. We are focused not on what is being captured, but how it is being captured. This sense of how is one of the primary interests of Boogie Nights. The sensationalism resides primarily in the camera work and operational aesthetics of the film rather than the sex itself; the sensation is not sex, it is the feeling of the 70s. 

Further, Anderon’s use of aesthetic distancing between spaces is critical in marking Boogie Nights as decidedly non-pornographic. In plainest terms, the designation of “film pornography” can be applied to any film “that offers graphic sexual content as its primary focus.”[footnote]Zuromskis, “Prurient Pictures and Popular Film,” 4.[/footnote] Although Boogie Nights is structured around pornography, I find it a hard sell to argue that the primary focus of the film is its sexual content. As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said of the distinction between hard-core and soft-core pornography, “I know it when I see it,” and Boogie Nights is just not “it.”[footnote]“The Origins of Justice Stewart’s ‘I Know It When I See It’,” The Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2007, https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-LB-4558.[/footnote]

However, this point is both complicated and reinforced by Anderson’s casting of well-known adult film actors in Boogie Nights. Nina Hartley, who has accumulated almost 700 acting credits in the adult entertainment industry since 1981, plays the wife of Little Bill Thompson (William H. Macy). Amber Hunter, Summer Cummings, and Skye Blue, all well-known stars in the industry, are also featured in minor roles. Most interestingly, Veronica Hart, acclaimed for her roles in adult films in the 70s and 80s, appearing in over 200 movies and winner of Best Actress twice at the Critics’ Adult Film Awards, plays the notably genteel role of the judge in Amber Waves’ custody case.[footnote]Hough, Q.V., “Boogie Nights Cast: Every Actor & Adult Film Industry Cameo,” Screen Rant, July 11, 2021, https://screenrant.com/boogie-nights-cast-actors-adult-film-stars-cameos/.[/footnote] Hart has said that “Paul would never, ever cast me as a porn star, as anything like that. He said if he cast me as anything, it would have to be against my type. He said he wouldn’t do that because he considered me an actress, which I think is lovely.”[footnote]French and Kahn, “Livin’ Thing.”[/footnote] As an auteur, Anderson’s rejection of typecasting speaks to the parallel legitimization occurring in the film. Anderson validates Veronica Hart as a bona fide actor through this casting choice, Boogie Nights legitimizes the production of film pornography of the 1970s through the respected and praised “porn-in-films,” and the film Boogie Nights is accredited as a “serious film” through aesthetic distancing and the borrowed prestige of a rich American cinematic history. 

The 70s portion of Boogie Nights clearly treats pornographic film with compassion and dignity; it occupies discourse traditionally relegated to genres with the cultural cachet of legitimacy. Despite the popular designation of pornography as gratuitous, Boogie Nights emphasizes that there is profound value in exploring the form, function, and systems of production and consumption that surround its existence as a genre. In this sense, Boogie Nights’ element of demystification and deromanticization of the adult film industry is essential. For genres such as pornography, those known as Body Genres, the sheer spectacle of the body displaying intense sensations and emotion is cause for the success of the film being measured by the degree to which the audience mirrors the sensations experienced by the body on screen.[footnote]Linda Williams, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess,” Film Quarterly 44, no. 4 (1991): 4, https://doi.org/10.2307/1212758.[/footnote] For this reason, and because the sensation mimicked is almost involuntary, pornographic films have found themselves degraded to a position of low cultural value. This measurement of success also solidifies Anderson’s assertion that Boogie Nights is itself non-pornographic, as Anderson avoids audience arousal through aesthetic distancing and alignment with the production rather than the consumption of pornography. 

What further casts body genres, particularly pornography, into the depths of disapproval is their over-investment in sensation and emotion; there is an inability, or perhaps refusal, to create aesthetic distance.[footnote]Williams, “Body Genres,” 5.[/footnote] The frame in which pornographic film is presented is intentionally as close as possible to the spectator’s version of reality. In pornography, a violation of aesthetic distance, i.e. calling attention to operational aesthetics or merely reminding the viewer that the sex act is mediated, decreases the film’s success in mimicry. When the audience is taken out of the act, the success of the film diminishes. Boogie Nights, conscious of this positioning, calls the body genre tendency for close aesthetic distance into question through the centralizing of aesthetics and narrative in pornographic films such as Brock Landers: Angels Live in my Town. 

