Directed by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen.
Written by: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen.
Starring: Jeff Bridges (Jeffrey Lebowski - The Dude), John Goodman (Walter Sobchak), Julianne Moore (Maude Lebowski), Steve Buscemi (Theodore Donald 'Donny' Kerabatsos), David Huddleston (Jeffrey Lebowski - The Big Lebowski), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Brandt), John Turturro (Jesus Quintana), Sam Elliott (The Stranger), Tara Reid (Bunny Lebowski), Peter Stormare (Nihilist #1, Uli Kunkel / 'Karl Hungus'), Flea (Nihilist #2, Kieffer), David Thewlis (Knox Harrington), Ben Gazzara (Jackie Treehorn), Jon Polito (Da Fino).
The
Big Lebowski would easily make my personal list of the 10 funniest films ever
made. Like other films that would probably make that list, film somehow manages
to be funny every time you see it. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched The
Big Lebowski at this point in my life – I’d say, at least 15 – and yet every
time I watch it, I cannot help but laugh pretty much from beginning to end.
Comedy is subjective of course – my wife watched the first hour of the film and
hated it so much she turned it off. So be it – she doesn’t know what she’s
missing.
The
film is basically like a Raymond Chandler detective story, yet instead of a
brilliant Philip Marlowe as our protagonist, we get Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski
(Jeff Brides) – an aging hippie in early 1990s Malibu. He is unemployed – and
has been for a while. Where he gets his money, I have no idea. He spends his
days in a blissful haze of marijuana smoke and the buzz he gets off White
Russians. The only place he has to be is the bowling alley. His teammates are
Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) – also a relic of the 1960s, but just about the
complete opposite of The Dude – a crazed, militaristic Vietnam vet and gun nut,
and Donny Kerabatsos (Steve Buscemi) – who barely gets to say a word, because
The Dude pretty much ignores every he says, and Walter keeps tell him to shut
the fuck up. Donny doesn’t care – as long as he’s throws rocks, he’s happy to
be in their company.
Then
one day two men enter the Dude’s apartment and demand the money. The push his
head into the toilet, and tell him that since his wife owes money to Jackie Treehorn
that means he owes money to Jackie Treehorn. One of them – who the Dude will
refer to as the Chinaman for the rest of the movie – even pees on his rug,
which is a shame because it really ties the room together. There is a problem
of course – The Dude isn’t married. He figures out that these two must have
been looking for the other Jeff Lebowski (David Huddleston) – a millionaire philanthropist,
with a young trophy wife named Bunny (Tara Reid). The Dude goes to see the
other Lebowski in the hopes of being reimbursed for the rug – and thus gets
involved in a complicated plot that involves kidnapping, nihilists, a strange
performance artist (Julianne Moore) her stranger friends, a bowler named Jesus,
pornographers and interpretive dance. Through it all, Sam Elliot – wearing a
cowboy hat and perhaps having the best mustache in movie history, acts as our
guide and narrator – although sometimes even he loses his train of thought.
The
film was not a big hit back in 1998 – grossing only about $17 million in North
America. But it has gone on to become one of the biggest cult movies of all
time, inspiring annual conventions, a ton of merchandise, and a host of books
on how to live like Lebowski and the philosophy of the Dude. Why does the movie
touch people like this? Perhaps it’s because the Dude seems so contented
throughout the movie – even when things seem to be at their bleakest. Like many
Coen protagonists, The Dude spends the film getting tormented – he has his face
shoved in a toilet, he gets beat up, he has a coffee cup thrown at his head,
he’s drugged more than once, he has his car stolen and trashed, then gets it
back only to have it trashed some more and eventually get set on fire, and
pretty much everyone he meets thinks he’s an idiot. And yet, The Dude abides.
He soldiers on, and finds happiness where he can. I imagine him listening to
the monologue by Frances McDormand at the end of Fargo and being in complete
agreement. Jeff Bridges is a great actor who has delivered any number of great
performances in his career that pretty much started at birth, but to many he’ll
always be associated with The Dude. If it’s not his greatest performance – and
I would argue that it is – it’s certainly his most iconic one.
Not
to be outdone, Coen regular John Goodman delivers a performance of hilarious,
crazed intensity as Walter. The Coen’s based his character on writer/director
John Milius, and Goodman nails the look and mannerisms of the famed right wing
artist. You wouldn’t think that The Dude and Walter would get along so well –
they seem like complete opposites politically, but the two never really discuss
politics – although the Dude does get exasperated when Walter keeps bringing up
Vietnam (my favorite Vietnam related line “This is bowling, not Vietnam, Smoke.
There are rules”). The rest of the cast – from Buscemi to Huddleston to a
Julianne Moore, with a strange accent, to John Turturro warning everyone “Not
to fuck with the Jesus”, to Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lebowski’s sycophant of
an assistant, to Ben Gazzara as a pornographer, to Davis Thewlis, in a one
scene performance of pure absurd brilliance, are also spot on. The Coens have a
way of figuring out the perfect actors for their films, and are seldom wrong.
As
we have come to expect from the brothers as well, The Big Lebowski is endlessly
visually inventive – from the exaggerated production design on The Big
Lebowski’s house, to the bizarre, drug induced dream sequences/musical numbers,
to a shot that quite literally looks out from inside a bowling ball, the Coens
do not seem to be happy unless they are endlessly trying something new. Their
meticulous attention to detail and their control freak ways may seem at odds
with a story as loose as the one here – but I think it helps to keep the movie
from going too far over the top. For what The Big Lebowski is, it’s pretty much
perfect.
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