Stardom on Sherman Way: An X Marks the Spot

I AM big. It’s the PICTURES that got small.

--Spoken by Gloria Swanson, as Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard”

“Sunset Boulevard” was all about Hollywood, the business and the town. Billy Wilder’s strange, funny, sad, tragic story was about a struggling young screenwriter and his relationship with the horrid figure of the aging silent-film luminary whose career was doomed by the talkies.

Now comes another film about show biz and the raves from some critics suggest it may someday be considered a classic. The title is “Boogie Nights,” but after a screening last week, this amateur film critic can’t help but wonder whether Paul Thomas Anderson, the film’s 27-year-old director and writer, ever entertained the wry notion of calling it “Sherman Way.”

“Boogie Nights,” which opens Friday in Los Angeles, puts a lens on Hollywood’s bastard child--the porno biz. Sherman Way figures into an important sequence in

this strange, funny, sad, tragic tale that could not be set anywhere but the San Fernando Valley, where a star is porn.

Too cute, certainly, but apt considering the rise and fall of the film’s hero. Eddie Adams, played by Mark Wahlberg, is a 17-year-old high school dropout who rides the bus every day from Torrance to his job as a busboy at a Reseda nightclub, where he makes a few extra bucks exposing the aspect of his anatomy that intrigues X-rated auteur Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds).

Before long, Eddie leaves his dysfunctional family in Torrance and is welcomed into the dysfunctional surrogate family of porn. Horner’s home in the hills south of Ventura Boulevard serves as the swanky headquarters for a kind of mom-and-pop porn production company with Horner as the father figure and his leading lady as den mother. The time is the late ‘70s, and the extended Horner clan loves disco sounds and disco fashion. Cocaine and methamphetamine keep the party rolling, sometimes with disastrous results.

Soon, Eddie is transformed into Dirk Diggler, the biggest male star in porn. Horner’s studio is riding high and the filmmaker dreams of making porn that will be remembered for its artistic value.

What is perhaps most impressive about Anderson’s film, as some critics have noted, is the verisimilitude. Many people have seen sex videos, but few actually know people in the business. “Boogie Nights” rings true because it accepts its many characters on their terms, treating each with the dignity they see in themselves. Eddie and Jack are the central figures but Anderson takes lingering looks into the souls of a dozen supporting characters. There are no stick figures or caricatures.

“Boogie Nights” is all the more convincing because it neither glorifies nor overtly preaches against pornography, drug abuse or the occasional bursts of violence. The morals are implicit: Snort too much cocaine and you wind up dead. What goes ‘round doesn’t always come ‘round, but it comes ‘round often enough.

And just as Hollywood was more than just a backdrop for “Sunset Boulevard,” the Valley is something of a character itself in “Boogie Nights.” Save for scenes set in Eddie’s tract home in Torrance, the entire film plays out here in Hollywood’s favorite suburb, the region local boosters now tout as the “Valley of the Stars.” Reseda, Canoga Park and “C-Sun” all receive honorable mention in the script, and the sunlight that shines on Jack’s pool parties seems familiar and harsh.

Anderson, who grew up in Studio City, suddenly has critics comparing him to such luminaries as Orson Welles, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Until a few years ago, he may have been best known as the son of the late announcer Ernie Anderson, whose deep voice was famous for the way he delivered three words: “The Love Boat.”

In an interview with Sunday Calendar writer Kristine McKenna, the young Anderson says he had his first experience with porn when he discovered his father’s “Misty Beethoven” video. It seems all the more fitting and touching that Anderson would dedicate “Boogie Nights” to his father, who died this year. The film is also dedicated to the late character actor Robert Ridgely, who portrays Horner’s sleazy financier.

Anderson’s fondness for movie-making, even so-bad-it’s-good movie-making, comes across in other ways. As Dirk Diggler becomes a star, a worshipful documentary is made that portrays him as a bold man of vision. The camera admires Dirk’s profile, then pans out so the viewer can see what he sees: The barren, concrete channel of the L.A. River.

Hubris, of course, becomes Dirk Diggler’s great sin. And Jack Horner’s as well.

At least they fare better than the delusional Norma Desmond, a victim of the talkies. The advent of another technology--home video--provides a turning point in “Boogie Nights.” How can Jack Horner and Dirk Diggler live up to their artistic pretensions when amateurs flood the porn industry?

By the story’s end, both men are humbled.

They were big, each in his own way. Then the pictures got small.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.