For genres such as pornography, aesthetic legitimization can come only when pornography is not the central noun in genrefication.[footnote]Rick Altman, “Reusable Packaging: Generic Products and the Recycling Process,” in Refiguring American Film Genres: History and Theory, edited by Nick Browne (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998), 20.[/footnote] If “pornographic” is tacked onto something more legitimate, then the associations with the genre (the noun) that is modified by “pornographic” (the adjective) become dominant. The dominance of the more respectable genre then dilutes the taboo associations that accompany “pornographic.” In Boogie Nights, the “porn-in-film” Angels Live in my Town exemplifies this principle. It is a pornographic action film; “pornographic” is subjugated to adjective status, allowing “action film” to usher in associations with mainstream Bond-style genre films. This attachment to genre styles and narrative arc, hallmarks of the pornography produced by The Colonel Films in the 1970s portion of the film, establishes what Boogie Nights is saying about porn in the 70s. This is later used as a juxtaposing device against Boogie Nights’ portrait of pornography in the 1980s.

The core of the humanity in Boogie Nights deals with the excess of sex as it functions to address and resolve the problems in our culture, sexualities, and identities. Pornographic film is depicted with the capacity to undertake the negotiation of the same questions “serious” films address (e.g. the feminist discourse that surrounds Angels Live in my Town). It is porn’s very gratuitousness that serves as the cultural method of problem solving. The visual text of pornographic films consists of far more than sheer spectacle, “they encode and disseminate practices of sexuality.”[footnote]Capino, “Seizing Moving Image Pornography,” 121.[/footnote]

The use of pornography in Boogie Nights goes beyond that. The use of 1970s tropes and aesthetics through “porno-chic” establishes and defines the Golden Age of porn that will then function as a plot element, becoming the basis for the cultural and aesthetic turning point of the film.[footnote]Zuromskis, “Prurient Pictures and Popular Film,” 5.[/footnote] On New Year’s Eve 1979, the film shifts from the utopic free-love of the 1970s, what Tom Tunney refers to as “the last golden age of irresponsibility,” to the money lust of the 1980s, riddled with corporate greed and moral decay.[footnote]Robert C. Sickels, “1970s Disco Daze: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights and the Last Golden Age of Irresponsibility,” The Journal of Popular Culture 35, no. 4 (2002): 49, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.2002.3504_49.x.[/footnote] The murder-suicide of Little Bill ushers in the new decade. With the 1980s comes the video revolution, transforming the production and viewing practices of pornography in a manner that parallels cultural and economic shifts that fundamentally changed the heart of the country as we moved from Carter to Reagan. As VCRs became popularized and porn audiences shifted away from the theater and into their own homes, viewing practices adapted as well, allowing for fast-forwarding, rewinding, and pausing to cater to the tastes and habits of the viewer.[footnote]Zuromskis, “Prurient Pictures and Popular Film,” 5.[/footnote]

Alongside the changes in methods of viewing came changes in the production of porn. Shooting on film, pornographers had stringent limitations on time, money, and film that made careful planning, tight narrative arcs, and rehearsal necessary for any shoot. Conducting research for the film, Anderson went to a porn shoot done on videotape. Reflecting on the experience, he noted, “When the porn was on film, anyone in that industry could have drawn a quick, straight line to so-called legitimate movies. It was 24 frames a second, through light, up on a screen.”[footnote]Quoted in David Resin, “Interview: ‘20 Questions,’” Cigarettes & Red Vines – The Definitive Paul Thomas Anderson Resource (blog), February 28, 1998, http://cigsandredvines.blogspot.com/1998/02/interview-20-questions.html.[/footnote] The advent of video in porn production took all that away. Whether they liked it or not, the lower production costs that accompanied video thrust pornographers into a new technological domain. Anderson went on to say, “I absolutely believe that video ruined the business… Video brought a new mentality: ‘We’ll shoot a bunch of stuff. We don’t really have to plan this because we can cut it into something later.’”[footnote]Quoted in Resin, “Interview.”[/footnote] With video, the product became entirely unfocused; all that was required was a spectacle. Describing the shoot itself, Anderson added, “There was no time between setups. At a certain point, there was nothing romantic going on, nothing remotely emotional or sexual. It was just fucking. It was torture, period. No trace of human contact.”[footnote]Quoted in Resin, “Interview.”[/footnote] This is not the manner of production, nor the content, of the “porn-in-films” we see in the 70s portion of Boogie Nights. However, it rings true to the shift that incites the 80s portion of the film. 

