“What can you expect when you're on top? You know? It's like Napoleon. When he was the king, you know, people were just constantly trying to conquer him, you know, in the Roman Empire. So, it's history repeating itself all over again.”- Dirk Diggler, Boogie Nights.
If Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1996 debut film Hard Eight planted the seeds for a great talent to grow from, his 1997 sophomore feature Boogie Nights was the sum of that greatness coming into full fruition. Hard Eight worked to establish Anderson with a strong visual aesthetic (sweeping tracking shots, abrupt push-ins, much akin to those of Scorsese and Altman), a knack for sharp dialogue, and a laying of the foundations for the overarching themes that would pulsate under the skin of the rest of the director’s works. However, unlike the great American auteurs of the 70s whom Anderson idolized, the visual symbols in Hard Eight lacked cohesion, and were mostly played as sight gags, as when a book of matches spontaneously combusts in main character John’s pocket as he waits in line at the movies.
In order to understand how all of the thematic elements of Boogie Nights could revolve around thirteen inches of prosthetic rubber, it seems a fruitful task to first analyze how the main themes of the film are themselves presented. The first is the porn industry itself, which stands in as an allegorical representation of the shifting cultural currents that lead America into Ronald Regan’s 1980s. James Mottram in his book The Sundance Kids describes Dirk Diggler’s rise to fame as, “Living proof that, in America, you can reinvent yourself and live out the Dream, Dirk soon pampers himself with the trappings of success” (188). The irony of Dirk’s rise to fame though is twofold. Dirk is at the height of his popularity at the end of the 70s, a time of freedom and revolution, when, as Roger Ebert states, “A director can dream of making [a porno] so good that the audience members would want to stay in the theater even after they had achieved what they came for” (1997).
Of course Diggler is not the only one to be brought down by the 80s. Dirk’s friend Todd Parker is gunned down in one of the films most brilliant scenes after a drug deal goes awry, suggesting that, where drug use in the 70s was seen as a way to experiment with freeing ones mind, it has transformed into a breeding ground for paranoia and violence in the 80s; Jack Horner has capitalism forced on him when he begins shooting cheap films on the video format; the Colonel is put in jail of charges of sex with a minor; porn star Amber Waves is denied the right to see her children while her lawyer, in one of those detailed tongue-in-cheek winks from Anderson, is placed in the frame between portraits hanging on the wall behind of Richard Nixon on the left and Ronald Regan on the right (the side of the table her conservative, anti-porn husband inhabits); and Buck Swope who, in Anderson’s most striking image of the corruption of 80s culture, has a heavy burden put upon him. 
After surviving an armed robbery in a convenience store that ends in bloodshed, Swope, who earlier that day was denied a loan from the bank in order to help him open his own business, stands surrounded by death, covered in blood, the camera slowly zooming in on the blood soaked bag of money which the burglar tried to make off with. The implications that arise from Anderson’s focus on the bag are both bleak and powerful. After being denied the means that would enable Buck to chase the American Dream by opening his own business, by an institution organized to help people do just that, Buck is forced to such extremes that he is willing to steal a bag of money which is covered with the blood of a stranger. The message is clear: chasing the American Dream in the 80s comes at the expense of your fellow man.
If Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1996 debut film Hard Eight planted the seeds for a great talent to grow from, his 1997 sophomore feature Boogie Nights was the sum of that greatness coming into full fruition. Hard Eight worked to establish Anderson with a strong visual aesthetic (sweeping tracking shots, abrupt push-ins, much akin to those of Scorsese and Altman), a knack for sharp dialogue, and a laying of the foundations for the overarching themes that would pulsate under the skin of the rest of the director’s works. However, unlike the great American auteurs of the 70s whom Anderson idolized, the visual symbols in Hard Eight lacked cohesion, and were mostly played as sight gags, as when a book of matches spontaneously combusts in main character John’s pocket as he waits in line at the movies.
Boogie Nights would be the film that changed all of that as it was the film where Anderson learned to string his images together in order to create a coherent understanding of the overriding themes within his narratives. Every subsequent Anderson narrative from Boogie Nights on would be structured around one or two central images or visual motifs that would tie the entire film together, and in Boogie Nights it’s a doozey.
The themes are familiar: a young teenager leaves his unsupportive family in order to venture off and acquire a new surrogate one that will support his true talents, and how the shifting cultural currents were changing the way the world of porn (a metaphorical symbol in itself, which stands in for society as a whole) functioned. All of this is framed around the simple image of main character Dirk Diggler’s penis.
In order to understand how all of the thematic elements of Boogie Nights could revolve around thirteen inches of prosthetic rubber, it seems a fruitful task to first analyze how the main themes of the film are themselves presented. The first is the porn industry itself, which stands in as an allegorical representation of the shifting cultural currents that lead America into Ronald Regan’s 1980s. James Mottram in his book The Sundance Kids describes Dirk Diggler’s rise to fame as, “Living proof that, in America, you can reinvent yourself and live out the Dream, Dirk soon pampers himself with the trappings of success” (188). The irony of Dirk’s rise to fame though is twofold. Dirk is at the height of his popularity at the end of the 70s, a time of freedom and revolution, when, as Roger Ebert states, “A director can dream of making [a porno] so good that the audience members would want to stay in the theater even after they had achieved what they came for” (1997).However, all of this changes on News Years Eve as Dirk and his newfound family welcome in the 80s at his plush new house, as two specific events occur that suggest the death of the 70s freedom and the entering of the closed-minded yuppiedom of 80s Reganonmics; a transition that Sharon Waxman in her book Rebels on the Backlot describes perfectly as, “A vehicle for telling a story about a reconstructed family, devolving from the 70s party into the hangover of drug addiction and broken lives” (118). The two images Anderson gives us are firstly the character of Floyd Gondolli, the man with the money, who crashes the party to inform director Jack Horner that the future of porn lies in video. Floyd’s presence builds a bridge not only for the transition between years but for the transition of the porn industry from art form to assembly line commodification, produced cheap, in low quality and to serve only one purpose: to provide orgasm.
