Retrospective Film Review

Boogie Nights (1997) • 25 Years Later

In 1970s California, a young man finds a new life and new friends as a porn star…

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights made his name as a writer-director and also repositioned teen heartthrob rapper Mark Wahlberg as a serious actor. In the memory of many, however, it’s probably neither Anderson’s screenplay and direction nor Wahlberg’s fine acting that stands out. More likely it’s the affectionately recreated time and setting (the 1970s-1980s California porn industry); perhaps also the performance of Burt Reynolds as Jack Horner, a maker of X-rated films who discovers Wahlberg’s Dirk Diggler and makes him a star; and certainly its famous final shot, in which the exceptionally well-endowed Diggler finally reveals his most prominent body part in all its prosthetic glory

Not showing us Diggler’s absurdly oversized penis has, to this point, been a running joke on the part of Anderson throughout Boogie Nights; it is, in a sense, the driver of the entire narrative and yet in a film jam-packed with sex and nudity it’s the one thing we haven’t been allowed to see. And…