Boogie Nights uses the technological and cultural shift of the porn industry in the early 1980s metaphorically to explore the sweeping transformation of American cultural values that occurred in the same period.[footnote]Sickels, “1970s Disco Daze,” 57.[/footnote] In the post-New Year’s Eve portion of the film, Dirk abandons his free-love 70s idealism, sliding into the moral decay of drugs, death, and low production values.[footnote]Zuromskis, “Prurient Pictures and Popular Film,” 5.[/footnote] Dirk receives on-screen punishment in the form of fractured relationships, professional failure, a debilitating cocaine addiction, and physical violence stemming from his financial desperation and stint in prostitution. Although Anderson treats pornography in the 1970s with a sense of reverence, the shift from film to video, from the 70s to the 80s, marks a fundamental tonal shift in the film. Formally, this portion of the film is shot and edited with a moralizing distance.[footnote]Zuromskis, “Prurient Pictures and Popular Film,” 9.[/footnote] Cuts are quicker, camera movements are tighter and faster, and the diegetic camera work shooting the “porn-in-film” On the Lookout is on video rather than film. Anderson places the viewer aesthetically in the 1980s, juxtaposing the visual grammar of the decade against the grammar of the 1970s that composes the first half of the film. Even within the diegesis, there is recognition of this shift. In the vidéo verité experiment On the Lookout, Jack Horner desperately tries to revive his career through an exploitative project in which Roller Girl (Heather Graham) is meant to have sex with strangers brought into their limo from the street. Their first and only participant is a college kid who, after being stopped by Jack Horner mid-act for being rough and disrespectful, says, “your films suck now anyways.” Getting to the core of Jack’s insecurities, the film’s diegesis recognizes that with video comes degradation to a level far below artistry.[footnote]Sickels, “1970s Disco Daze,” 58.[/footnote]

Boogie Nights is often claimed to reveal the moral hollowness behind the free-love decade of the 1970s; however, its primary insight comes through a scathing critique of the insatiable corporate greed that poisoned the 1980s. The treatment of Dirk Diggler and his adoptive family illustrates the human cost of this cultural phenomenon. With the advent of the 1980s comes the parallel collapses that constitute the second half of the film, with the shift from film to video acting as a stand-in for the broader point about the perils of Big Business that ignored human cost so long as profits soared.[footnote]Sickels, “1970s Disco Daze,” 56.[/footnote] Anderson hits this point home in the resolution of the film’s final act. The unconventional “family” structure falls back into place, mending relationships and embarking on a journey to make the pornos they want to make, the way they want to make them. This ending can be read as a rejection of the 1980s and a radical acceptance of, or even a retreat back into, the 1970s.[footnote]Sickels, “1970s Disco Daze,” 59.[/footnote] The film presents a nuanced portrait of pornography that aligns with its evolving existence spanning the 70s to the 80s, in which the medium underwent substantial changes in production, viewership, and its position in cultural hierarchies. 

The ending may likewise speak to Anderson’s allegiance with, and affection for, 1970s auteur cinema. Anderson seems to celebrate New Hollywood, a movement in filmmaking that began in the late-60s and continued through the 70s, which saw a transition of power from the production studio to the director. Starting with The Graduate (1967) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the movement saw commercially viable films exploring taboo subjects and complex themes, delivering morally ambiguous messages.[footnote]Jeff Saporito, “The Filmmaker’s Handbook: What Was the New Hollywood Movement?,” The Take, July 14, 2016, https://the-take.com/read/the-filmmakeras-handbook-what-was-the-new-hollywood-movement.[/footnote] New Hollywood films take a critical look at the status quo, prompt uncertain and discomforting viewer responses, and emphasize irresolution. A lot of this sounds strangely familiar to Boogie Nights, and it is no secret that Anderson is a fan of New Hollywood cinema. The references we explored earlier are testament enough, and perhaps these similarities and homages can be read as Anderson attempting to position himself alongside these auteurs, just a couple of decades later. We could even go so far as to read Boogie Nights’ validation of 70s porn allegorically, paralleling Anderson’s reverence for the movement. Regardless, it is clear the aesthetics and tendencies of the movement have seeped into Boogie Nights in a way that bolsters legitimacy by association.

