Paul Thomas Anderson on ‘Boogie Nights’
One of the things that’s interesting about Boogie Nights is its tone shifts, for instance between dramatic and comic/parodic.
There are two answers to that. First, two of my favourite movies are F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927) and Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild (1985), what I call gearshift movies, that can change tones [snaps fingers] like that. I like to see that in movies because that’s what real life is like, and it’s also good storytelling. And second, this relates to how I came to this story. The first version was a short film I made called The Dirk Diggler Story, when I was 17. That has some of the same textures, but it’s much funnier. It’s my point of view as a 17-year-old, and what was funny to me then was the titles. As a mass audience, we’re amused and turned on by porno titles – Ordinary Peepholes, The Sperminator, Edward Penishands – but then this is quickly not funny. There was something in that short film that was darkly comic, but there were a lot of smartass moments. Over the course of ten years, just by getting older and slightly sick of it all, that’s where more of the sadness and drama comes into it. I just sat there and lived with it and it was just not fucking funny anymore.
Do you still watch porn and has your viewing changed? Do you watch it as narrative, all the way through, rather than fast-forwarding to the fuck scenes?
The porno you fast-forward to get to the action are today’s films. They’re movies for consumers and the makers are aware that the home viewer has a fast-forward button – that’s why there is no paying attention to any kind of plot or story. The audience is at home going, ‘Where are the tits? Where’s the dick? How can I get to it fast?’ That’s why Boogie Nights romanticises the heyday of porno – you can’t watch it at home, you’re going into a theatre.
Artistic aspiration or self-improvement consume all of the main characters in Boogie Nights one way or another. But your response to porn films seems to be a camp one: you don’t expect genuine artistic value.
None are successful on the terms that I would consider make a great film, even a great porno film. But there are those – like Three A.M at the Jade Pussycat, Amanda by Night and The Opening of Misty Beethoven – that get A for effort and have their heart in the right place. With genuinely wonderful moments of intent, of storytelling approach or shot choice – or cinematic approach to shooting a sex scene. Then there’s whether it’s a successful sex scene that can turn me on. One thing I was really fascinated by was the structure in the ‘Johnny Wadd’ series – in The Jade Pussycat for instance, which combines a murder mystery with a sex film. It set up – with some bad acting but also some good acting – a mystery plot: where is the Jade Pussycat? So in the journey to find it, there are these set-pieces of sex in between solving the murder mystery. You want to see the story progress and see him find the next clue, but you’re also there as the guy who sat down to watch a porno movie, wanting him to have sex with that girl he’s getting the clue from.
Which is Jack Horner’s ideal.
Absolutely. And I’d be a liar if I didn’t say Jack’s probably talking for any young romantic idiot like me who has notions of trying to make a good movie. It certainly projects my feelings onto him.
When you talk about porn as a genre stifled before it got going, what direction did you hope for?
Where I romanticise it could have gone was a place where acting, storytelling and camerawork got better. With interesting characters where you also had the luxury to show them fucking. We can’t see Forrest Gump fuck Jenny Curran, to make that kid. But God, wouldn’t that be a great scene? Not just because I want to get off watching Tom Hanks fuck Robin Wright, but think what can be told about Gump through watching him have sex. Here’s this big long movie investigating this guy – well, what’s he like in bed? What’s that like for him? That’s a big human question.
My romantic notion is that if porno films had been allowed to breathe, and the stories eventually really did come first, then we would have been able to see an actor playing a role and then being able to try on a new way of having sex in a scene. Like trying on an accent. Which would do away with the gratuitous obligatory sex scene that every movie has to have, which is the ultimate bullshit moment.
So you see contemporary porn as a fallen form?
Pretty much, yeah. I still find it interesting to watch some of it. There’s a series called Dirty Debutantes: when I first saw it, the mythology was that the porn star was gone, and it’s amateurs now, ‘real-life people’. So it was wonderful when I realised that Dirty Debutantes was maybe 80 per cent faked. They’re not ‘real people’ recruited off the street: most are actresses – a version of people off the street as they haven’t done too much work, they mustn’t be recognisable – but they have agents, porn agents. So now watch them again – you’ll see some of the best acting you’ve ever seen.
