Boogie Nights 20th Anniversary

Started by modage, October 10, 2012, 09:16:02 AM

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modage

Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Reel

It's a living thing.


I'm as ashamed as Pas for not seeing this for the fact that I don't own it, but the Screenplay and the Flick are in the mail  :)

ono

The DVD makes up one third of my "film school in a box" (at least the PTA courses).  I wasn't much of a cinephile back then, but I sure am glad I discovered it when I did.

Reel

There was so much buzz around this film, I was even aware of it as an 10 year old. Seeing the trailers on TV made it evident that this film would portray the raw power of sex, and I was already such a porn hound at that age, but that's for a different thread..

The first time I heard of it by word of mouth was from my friend when we were riding the bus. He said he saw Boogie Nights on HBO last night ( I immediately hated him ) and then said there's a scene where a girl comes to a party and goes " Is there any coke at this party?" and an old guy goes "There's some in the fridge." He made that up, because he was too young to know what coke is, but after he saw the rest of the movie he obviously knew what it was, so he thought it would be a clever joke to tell, but to this day I always listen close at that part to see if he says that.. bastard.

Then I was at my friends house and he went into the living room where we weren't allowed at the moment and watched the Magic show scene at the end with John C. Reilly. He told me all about what happened and I hated him.

Then, I was at another friends house, and by the grace of God, they'd just gotten HBO and Boogie Nights was on.
I only remember getting as far as the first Heather Graham sex scene, It was late, but I'll never forget the electricity I felt seeing her full frontal in a movie. I didn't know that was allowed. I had seen 'The Shining' before, but the way that scene ends undermines any sexiness that it starts out with. This was just a full on, hot fuck scene.

The Summer I saw Magnolia, I was 13. It was an existential experience, something I hadn't found in entertainment at that young age. I stayed up all night just fucking scratching my head about it, that was something I'd never done either. Watching the sun come up and pondering my place on this Earth, sending out compassion to all the people I'm connected to. A movie can do that?

That was the night I decided that making movies was my obligation in this life. I had to create something that would affect some dumb kid the way that Magnolia did me, maybe make him feel less alone.

I went to Michigan that summer and it was where I first started writing down my ideas. I also discovered whatever the infant form of this site was ( PTAnderson.com? ) and that just fucking extended the entire Magnolia experience. Again, I was staying up all night, just devouring this information. Seeing all the meaning that Paul embedded in the film and becoming more and more in awe of him. I wish that site were archived somewhere.
My uncle's house where I was staying had a cabinet full of movies, they told me I could watch anything I want. On the top shelf was a brand new DVD of boogie nights, still in the plastic. I couldn't bring myself to ask them if I could open it. They'd think I was such a pervert! And if I went ahead and did it myself, what if they were gonna give it to someone as a gift or something? They'd be pissed! And what's gonna happen if they walk in on me in the middle of the night watching basically a porno, I'd be in so much trouble!

So I saved my wad. Grew up a little. Discovered Marijuana, rented the DVD and watched everything on that sucker in a day. My life was changed, the rest is history.

72teeth

you described that sneeky giddy HBO experience so perfectly..

fuckin HBO.. i guess a lot of us owe a lot to it
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza



Sleepless

Incidentally, Jack Horner's house is now only worth $1.03. So it's progressively getting closer to my price range.
He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

Something Spanish

Damn, now we're all really fucking old.


mogwai

Without Boogie Nights he would've not made masterpieces as "The Happening".

Drill

https://classic.esquire.com/article/1997/10/1/lights-camera-hold-it-hold-it-would-someone-please-reattach-marks-member-please-and-action

Do you already have this issue, Wilberfan? Anyone subscribed who can post the full article/photos?

lol @ "Kevin Spacey has a secret".

wilberfan

I do NOT have that issue.   This MUST be remedied somehow!   Sooner than later, please and thank you.

(And there seems to have been some prescience while they were at it. )

Alethia

Enjoy! (Edit: not the best quality, sorry  :yabbse-sad:)

A transcript:

"LIGHTS . . . CAMERA . . . HOLD IT, HOLD IT. WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE REATTACH MARK'S MEMBER, PLEASE . . . AND ACTION!"
It's a movie we saw. It's a movie you're going to want to see. It's a movie that made us want to talk to the director.

OCTOBER 11997 MIM UDOVITCH
MICHAEL HADDI

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson is twenty-seven, and Boogie Nights, a truly awesome piece of moviemaking starring Burt Reynolds, Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, and Heather Graham, is his second feature. (The first was the indie Hard Eight.) Set in the porn industry of the late seventies, this is a movie that even the Motion Picture Association of America can't help loving.

