Anderson was
born in 1970. He was one of the first of the "video store" generation
of film-makers. His father was the first man on his block to own a
V.C.R., and from a very early age Anderson had an infinite number of
titles available to him. While film-makers like Spielberg cut their
teeth making 8 mm films, Anderson cut his teeth shooting films on
video and editing them from V.C.R. to V.C.R.
Part of Anderson's artistic D.N.A. comes from his father, who hosted a
late night horror show in Cleveland. His father knew a number of
oddball celebrities such as
Robert Ridgely, an actor who often
appeared in Mel Brooks' films and
would later play "The Colonel" in Anderson's
Boogie Nights (1997). Anderson was
also very much shaped by growing up in "The Valley", specifically the
suburban San Fernando Valley of greater Los Angeles. The Valley may
have been immortalized in the 1980s for its mall-hopping "Valley
Girls", but for Anderson it was a slightly seedy part of suburban
America. You were close to Hollywood, yet you weren't there. Would-bes
and burn-outs populated the area. Anderson's experiences growing up in
"The Valley" have no doubt shaped his artistic self, especially since
three of his four theatrical features are set in the Valley.
Anderson got into film-making at a young age. His most significant
amateur film was
The Dirk Diggler Story (1988),
a sort of mock-documentary a la
Die Jungs von Spinal Tap (1984),
about a once-great pornography star named Dirk Diggler. After enrolling
in N.Y.U.'s film program for two days, Anderson got his tuition back
and made his own short film,
Cigarettes & Coffee (1993).
He also worked as a production assistant on numerous commercials and
music videos before he got the chance to make his first feature,
something he liked to call Sydney,
but would later become known to the public as Last Exit Reno (1996). The film
was developed and financed through The Sundance Lab, not unlike
Quentin Tarantino's
Reservoir Dogs - Wilde Hunde (1992). Anderson
cast three actors whom he would continue working with in the future:
Altman veteran Philip Baker Hall, the
husky and lovable John C. Reilly
and, in a small part,
Philip Seymour Hoffman, who so
far has been featured in all four of Anderson's films. The film deals
with a guardian angel type (played by Hall) who takes down-on-his-luck
Reilly under his wing. The deliberately paced film featured a number of
Anderson trademarks: wonderful use of source light, long takes and
top-notch acting. Yet the film was reedited (and retitled) by Rysher
Entertainment against Anderson's wishes. It was admired by critics, but
didn't catch on at the box office. Still, it was enough for Anderson to
eventually get his next movie financed. "Boogie Nights" was, in a
sense, a remake of "The Dirk Diggler Story", but Anderson threw away
the satirical approach and instead painted a broad canvas about a
makeshift family of pornographers. The film was often joyous in its
look at the 1970s and the days when pornography was still shot on film,
still shown in theatres, and its actors could at least delude
themselves into believing that they were movie stars. Yet "Boogie
Nights" did not flinch at the dark side, showing a murder and suicide,
literally in one (almost) uninterrupted shot, and also showing the
lives of these people deteriorate, while also showing how their lives
recovered.
Anderson not only worked with Hall, Reilly and Hoffman again, he also
worked with Julianne Moore,
Melora Walters,
William H. Macy and
Luis Guzmán. Collectively, Anderson
had something that was rare in U.S. cinema: a stock company of
top-notch actors. Aside from the above mentioned, Anderson also drew
terrific performances from
Burt Reynolds and
Mark Wahlberg, two actors whose
careers were not exactly going full-blast at the time of "Boogie
Nights", but who found themselves to be that much more employable
afterwards.
The success of "Boogie Nights" gave Anderson the chance to really go
for broke in Magnolia (1999), a massive
mosaic that could dwarf Altman's
Nashville (1975) in its number of
characters.
Anderson was awarded a "Best Director" award at Cannes for Punch-Drunk Love (2002).
