BOOGIE NIGHTS

BOOGIE NIGHTS is a brazen, bold, shocking, terrifying, and sometimes humorous look at the beginnings of the modern pornography motion picture business in the 1970s and early 80s. Last year, audiences were introduced to pornography through THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT. Now, with BOOGIE NIGHTS, they get to see the inner workings of a group of people who struggle for identity and dignity, and can only claim their own inner circle as friends and family because the rest of society will have nothing to do with them. It simultaneously celebrates these people, while showing the pathetic and desperate nature of the lifestyles that they have chosen for themselves.

Once rising-star Mark Wahlberg plays Eddie, a 17-year-old youth who works at a nightclub. He is known for being unusually well endowed. Nightclub patron and pornography director Jack Horner approaches Eddie and asks him if he would like to be in “show business” in “exotic” pictures. Eddie, who is having trouble at home with his mother, leaves home and begins a new family with Jack Horner and his extended family of players and filmmakers. Included are Rollergirl (Heather Graham), a sex star who doesn’t take off her roller-skates, Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), elder stateswoman of pornography and surrogate mother to Eddie, Little Bill (William H. Macy), crew member and jealous husband because he always walks in on his wife having sex with other men, and Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), sex star who would rather be called an actor and has big dreams of being a stereo salesman.

Eddie changes his name to Dirk Diggler and begins his life before the cameras performing sex. Amber and Rollergirl just adore him. Jack sees big money in Dirk. For a while, the money is coming and everything is joyous, with mad celebrations, cocaine sniffing and wild parties.

As the 80s approach, Jack begins to try and find other talent. Dirk becomes insanely jealous, and Jack fires him and throws him off the set. Dirk becomes a vagrant, seeking money through dope sales and stealing. At one point, when he is most down on his luck, he performs sex acts for money with other men and is beaten up by a group of thugs. Dirk has no other choice but to go back to Jack and beg for forgiveness and a job as one of several people in the Jack Horner repertoire.

Not surprisingly, this movie is filled with illicit sex, though it makes no bones about the fact that those who live in this world, also come across drugs and violence. It is pure hedonism, and these people only have their mutual love and affection as an extended family. Little Bill stands out as one in the group who sees that all the illicit sex isn’t the way it is supposed to be. Regrettably, he doesn’t deal with it properly and takes out violent vengeance against his wife and her lover when Little Bill can no longer stand the fact that his wife is constantly committing adultery. Likewise, Dirk becomes disgusted with a life of prostitution and crime, and goes to seek the only stability he knows: as part of Jack’s extended family. It is not unlike the prodigal son. (It is interesting to note that on the night Dirk was severely beaten, he stood outside of a church. Either the filmmaker implied that the church couldn’t help, or that Dirk was too blind to see that the church could be a refuge.)

Critics are raving about this movie, and it is getting some serious promotion on TV and radio. While not titillating, it actually shows the extreme irony of these people trying to demonstrate their legitimacy, and it shows the horror of their lifestyles. Though the movie contains excessive sex and violence, it is not pornography in the sense that it is meant to sexually arouse the viewer. In many cases, it disgusts the viewer. Nevertheless, BOOGIE NIGHTS may receive the same acclaim, or even greater acclaim, as THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT. That movie, covering a taboo topic, was only mildly recognized at the Oscars, but it may have paved the way for BOOGIE NIGHTS, a brazen and shameless picture.

Paul Thomas Anderson is only 26-years-old, and has made only one other feature film, HARD EIGHT. After exposing the hidden world of pornography, what is next? Either the future will reveal a greater amount of immorality from this filmmaker, or he will have to create tamer fare. Time will tell if he is a storyteller or a smut peddler, not unlike Jack Horner.