"When I first started talking to them, they said, 'No, no, no, we want it to be an NC-17. The rating has been ruined for us with Showgirls out there in that Showgirls way. This would really help us,'" says Anderson, who has, as he contracted to do, delivered an R. "I actually called Oliver Stone, thinking, Here's someone who's been through this and can maybe give me some advice. But it was kind of hard getting advice out of him, because all he wanted to talk about was the hypocrisy of America. Actually, he did end up calming down and being helpful."

And actually, Boogie Nights is a movie—volatile, expressive, and full of movement—that makes its point in a way that's more Scorsese-style catharsis than Stone-style cudgeling. In the context of the just-passed summer blockbusters, with their vibratorlike assault of gunfire and dinosaur noise, it is a movie that is not just jerking you off when it asks, as Burt Reynolds's character, porn director Jack Horner, does, "How do you keep them in their seats after they come?"

l loved your movie, l can't tell you how much. I feel l should thank you on behalf of movie lovers everywhere for increasing the sum of human enjoyment.

Thank you. Jeez. If I can help in any way . . .

We all do what we can. Okay. Are you ready for the hard-hitting questions?

I'm really bad with the hard-hitting questions. The funny thing is that if you've read an interview with Orson Welles, you do think, Wow, he did it right—lie through your fucking teeth. Maybe that's the way to go.

Maybe. But enough idle chat. Tell the readers what Boogie Nights is about.

Let's see. It's about the porno industry in the San Fernando Valley in the seventies and eighties and the transition it went through from being shot on film to being shot on videotape. And it takes a lot of different stories about the people in that environment and follows them through an insane little search for their dignity in what is really an insane little world. I think the strongest tug through the movie is Mark Wahlberg's character, who's just sort of a beautiful kid who's seventeen years old and has a really big penis.

As Burt Reynolds's character observes, there's something wonderful in his jeans just waiting to get out. Or words to that effect. Tell me a prosthetic anecdote. I feel that what we need here is a naked-actor story. I feel that something along those lines will be expected.

All the more reason not to do it. And I'm not sure what you mean exactly when you say "prosthetic."

I mean the thirteen-inch prosthetic penis.

It's odd that you think it's a prosthetic. That's Mark Wahlberg's penis. I'm not sure where all this prosthetic talk comes from.

That's kind of amazing, since Leonardo DiCaprio was supposed to do the part before. Who knew that all these young actors were walking around Hollywood with their big . . .

Well, that's kind of how it happened. You know, Mark came to me and said, "I've got an inch on Leo." I said, "Really?" And he showed it to me. And then I hired him.

And the main story arc is that character's rise to stardom, followed by his Judy Garland-like meltdown. Though it has a happy ending. Still, people find the movie disturbing.

It has a version of a happy ending. If people find it disturbing, that's okay. Certainly that world is not the happiest place, though there are exceptions.

I understand that Leonardo DiCaprio dropped out of the Mark Wahlberg role at the last minute.

We were still a month or two away from filming. And Leo was never 100 percent committed to the movie. He dropped out to do Titanic.

An apples-and-oranges choice.

Or a dollars-and-cents choice.

That would be another way of looking at it. Anyway, you had a strong ensemble cast backing you up.

Yeah. A lot of the smaller parts were written for friends of mine—John C. Reilly, and also Phil Hoffman, who plays Scotty, and I didn't know Julianne Moore, but I had written that part thinking of her. And obviously the part for Philip Baker Hall, who is the star of my first movie. And also Bob Ridgeley, who plays Burt Reynolds's backer, the Colonel.

Right. That is a little disturbing, what happens to the Colonel.

Yeah. Is it? Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

That's very expansive of you, considering that he ends up weeping, helpless, beaten, and bleeding from the mouth.

And I think it's something to think about that the financier of the movies ends up weeping and bloody.

I also understand that Burt Reynolds fired his agent over this movie, he disliked it so much. Was there any indication that this was an agent-firing experience for him?

Um . . . how do I . . . ? Well, no.

Are you happy with his performance?

I'm thrilled with his performance—I think he's fucking great in the movie. I think he's really wonderful in the role, and . . .

And he was happy as the day is long when he was on the set?

I . . . think so.

What are some of the TV movies you worked on before you hit the big time?

My favorite TV movie that I worked on was called Sworn to Vengeance, with Robert Conrad.

What was it about?

I think somebody was sworn to vengeance. I also worked on a game show called The Quiz Kids Challenge, which was three incredibly bright children—

You're making this up, aren't you?

No, I swear to God! It was on for about a month at, like, two in the morning. Listen to this, it was a game show called Quiz Kids Challenge and . . .