Gondolli acts as a trigger for the second image, which most literally visualizes the death of the porn industry and the surrogate family, as assistant director Lil' Bill pulls a gun at the party and shoots his wife before turning it on himself. That Anderson films this ironic act of startling violence straight on, with Bill standing in front of a blank white wall, signals almost imminent doom for Diggler, who now has the bloodstains of the past covering the walls of his home. From this moment on, there is no escape.
Gondolli acts as a trigger for the second image, which most literally visualizes the death of the porn industry and the surrogate family, as assistant director Lil' Bill pulls a gun at the party and shoots his wife before turning it on himself. That Anderson films this ironic act of startling violence straight on, with Bill standing in front of a blank white wall, signals almost imminent doom for Diggler, who now has the bloodstains of the past covering the walls of his home. From this moment on, there is no escape. As 80s capitalism wages war on Diggler, he begins to drown in the haze of drug addiction, is beaten after reducing himself to offering cheap sexual favors for men in the confines of their vehicles, the family is broken up by greed and flaring egos, and pornography is reduced to no more than, as Mottram suggests, a perverse way for guys to get a quick fix (194). No wonder 1979 literally ended with a bang of tragedy instead of celebration.
Of course Diggler is not the only one to be brought down by the 80s. Dirk’s friend Todd Parker is gunned down in one of the films most brilliant scenes after a drug deal goes awry, suggesting that, where drug use in the 70s was seen as a way to experiment with freeing ones mind, it has transformed into a breeding ground for paranoia and violence in the 80s; Jack Horner has capitalism forced on him when he begins shooting cheap films on the video format; the Colonel is put in jail of charges of sex with a minor; porn star Amber Waves is denied the right to see her children while her lawyer, in one of those detailed tongue-in-cheek winks from Anderson, is placed in the frame between portraits hanging on the wall behind of Richard Nixon on the left and Ronald Regan on the right (the side of the table her conservative, anti-porn husband inhabits); and Buck Swope who, in Anderson’s most striking image of the corruption of 80s culture, has a heavy burden put upon him. After surviving an armed robbery in a convenience store that ends in bloodshed, Swope, who earlier that day was denied a loan from the bank in order to help him open his own business, stands surrounded by death, covered in blood, the camera slowly zooming in on the blood soaked bag of money which the burglar tried to make off with. The implications that arise from Anderson’s focus on the bag are both bleak and powerful. After being denied the means that would enable Buck to chase the American Dream by opening his own business, by an institution organized to help people do just that, Buck is forced to such extremes that he is willing to steal a bag of money which is covered with the blood of a stranger. The message is clear: chasing the American Dream in the 80s comes at the expense of your fellow man.This brings us back full circle to Dirk’s penis, which acts as the ultimate symbol for the transition between the glamour and artistic freedom of the 70s and the cold conservative capitalism of the 80s. This is in part due to the way Anderson uses the penis within the framework of the narrative. In the 70s it remains totally elusive to the audience. We hear talk of it, and we learn of its greatness through the employment of reaction shots of Roller Girl, the Colonel, etc. However, it isn’t until the 80s (the last shot of the film to be exact) after Diggler has battled addiction, lost his second family, and been beaten down and throw away by society that we actually get to see the coveted member. By waiting until the last scene to show us the penis, Anderson has provided a sly, if tragic, dig at the pathetic institution the porn industry and Diggler have become in the 80s. Just as video acted in the New Years Eve sequence, Dirk’s penis, when we finally see it, provides the perfect image of capitalist commodifiction. By the time the penis rears its head, its greatness has been muted as it no longer possesses a unique individual quality. Size is no longer more important than mass production, as quality is no longer more important than quantity. Diggler may have rejoined his family at the end of the film, but he is no longer a star, rather a simple cog in the capitalist machine, installed to produce an assembly line product.
If Anderson had shown us the penis during the 70s, we would have been blinded by its magnificent power. However, now at the end of the film, its luster has faded and we can look at it without harm because it is no longer one of a kind. Diggler, like Napoleon, has been conquered, as all great men of excess eventually are, and the unveiling of his anatomy reveals this. Even more tragic is Dirk’s failure to realize his fall from grace as he declares to the mirror in the same scene “I am a big, bright, shining star.” Thus, the penis and all the other symbols that revolve around it (the surrogate family, the bloody money, the video tapes, Lil' Bill’s suicide) show the tragedy that befell many in the 80s. With many people out of jobs and the deskilling of labour on the rise, many people who, along with Dirk Diggler, were reduced to mere interchangeable parts in a vast capitalist machine.
If Anderson had shown us the penis during the 70s, we would have been blinded by its magnificent power. However, now at the end of the film, its luster has faded and we can look at it without harm because it is no longer one of a kind. Diggler, like Napoleon, has been conquered, as all great men of excess eventually are, and the unveiling of his anatomy reveals this. Even more tragic is Dirk’s failure to realize his fall from grace as he declares to the mirror in the same scene “I am a big, bright, shining star.” Thus, the penis and all the other symbols that revolve around it (the surrogate family, the bloody money, the video tapes, Lil' Bill’s suicide) show the tragedy that befell many in the 80s. With many people out of jobs and the deskilling of labour on the rise, many people who, along with Dirk Diggler, were reduced to mere interchangeable parts in a vast capitalist machine. Read about Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love
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