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| Images courtesy of New Line Cinema |
In 2012, Paul Thomas Anderson’s sixth film opened across the
world. Following the grand reception of its predecessor There Will Be Blood,
the modern classic which garnered Oscars for both Robert Elswit’s
cinematography and lead actor Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance, The Master
was an enigmatic and critically successful picture as well as an historic one,
being the first feature film shot entirely on 70mm since Kenneth Branagh’s 1996
screen version of Hamlet.
But, in the time between these acclaimed large format
releases, a major change had occurred worldwide: video virtually replaced film
in both motion picture photography and projection. With the exception of movies
featuring true IMAX sequences (which is 70mm turned 90 degrees), film had
otherwise widely vanished. Even though The Master revived unadulterated
use of 70mm, it nevertheless had the fate of a mostly digital theatrical run.
That is, with the exception of specialty movie houses such as those found
typically on the ‘Coasts’ or in select cities, the bastions for camera-to-screen
film purists like Anderson and his contemporaries.
Quentin Tarantino took his turn at the format with The
Hateful Eight in 2015 and by then persuaded the studio to distribute it as
a massive roadshow presentation across the US, with 70mm projectors actually
installed (or reinstalled) into many first-run cinemas. Of course, there was
also Christopher Nolan’s notorious Oppenheimer rollout in 2023, which
included 70mm screenings within a similar campaign. The Master, however,
proves Anderson was ahead of the curve as usual.
Along with his great influence on movies, too many things
set PT Anderson apart to suggest he was ever an ordinary filmmaker. One might
say he was destined for the profession. Born in 1970 to Edwina and Ernie
Anderson, Paul’s mother, an actress, when about to give birth to him was driven
to the hospital in a sportscar his father bought from Greer Garson (not a bad
way to make an entrance). It was shortly after that Ernie, prolific broadcast
recording artist, ‘voice of ABC’, and horror movie-host pioneer, was approached
by Ron Sweed to reprise his Ghoulardi television character. Since his family
had recently grown with the addition of Paul, and after relocating from Ohio to
California, Ernie instead passed the mantle of the character on to Sweed. In
other words, Paul simply being born helped Sweed become The Ghoul. All his
young life a steady colorful cast of personalities frequented the Anderson
household, including Carol Burnett, Tim Conway and Robert Ridgley, influencing
the prodigious child. It could be that since before even he may remember, he
wanted to make movies.
In fact, when Anderson was still just a teenager he
completed the early version of what would become his renowned breakout epic Boogie
Nights (1997). Shot with a video camcorder in 1988, The Dirk Diggler
Story was his first attempt at the material, drawn largely from his
environmental familiarity with it, having grown up in the San Fernando Valley
(the ‘capital’ of adult films). Its crude production value lent itself to a This
Is Spinal Tap-type documentary conceit and featured the distinguished
narration of his father. When it was time to shoot Boogie Nights after
completing his first major motion picture Hard Eight (1996), he already
had nearly a decade of expertise on the subject. He traded its light comedic
mockumentary style for a lavish and sweeping classical narrative of a surrogate
family in the “exotic picture” business at the end of the 1970s.
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| Collection courtesy of Nicholas S. Pobutsky and Andrew Kotwicki |
A commercial and critical triumph, Boogie Nights
features a superb ensemble cast including Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore,
Heather Graham, Don Cheadle, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly and Burt
Reynolds (in his only Oscar nominated role). Part of what helped make it the
“sprawling masterpiece of a movie” Roger Ebert declared it to be is how
extraordinarily its many elements were balanced from script to screen. It is a
very funny movie, but not campy or shallow; it is also quite a dark cautionary
tale, while not preachy or self-righteous. With all of its prodigious use of
spectacle, music and photographic style, it is all the while grounded by a
strong moral core, a rich emotional palette, world-class art direction and
costumery recreating its era, as well as an historically-informed truthfulness
toward the life of the real business it reflects.
It may be hard to imagine for some, but during the ‘Golden
Age’ of adult films, which began in America with Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie in
1969, the boundary separating them from the so-called ‘legitimate’ ones was
blurry. Both used narrative structure, opened with formal premieres, were
promoted on marquees and posters, played in theaters and even got reviewed.
This was so because they each shared a vital common element: FILM. Each genre
was made for their respective big screens. With this justification, the characters
in Boogie Nights, as perhaps in life, respected themselves as
film-makers and film-stars, if only for a few years before the advent of cheap
video production by the mid ‘80s crushed their loftier dreams.
Boogie Nights is
just as much about the glory of film as it is about the characters whose
dignity relied on it. It is partly an allegory, prophesizing years ahead of its
time the endangerment of film in our digital era.
Luckily for us, Paul Thomas Anderson works just as hard at
preserving films as he does when making his own. He is on the board of
directors of The Film Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1990 by Martin
Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and other top tier filmmakers responsible for saving
nearly a thousand moving pictures to date. In fact, it was Anderson, Scorsese
and Spielberg who also banded together to rescue TCM in 2023, forging a
partnership with David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Brothers, the studio responsible
for making this newly all photochemically struck ‘blow-up’ print of Boogie
Nights.
Since The Master, Anderson has had blow-ups printed for
every one of his films and is also the one responsible for bringing back this
bygone cinema tradition as well. Inherent Vice (2014), Phantom Thread
(2017) and Licorice Pizza (2021) all were shot on 35mm; their negatives
used to make 70mm prints. Many spectacular films had blow-ups, such as Star
Wars (1977) and Aliens (1986), for not only superior image quality but also for
improved, often multitracked, sound. The only film of Anderson’s released prior
to The Master that received this treatment not surprisingly is Boogie Nights,
with its dazzling visuals and soundtrack in full effect on 70mm.
The Motor City Cinema Society is honored to present two very
special screenings of the first 70mm Paul Thomas Anderson print ever shown in
Michigan, proudly in Detroit (now a select city).
--Nicholas S. Pobutsky, MCCS Co-founder
