American Cinematographer - May 2012 - 53

Boogie Nights unit photos by G. Lefkowitz, Magnolia unit photos by Peter Sorel, SMPSP, from the collections of the Margaret Herrick Library. Additional photos courtesy of Robert Elswit. DVD frames ©2000 New Line Home Video. All rights reserved.

Opposite page: A tight-knit “family” of porn professionals is torn apart by cocaine and petty jealousies in Boogie Nights. This page, top: Misogynistic self-help guru Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise) visits his dying father (Jason Robards) in Magnolia. Bottom: Cinematographer Robert Elswit, ASC and director Paul Thomas Anderson set their frame on Magnolia.

Boogie Nights that grabbed audiences from the very first shot, held them for the next 155 minutes, and launched Anderson into the realm of directors to watch. Set in the late 1970s and early 1980s in California’s San Fernando Valley, the movie is an affectionate

portrait of the constellation of performers and filmmakers who surround adult-film director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), who acts as confidante, therapist and patriarch to the troubled troupe. The story follows the rise and fall of porn star Eddie Adams (Mark
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Wahlberg), a.k.a. Dirk Diggler, one of Horner’s discoveries. “I think Paul was really making a classic backstage musical,” Elswit observes. “Here are people who are always trying to raise money, get a job, do anything they have to do in order to put on a show. In a lot of ways, Boogie Nights is like 42nd Street: someone’s going out there as a kid and they want to come back a star.” A virtuoso three-minute Steadicam shot opens the film and introduces almost all of the principal characters. The shot starts on the marquee of the Reseda movie theater, cranes down and makes a 180-degree turn to follow a car traveling on the opposite side of the street, and stays with the car as it pulls up at the Hot Traxx nightclub. The camera moves in to show Horner and one of his stars, Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), stepping out of the car and greeting club manager Maurice (Luis Guzman). The shot continues as the trio moves inside, where we also meet Reed (John C. Reilly) and Buck (Don Cheadle), who are on the dance floor, and Rollergirl (Heather Graham), who skates over to Horner’s table to chat. The shot ends when the camera follows Rollergirl into the crowd and comes to rest on Eddie, who is bussing tables. Although the single take is an attention-grabber, Elswit says Anderson conceived it mainly as “a wonderful way to meet everybody. At the same time, it gives you a detailed look at this whole culture that evolved in the valley in the 1970s. It wasn’t about trying to declare anything more than that. Paul wanted to do it as one shot purely because it was the best way to tell the story.” Production designer Bob Ziembicki recalls Anderson telling him that he wanted Boogie Nights to look “like Robert Altman had directed a John Cassavetes picture. I thought that was very interesting, coming from a 24year-old. I think I got the job because of my work on Barfly; Paul thought the portrayal of that side of L.A. was very accurate, and that was the kind of feelMay 2012 53

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American Cinematographer - May 2012

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