Paul Thomas Anderson interviewed by Gavin Smith, Sight and Sound, January 1998
Boogie Nights
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Production Companies: New Line Productions Inc., New Line Cinema, Ghoulardi Film Company
Executive Producer: Lawrence Gordon
Co-executive Producers: Michael De Luca, Lynn Harris
Producers: Lloyd Levin, John Lyons, Paul Thomas Anderson, Joanne Sellar
Co-producer: Daniel Lupi
Executive in Charge of Production: Carla Fry
Production Executive: Leon Dudevoir
Unit Production Manager: Daniel Lupi
Production Supervisor: Craig Markey
Location Manager: Boyd Wilson
1st Assistant Director: John Wildermuth
Script Supervisor: Jayne Ann Tenggren
Casting: Christine Sheaks, Cassandra Kulukundis
Casting (Voice): Barbara Harris
Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson
Director of Photography: Robert Elswit
2nd Camera Operator: Andy Shuttleworth
Steadicam Operator: Andy Shuttleworth
Special Effects: FTS Effects
Editor: Dylan Tichenor
Production Designer: Bob Ziembicki
Art Director: Ted Berner
Set Decorator: Sandy Struth
Costume Designer: Mark Bridges
Costume Supervisor: David Davenport
Make-up Supervisor: Tina K. Roesler
Special Make-up Effects: KNB EFX Group Inc, Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger
Hair Supervisor: Theo Mayes
Title Design: Brian King, Pacific Title
Music: Michael Penn
Music Supervisors: Karen Rachtman, Bobby Lavelle
Music Editor: Ron Finn
Choreography: Adam Shankman
Digital Sound Design/Editing: Soundswild Inc
Sound Mixer: Stephen Halbert
Additional Sound: Peter Halbert
Supervising Re-recording Mixer: David Parker
Supervising Sound Editor: Dane A. Davis
Sound Effects Editors: Kini Kay, Mark Yardas, John Kwiatkowski
Stunt Co-ordinator: Cliff Cudney
Consultant: Ron Jeremy
Cast
Don Cheadle (Buck Swope)
Heather Graham (Rollergirl)
Luis Guzmán (Maurice TT Rodriguez)
Philip Baker Hall (Floyd Gondolli)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Scotty J)
Thomas Jane (Todd Parker)
Ricky Jay (Kurt Longjohn)
William H. Macy (Little Bill)
Alfred Molina (Rahad Jackson)
Julianne Moore (Amber Waves)
Nicole Ari Parker (Becky Barnett)
John C. Reilly (Reed Rothchild)
Burt Reynolds (Jack Horner)
Robert Ridgely (The Colonel James)
Mark Wahlberg (Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler)
Melora Walters (Jessie St. Vincent)
Nina Hartley (Little Bill’s wife)
Michael Jace (Jerome)
Jack Wallace (Rocky)
John Doe (Amber’s husband)
Joanna Gleason (Dirk’s mother)
Laurel Holloman (Sheryl Lynn)
Jonathon Quint (Johnny Doe)
Stanley Desantis (Buck’s manager)
Rico Bueno (Hot Traxx waiter)
Samson Barkhordarian (Hot Traxx chef)
Brad Braeden (big stud)
Lawrence Hudd (Dirk’s father)
Michael Stein (stereo customer)
Patricia Forte (teacher)
Kai Lennox (high school/college kid)
Jason Andrews (Johnny, limo driver)
Amber Hunter (Colonel’s lady friend)
Greg Lauren (young stud)
Tom Dorfmeister (watcher 1)
Jake Cross (watcher 2)
Selwyn Emerson Miller (Hot Traxx DJ)
Jamielyn Gamboa (Colonel’s Hot Traxx girlfriend)
Melissa Spell (Becky’s girlfriend)
Raymond Laboriel (Becky’s girlfriend’s friend)
Jon Brion, Brian Kehew, Robin Sharp, Audrey Wiechman (awards ceremony band)
Tim ‘Stuffy’ Soronen (Raphael)
Alexander D. Slanger, Thomas Lenk (Floyd’s kids, boys)
Lexi Leigh, Laura Gronewald (Floyd’s kids, girls)
Vernon Guichard II (Mugsy Jack’s bartender)
Tony Tedeschi (New Year’s Eve young stud)
Leslie Redden (KC Sunshine)
Gregory Daniel (minister)
Michael Penn (Nick the engineer)
Don Amendolia (bank worker)
Summer/skye (jacuzzi Girls) (themselves)
Robert Downey Sr. (a Prince) (Burt, studio manager)
Veronica Hart (judge)
Jack Riley (lawyer)
Cannon Roe (surfer)
Mike Gunther, Michael Raye Smith, Michael Scott Stencil (surfer punks)
Dustin Courtney (donut boy)
Allan Graf (man with gun)
José Chaidez (Puerto Rican kid)
B. Philly Johnson (Rahad’s bodyguard)
Joe G.M. Chan (Cosmo, Rahad’s boy)
Goliath (Tyrone)
Israel Juarbe, Gregory Anthony Rae (Maurice’s brothers)
Eric Winzenried (doctor)
Sharon Ferrol, Anne Fletcher, Scott Fowler, Melanie A. Gage, Eddie Garcia, Sebastian La Cause, Lance MacDonald, Diane Mizota, Nathan Frederic Prevost, Lisa E. Ratzin, Dee Dee Weathers, Darrel W. Wright (Hot Traxx dancers)
USA 1997
156 mins
35mm
SIGHT AND SOUND
Never miss an issue with Sight and Sound, the BFI’s internationally renowned film magazine. Subscribe from just £25*
*Price based on a 6-month print subscription (UK only). More info: sightandsoundsubs.bfi.org.uk
BFI SOUTHBANK
Welcome to the home of great film and TV, with three cinemas and a studio, a world-class library, regular exhibitions and a pioneering Mediatheque with 1000s of free titles for you to explore. Browse special-edition merchandise in the BFI Shop.We're also pleased to offer you a unique new space, the BFI Riverfront – with unrivalled riverside views of Waterloo Bridge and beyond, a delicious seasonal menu, plus a stylish balcony bar for cocktails or special events. Come and enjoy a pre-cinema dinner or a drink on the balcony as the sun goes down.
BECOME A BFI MEMBER
Enjoy a great package of film benefits including priority booking at BFI Southbank and BFI Festivals. Join today at bfi.org.uk/join
BFI PLAYER
We are always open online on BFI Player where you can watch the best new, cult & classic cinema on demand. Showcasing hand-picked landmark British and independent titles, films are available to watch in three distinct ways: Subscription, Rentals & Free to view.
See something different today on player.bfi.org.uk
Join the BFI mailing list for regular programme updates. Not yet registered? Create a new account at www.bfi.org.uk/signup
Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
Questions/comments? Contact the Programme Notes team by email