2. Paul Thomas Anderson - The Dirk Diggler Story (1988) / Boogie Nights (1997)
Another director who adapted one of his shorts, Paul Thomas Anderson's breakout hit, Boogie Nights, is a remake of his short-film, The Dirk Diggler Story, a loose telling of the story of John Holmes, the most famous, most well-hung pornstar of the 70s. The Dirk Diggler Story is essentially a mockumentary, with Anderson employing various talking-head-style shots and setups, creating a truly low-fi film, which was released to virtually no reception in '88. Boogie Nights, on the other hand, is a sprawling, virtuoso masterwork. Using the basic template of Diggler-as-Holmes - and too depicting the eponymous Dirk as a man who descends into drugs and crime - the film sees a young Mark Wahlberg take on the role of Diggler (taking over from the original's Michael Stein) in a film that spans decades to show the decline of the porn industry and those within it (inc. Burt Reynolds, Heather Graham, Don Cheadle, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman). Paul Thomas Anderson's second real feature after Hard Eight, Boogie Nights is the film which introduced people to PTA the auteur - the true heir to Robert Altman - and thus, The Dirk Diggler Story, which is available on youtube, is an invaluable film, one which set the precedent for one of the great American pictures of the 90s.
