59. God Only Knows &...

Lyrics

I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
Ill make you so sure about it

God only knows what I'd be without you

If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me

God only knows what I'd be without you

God only knows what I'd be without you

If you should ever leave me
Well life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me

God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I'd be without you


This is the best song by The Beach Boys, a band I've never been much interested in, even though all their songs are quite good. I don't have much else to say about it, except that it was used to great effect in Boogie Nights.

The Movie: Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)

Boogie Nights is one of my favourite movies. Sometimes its seems to exist mostly so Paul Thomas Anderson can show off his film making skills. As we know, they are considerable. But the movie has more than only style. Without ever moralizing Anderson paints a very harsh portrait of the world of porn movies. Despite that he makes us care for all his characters, Not only that he manages to make them quite sympathetic, even though they (or at least some of them) are pretty awful people. The movie has often been compared to Pulp Fiction, especially in that regard. Sometimes it even goes further than that movie in making us root for awful characters. John Travolta at least helps a woman who OD's because of him. In Boogie Nights our heroes secretly dump her in front of a hospital. I did not like The Master very much, but that doesn't change the fact that at this moment Anderson may be one of the three best American filmmakers. The other two are Tarantino and the Coen Brothers. I probably don't anticipate any movie more right now, than Inherent Vice, Anderson's next film.

Boogie Nights was only his second movie. It feels as if he knows exactly what he is doing in every shot and every scene. It all starts of course from the great one-take opening scene. The scene is more than simply showing off. It is a very clever way to introduce most of the characters and to make us understand the relationships between them. By shooting it in a single take he also makes expertly clear that all these characters are connected to each other and dependent on each other. All these characters sure enjoy making porn movies and they sure as hell like each other. But Anderson doesn't let us forget that their presence in the porn world, around director Jack Horner is a neccessity for them. It is a world that's enclosed from the real word, in which most of these characters cannot survive. The porn world, whether they like it or not, is their only lifeline. And when near the end of the movie we hear The Beach Boys singing 'God only knows what I'd be without you', that's the perfect summation of what the porn world means to these characters. Anderson by then has shown us their adventures in the real world and it's clear they can't function there at all. They are pretty much hopeless there.

Anderson basically divides his movie in two parts. The first part takes place in the 70's, porn's golden years. Our heroes have work, fun, success and porn's newest star Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg in his best peformance). They have dreams that one day they'll make a porn movie, that wil also be considered a great film. It's quite moving how serious they take their job. The cinematographer is concerned with the look of the film, the screenplay writer really wants to write a story that makes sense and the actors, well they'll do anything to make it look as convincing as possible. But beneath all the joy, there is still some misery here. Some of these characters can't even fully function in this world. Especially tragic are Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), a mother who constantly uses coke to forget her sadness for not being able to see her son. Then there is Little Bill (a classic and typical William H. Macy role) who must cope with the fact that his wife fucking with everybody (even out of work) without caring one bit whether Bill knows or not. Lastly there is Scotty J. (Philip Seymour Hoffmann) a deeply closeted homosexual with a crush on Dirk. And could it be that the same can be said about Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly), Dirk's best friend.

There are some truly extraordinary scenes in this first part. There is for example the scene in which Dirk 'acts' for the first time. We see how unglamorous porn filmmaking really is. It happens on a cheap stage that's basically a made-up cellar. It is filmed with cheap material and Anderson certainly doesn't want to leave us with the impression that the sex is in any way sexy or romantic. Then there are the Brock Landers movies, a wonderful parody of the fourth-rate (if that) action movies they made in the 70's. If that parody wasn't great enough it ends with a wonderful punchline when Jack Horner proclaims it the masterpiece by which people will remember him. The best scene is the most tragic one though. At new year's day Bill, for the umpteenth time finds his wife in bed with another man. While the joyful music plays in the background Anderson then follows him to his car where he takes a gun from and shoots his wife, her lover and himself. It's a genuinely shocking and sad scene, because of the joy by which it is surrounded. 

The second part of the movie takes place in the 80's. The dream that you could one day make an arty porn movie is now dead. The movies will now be shot on video, instead of on film. As Jack's cinematographer sadly exclaims, it all looks the same now. Jack resists the cheapening of his movies for a long time, but when his financier is caught with child pornography and has to go to jail, he has to give in. And cheapening his movies means working with amateur actors. For many of our heroes there is no room anymore in the porn world. They have to go out in the scary, 'real' world. It doesn't end well. It is in these section that Anderson really shows his great skills. At one point he is cutting between three subplots, while the same song plays on the soundtrack (no idea which) There is Amber fighting for custody over her son. There is Buck (Don Cheadle) trying to get financing for his own hi-fi stereo store. And there are Dirk and Reed who try to do everything to get some money. These are quite moving scenes. We know, for various reasons, that there is no chance these people will get what they want. But they want it so much and with such frenetic desperation that we can't help but feel a little sad for them. In this section we also find the best scene of the movie. It is not the rightfully celebrated scene with a completely deranged Alfred Molina. That too is a great scene, which really has to be seen to be believed. But the best scene is the scene just before, when Buck finds the money he needs for his store. It is a scene which could interest the opening narrator of Anderson's next movie Magnolia. After all, he loved coincidences so very much. In any case after much hopelessness eventually all the characters find their way back to the safe confines of Jack Horner. They'd better as God only knows what would have happened if they didn't.