Boogie Nights (1997)

With his second feature film "Boogie Nights" Paul Thomas Anderson created a brillant, profound study of life in the porno industry of the 70s and 80s. The first thing to say is that this film is itself not in any way pornographic, but rather a very detailed and realistic portrait, that is very factual and comes along without being overly obscene.

A young Mark Wahlberg forms the center of the film playing Eddie Adams, a young man whose dream is to make a career in the porno business. By nature he is given everything that is needed to have good chances in this branch. But at home he is not doing fine at all. After he dropped out of high school he regularly has fights with his mother while being rather ignored by his dad.

While at work in a night club Eddie meets porno film director and producer Jack Horner, who offers to make him a star. Encouraged Eddie takes the chance. Horner, played impressively by Burt Reynolds, introduces him to the new environment and helps him to establish himself in this new situation in his life. It opens a door to a seemingly idyllic world where Eddie is affectionately welcomed and gets to know a lot of new friends. The cast, that is perfectly chosen even in the smallest supporting role, includes a lot of well known faces who could have already been seen in Anderson's first film "Hard Eight" and who regularly appeared in his movies ever since.

At Jack Horner's side there is Julian Moore as Amber Waves. She is the experienced, empathetic woman who cares about all the others, particularly those who are new to the 'family' as in case of Eddie. Therefore Jack Horner once refers to her as the "mother". Amber is immediately attracted to Eddie, which has also to do with her own background story.

Other actors in the porno industry are played by John C. Reilly whose character becomes Eddie's regular partner and best friend. Aside of his pornographic ambitions he also jobs as a magician. Don Cheadle is a man who dreams of opening a hi-fi store one day. Also Luiz Guzman takes on a small role in the picture.

Responsible for camera and sound in Horner's film crew are William H. Macy and Philipp Seymour Hoffman. Macy also provides some comic relief. Hoffman plays an introverted young guy, who is always standing a little alone but has problems to hold his emotions back. He is supposedly homosexual and heavily fascinated by Eddie.

For a while everything is going famously. There is a lot of porno films to produce and the viewer gets the chance to join in on set and participate in the making process. Eddie's career launches quite successfully.

But with the end of the decade the seemingly ideal world starts to fall apart und the characters find themselves faced with unsettling reality. Eddie's rapid rise to fame (within the porno business) is followed by him breaking down under the pressure and because of the fear of losing it all again.

Cutting edge director Paul Thomas Anderson creates an early masterpiece here that is clearly influenced by New Hollywood pioneers like Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese.

Not only he puts on screen a strong drama about rise and fall and the transience of fame but he builds it up around this unusual context of an ignored and excluded community. He gives detailed insight into the lives of these characters in the porno industry that forms its own little social system aside of the rest of the world.
The problems that those people are confronted with in and outside of this milieu are vividly illustrated with a wide range of characters. Many of them have common jobs as well. Many of them don't have a choice to earn their money this way. For them it is just a normal business. But in society it is not accepted even avoided and treated with disrespect. This is why many of them not only espace to this separated place but also depend on it. Here they have friends who accept them.

Furthermore the film is put in context of the time and hints at the social and technical changes and their consequences. The introduction of the video format, for instance, lead inevitably to the disappearance of porno theaters. The cheaper productions probably also reduced the quality of these films even more that more and more became a mass product. Jack Horner faces this conflict in the film as well. His ambition is to create a special porno movie that viewers can enjoy beyond their sexual satisfaction.

To what extent that is a realizable idea is not to be discussed here. But Paul Thomas Anderson managed to create such an exceptional film with "Boogie Nights". It works on so many levels. It is authentic and honest, intriguing and sad but also entertaining and funny and of course exceedingly well made.

This intoxicating character study tells the story of desperate souls and failed existences. Last but not least it is also a film about film making - even though from a rather unusual perspective.