That
storied disco club did something rather remarkable. It caused many elite New
Yorkers to turn against the enforcement of tax laws. After all, for club owners
like Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, all those tax code regulations could be so
complicated—and doesn’t everyone keep large containers of cash in their drop
ceilings? Especially for small change, right? Rubell and Schrager only owned
and operated the famous club from 1977 to 1980, but they had quite a run. Matt
Tyrnauer chronicles their glory years in Studio
54, which screened during the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.
Tyrnauer
makes a convincing case Studio 54 came along at just the right time to catch
the wave of burgeoning interest in tabloid-style celebrity pseudo-journalism.
In fact, their former publicist still has her bonus rate card for placing
Studio 54-related stories and photos. Naturally, the front page of the New York Post was the biggest get—and she
got a lot of them. Rubell also shrewdly positioned the club as a haven for LGBT
patrons. Somehow, that combination of the privileged and the marginalized
created a buzz everyone wanted to experience.
Of
course, there was also the exclusivity factor. We do indeed hear plenty of
stories revolving around the velvet rope. Oddly though, there is little talk
about the actual music. Nile Rodgers is one of the few musicians interviewed in
the film, but he mostly discusses his experiences as a patron. For those interested
in disco as a musical phenomenon, Record Man,
the profile of disco-era producer Henry Stone is probably still the best doc
out there.
Frankly,
Tyrnauer’s 54 follows a very
predictable beat sheet—rise, fall, legacy—while employing very conventional
techniques. It is fitting that the film carries the imprimatur of A&E, because
it has the look and feel of something cobbled together for cable. Still, it is
hard to resist pop culture nostalgia, especially when served up in bulk
quantities. Tyrnauer does a nice job of evoking the tenor of the time. You will
hear names you haven’t heard for decades, like Bianca Jagger, the Kardashian of
the 1970s. At the time, she was one of their prime publicity-generating
regulars, along with Liza Minelli and Truman Capote. Honest, all this really
happened.
Nevertheless,
the film’s fast-and-loose skim of the legal case brought against Rubell and
Schrager is conspicuously sympathetic. The film also ignores the building’s
fascinating history before and after the Rubell/Schrager era. Currently, it is
a Broadway theater, but it has also served as an opera house, a WPA theater, a
New Wave club, and CBS soundstages.
Maybe
you just had to be there, but how could you, if Steve Rubell wouldn’t let you
past the velvet rope? In fact, you can hear some of the talking heads sounding
a bit wistful for the time when they were the cool kids with access. It must
have been fun at the time—and some of the dishy reminiscences capture that
spirit. As a diversion, it holds the audience’s attention, but there is nothing
earth-shaking here. Recommended primarily for fans who were there, Studio 54 had its New York premiere at
this year’s Tribeca Film Festival (and it also screens today 4/29 at the
Montclair Film Festival).