You just took this out of a J. D. Salinger story, didn't you?

I swear to God. Are you ready?

Okay.

Quiz Kids Challenge: three incredibly bright children against three sort of average adults. Who will win?

And who won?

I think generally the adults won, which is why the show was only on for a month.

What was your first encounter with porn?

The first porno movie I ever saw was called The Opening of Misty Beethoven. Have you ever seen it?

No. Where did you see it?

In my home, as a child.

What freaked you out?

That I shouldn't be watching it, and what was happening, just the naked bodies and penises and sex.

And maybe that it was your father's?

Only in the sense that I shouldn't be watching it, as in: Don't touch my pipe; don't take the car.

You could really hardly choose two more phallic things. Especially pipe—"Don't touch my pipe"? Who gets prohibited from touching his father's pipe?

It's funny because my dad didn't even really smoke pipes.

Well, you're just proving my point. I would have said stereo.

I think the connection is there because in the same room where there was a pile of videotapes, there might have been a collection of pipes that he didn't even smoke.

If you say so. How did you come by the early passion for filmmaking to which your bio alludes?

It's the total standard-template film-geekdom story. I think the only exception is I didn't work in a video store. I just found this little notebook that was clearly an assignment notebook from when I was about seven. And I guess the assignment must have been to write an ad for a job. And I wrote: "My name is Paul Anderson. I want to be a writer, producer, director, special-effects man. I know how to do everything, and I know everything. Please hire me."

Did your parents do anything film-related?

My father was not film-related, but he was a creative person; he had a couple different jobs. He started out in Cleveland on television in the early sixties. He had a show where he hosted bad horror movies, and he created this character that would do insane things and let off fireworks and blow things up. He was called Ghoulardi.

Are you making this up again?

Yeah.

You are?

No. This is true. And he had a beautiful voice, so after we moved to the Valley, he would do voice-overs for commercials, like: "Now at Vons, only ninety-nine cents." The wonderful thing about this job is that he was able to go to a recording studio right down the street and say ten words a day, like: "Coming up next on Perfect Strangers, Balki gets a fucking headache."

And then they'd just edit out the fucking and the day would be done. And how about your mom?

. . . There's maybe a way that would feel healthy or okay for me to address issues that are in the movie about motherhood and motherly love. We can talk about it in terms of Julianne Moore's character and Joanna Gleason's part.

Okay. We can do that. The movie is in many ways about family, but both the main character's real mom and his figurative mom have what you might call boundary issues. His real mom, Joanna Gleason's character, is beating him up, and he's fucking Julianne Moore's. So is this coincidence, good scriptwriting, or a Freudian slip?

You got it. It's all of those.

Because, you know, the first time he fucks Julianne, it's like an adoption—he gets reborn, renamed even.

Yes, he does. I definitely think it all proceeds from, um, personal things, things that are on my mind, things that are . . . interesting to me.

Fine. Let's return to your youthful film-geekdom. Did you go to film school?

I went to NYU, to get to New York, and that was film school. Where I literally lasted about two days.

What did you learn?

I learned everything I needed to know to bad-mouth film school. I had this one assignment, to write a scene without dialogue that somehow showed something about character. And I thought, Well, I don't want to be here, so I'm just going to fuck around. And I took these two pages from the David Mamet script of Hoffa, which was not a great movie but a really wonderful script, and handed them in as my own—

This is another one of those things you're making up.

—to see whether what I thought of this class was true. And I got the paper returned with a C-plus and knew that that was my moment to never return.

So you've pretty much always been an attitude kind of guy. Do you have any favorite porno films?

There's one called Amanda by Night. It's really well-done, and it's got a little murder-mystery element to it, which is always good in porno. And there are the John Holmes/Johnny Wadd movies, which are roughly the model for a lot of the stuff they do in Boogie Nights. Their structure was great, because they'd be trying to solve the murder, but as the plot was propelled that way, they would have to stop and have a sex scene. So it's wonderfully structured storytelling.

Kind of porno Hitchcockian suspense.

Totally. In a fucked-up way, it kind of is. They were smart enough to realize that they could hook people in with a story and also have them want to watch the sex scenes, where now the reverse is usually true. It's usually like, Let's rent a porno tape and fast-forward through all the bullshit acting-prop stuff and get to the sex scenes. This was the reverse.

And my last question is, What will you do with your money if Boogie Nights makes you rich, rich, rich?

Make another movie.

No luxury you're going to indulge in?

Yeah. Make another movie. I think Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford were on to something when they started paying for their own movies. It just doesn't make any sense to do all the work and not make all the money.

wilberfan