Looking toward the present, the mere existence of Boogie Nights is a recasting of pornography as a rich and culturally relevant area for discourse. However, that is not to say that the film is entirely uncritical of pornography, nor does it idealize or glamorize the subject. Roger Ebert, in his glowing review of the film, notes that “Few films have been more matter-of-fact, even disenchanted about sexuality. Adult films are a business here, not a dalliance of a pastime, and one of the charms of Boogie Nights is the way it shows the everyday backstage humdrum life of porno filmmaking.”[footnote]Ebert, “Boogie Nights Film Review.”[/footnote] Contrary to some conflicting critical opinions, I agree with Ebert in that the film’s charm resides in its demystification of the porn industry. I do not find Anderson to be moralistic, or even particularly moralizing, despite the violence and drug use that populate the film. Rather than understand this culture as isolated to the porn industry, perhaps this phenomenon is better contextualized within broader quasi-Hollywood culture or best viewed as playing an integral role in the metaphorical cultural shift from the late-70s to the early-80s. The 1970s have famously been described as a ‘culture of narcissism’ by Christopher Lasch, and Anderson presents that in full force, but sympathetically, reserving judgment.[footnote]Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (W. W. Norton & Company, 2018).[/footnote] The cast of characters, each on their individual redemptive paths, seeking validation of their humanity through control, art, drugs, and most centrally through the development of their surrogate family, deconstruct shallow understandings that surround the adult film industry. 

Part of the feeling of authenticity presented in Boogie Nights comes from Anderson’s experimentation with genre. Through his use of multiple “porn-in-films,” Anderson highlights and juxtaposes their generic similarities and differences. Spanish Pantalones, the porno that launches Dirk Diggler’s career, characterizes pornographic film as a legitimate genre. As demonstrated through the production scene I brought up earlier, Jack Horner and his crew are professionals; they shoot on film, their films play in theaters, and as a director, Jack has ambitions of making a porno so good that the audience will stay in the theater, even after they get what they came for. Dirk describes the film, proclaiming, “It’s a real film Jack…It’s the film I want them to remember me by.” Boogie Nights is constantly asking us to consider and reconsider the nature of pornography. One manner in which Anderson encourages this consideration is by exploring the various ways in which pornographic content can be figured. He presents us with a smattering of “porn-in-films:” Spanish Pantalones is a Spanish-themed pornographic film; the Brock Landers & Chest Rockwell feature Brock Landers: Angels Live in my Town is a pornographic film blended with the narrative structure of a Bond-style action genre film; Amber Waves’ (Julianne Moore) piece about the making of The Colonel films experiments with conventional documentary styles; and Jack’s final and most experimental engagement with pornography, On the Lookout, deals with the candid realism of vidéo vertié. It is abundantly clear that genre occupies the center of Boogie Nights, but the film’s own generic ambiguity is perhaps what allows it to embody so many genres at once.

Considering the genre of Boogie Nights, the centrality of unorthodox family dynamics surrounding the adoptive family unit – composed of patriarch Jack Horner, matriarch Amber Waves, and their cast of surrogate children – begs the question of whether or not Boogie Nights could be considered a family drama. The dysfunctional interpersonal relationships that create tension and have a causal effect on much of the drama in the film have led me to believe that perhaps this genre designation is the most apt, given Boogie Nights’ refusal to adhere to any strict definition of genre. This generic designation furthers the process of distancing discussed earlier, solidifying the distinction between the “porn-in-films” and the film Boogie Nights. Robert Elswit, the director of photography for the film, has said “Paul’s movies are about really one thing: families. They’re about someone trying to create a family, find a family, get rid of the one they have, create a new one. But it’s everything everybody is seeking — love, acceptance, redemption — it all happens inside a family. And the family that they try to create in Boogie Nights are these people making these porno movies.”[footnote]Quoted in French and Kahn, “Livin’ Thing.”[/footnote] Boogie Nights is more about untangling cultural hierarchies and unpacking taste-culture than the pornographic content used to frame the film. It is constantly telling us that this is a movie enveloped by pornography and its accompanying cultural questions, but it is able to transcend this realm. As a viewer, positioning the family dynamics at the core of Boogie Nights allows us to understand Anderson’s intentional distancing as a decision to open the film to the negotiation of broader cultural questions.

