It's a motif in Coen Brothers films to employ a virtuosic shot of an inanimate object: a hat or a hula hoop doing the Coens' whim seemingly by magic. In The Big Lebowski, the object is a tumbleweed, which—to the tune of its theme song, the Sons of the Pioneers' "Tumbling Tumbleweeds"—opens the film by rolling down from high plains into the Los Angeles Basin. It's one of the Brothers' plainest symbols, representing the film's main character, "The Dude," who drifts lazily through life. But it could also be read as another iteration of the Coens' worldview that shit happens, by random, depending on which way the godless wind is blowing.
Playing The Dude is Jeff Bridges, the man once described by critic Pauline Kael as "the most natural and least self-conscious screen actor that has ever lived." That canny assessment applies well to Bridges in Lebowski, endowing the Dude as he does with a goodhearted dimness and a zen capacity for recovery and contentedness that any tortured intellectual would envy. These qualities serve the Dude well when he's tested by a week that turns his life into a celebration of cinema genres, primarily the private-detective mystery. Loosely inspired by Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, The Big Lebowski essays what happens when The Dude, whose birth name is Jeffrey Lebowski, gets mixed up with a millionaire (David Huddleston) by the same name. The entanglement involves an inept kidnapping scheme, The Dude's attempt to collect restitution for a damaged carpet, and sundry other collateral damage against the backdrop of the Gulf War. (For the record, brothers Ethan & Joel Coen always co-write their scripts, while Ethan takes producer credit and Joel the director credit.)
It would be easy to try to make too much of The Big Lebowski, but to do so would be to fall into a quintessential Coen-esque trap. Like all Coen films, this one is as meaningless as it is potentially profound, but above all, Coen films are always tightly scripted, brilliantly performed, thoughtful dialogues on classic film genres with a tart sense of humor. In The Dude, the Coens offer an upbeat philosophical approach to cruel fate: roll with the punches and "abide" (one of the film's many, many quotable lines: "The Dude abides"). For what is the alternative? We see them in The Dude's orbit, most notably in his bowling buddies Walter Sobchak (John Goodman, in a hilarious, semi-affectionate parody of writer-director John Milius) and Donny (Steve Buscemi): the former is a high-strung, survivalist "patriot" who invites trouble, while the latter fruitlessly expects answers in life but is destined to remain eternally clueless.
The Dude also encounters avant-garde artist Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore), who's determined to collect his semen; a pack of nihilists (including Flea and Fargo fave Peter Stormare); porn impresario Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara); Cuban-American registered sex offender Jesus Quintana (Coen regular John Turturro); and a mysterious, drawling "Stranger" (Sam Elliott) in cowboy garb. The encounters of The Dude and The Stranger (who amusingly serves as narrator) suggest the film could be an East-meets-Western as well as a neo-noir comedy, and if all this playfulness makes the result feel slight, give it a return viewing or two or three. It's a cult movie proven to grow on audiences, and its visual punch (abetted by stalwart Coen cinematographer Roger Deakins), off-kilter dialogue, and dedication to forward motion—it's one thing after another—make Lebowski eminently watchable. It's the whole proud, embarrassing sociopolitical, cultural heap of American history-and the American Century in particular-in two fleet, funny hours. Or have I made too much of it?
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