Boogie Nights is also a film in which we see the beginnings of another narrative arc: the rise of Paul Thomas Anderson as an indie auteur. Anderson, only 27 at the time of the film’s release, after being asked in an interview for Time magazine what he considers to be the turning point in his career replied, “I suppose I would have to say the success of Boogie Nights.”[footnote]”Transcript: Paul Thomas Anderson 12/16/99,” time.com, June 29, 2011, https://web.archive.org/web/20110629014158/http://www.time.com/time/community/transcripts/1999/121699anderson.html.[/footnote] However, Boogie Nights was preceded by Anderson’s debut film Hard Eight (1996). The film tells the story of down-on-his-luck John (John C. Reilly) meeting Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) who teaches him the tricks of the trade to become a successful small-time gambler. All seems well until John falls for Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow), a cocktail waitress involved in sex work, and things suddenly take a turn. The success of Hard Eight, which received praise from the likes of Roger Ebert, paved the way for Anderson’s first studio feature.[footnote]Roger Ebert, “Hard Eight Movie Review & Film Summary,” RogerEbert.com, February 27, 1997, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hard-eight-1997.[/footnote] Boogie Nights was granted a $15 million budget, and the 196 page original screenplay was given the go-ahead, practically unprecedented for such a young writer, as screenplays tend to hover around 90 pages.[footnote]Sven Mikulec, “‘Boogie Nights’: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Priceless 155-Minute Film School,” Cinephilia & Beyond (blog), February 11, 2018, https://cinephiliabeyond.org/boogie-nights-paul-thomas-andersons-priceless-155-minute-film-school/.[/footnote] Anderson was ready to make the leap from the noir genre film of Hard Eight to the complex feature of Boogie Nights, which unpacks genre rather than becoming defined by it. It is clear to many, Anderson included, that where Hard Eight shows promise, Boogie Nights shows mastery. 

For Anderson, the writing of all of his films is deeply personal, Boogie Nights being no exception. Philip Seymour Hoffman has said, “When I watch Magnolia or Boogie Nights … I see Paul in all the characters – the selfish Paul, the caretaking Paul, the little-kid Paul, the mature Paul – he is all those things at a given time, and I see him telling a story about all aspects of himself.”[footnote]Quoted in Mim Udovitch, “The Epic Obsessions of Paul Thomas Anderson,” Rolling Stone, February 3, 2000.[/footnote] Anderson is known for writing from his life, having said he gains a better perspective on his lived experiences in the movies than in reality. Rolling Stone asked Anderson “whether he feels that the interest, even the imperative, he demonstrates in imposing order on chaos in both his work and his life is perhaps, maybe, possibly the survival reflex of someone who grew up in the kind of emotional chaos that devastates the families in his movies.” To this Anderson jokingly responds with a quote from one of the game show scenes in Magnolia (1999) “You’re absolutely right, Miss Mim! For $250, the next question!”[footnote]Udovitch, “Epic Obsessions.”[/footnote]

Our final question for Anderson, and for Boogie Nights itself, is why this mode of presentation? What is the appeal and why do so many viewers like myself keep coming back to this film? There is something undeniably captivating, almost gravitational, about Boogie Nights. It is grandiose and excessive but perfectly tailored so as not to be gratuitous. The appeal of the theme, and structure of the “porn-in-film,” is, like other practices of porn spectatorship, its own way of getting off. Pioneer of gay pornographic films Wakefield Poole has noted that there is something about porn that compels the spectator to take on the role of analyst, studying bodies in motion in a way that situates the viewer in the position of the pornographer.[footnote]Capino, “Seizing Moving Image Pornography,” 125.[/footnote] In this way, “porn-in-film” projects like Boogie Nights combine a unique spectator status, provocative and titillating sexual content, and the often fringe and culturally dubious morality of the adult film industry, all peripheral to the content of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, into a visceral dramatic narrative.[footnote]Zuromskis, “Prurient Pictures and Popular Film,” 4-6.[/footnote] Philip Baker Hall, who plays Floyd Gondoli in the film, has said that “Boogie Nights became a sacred text… It’s a fascinating poetic force.” He recalls, “I remember doing one scene with him and I was down near the floor and Paul came down there and laid next to me. And he’s looking at me and I remember I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He was like a foot away from me. He was looking me right in the eye. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m looking for the truth.’”[footnote]Quoted in French and Kahn, “Livin’ Thing.”[/footnote]

With Boogie Nights, Anderson found that truth. In entirely unexpected places, Anderson uncovers a shockingly honest and intimate portrait of an unorthodox family navigating changing cultural tides. Through it all, there is an unabashed effort to pursue the creation of art in ways that work against the cultural attitudes that determine what is legitimate and conventionally valuable artistic expression. 

Works Cited:

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Blumenthal, Ralph. “‘Hard‐core’ Grows Fashionable—and Very Profitable.” The New York Times, January 21, 1973, sec. Archives. https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/21/archives/pornochic-hardcore-grows-fashionableand-very-profitable.html.

Capino, José B. “Seizing Moving Image Pornography.” Cinema Journal 46, no. 4 (2007): 121–26.

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