Other than The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it’s hard to imagine a cult movie with more devoted fans and cultural cache than The Big Lebowski. Quotes are exchanged between Lebowski obsessives with a combination of joy and nerdy satisfaction that can only be matched by a Simpsons lovefest. Dismissed by critics in 1998 as a disappointingly ambling follow up to the Coen Brothers’ Oscar-winning not-so-true crime masterpiece Fargo, fourteen years of worn out VHS tapes and countless DVD re-releases have been kind to this surreal crime comedy. Like all great cult movies, The Big Lebowski is compulsively quotable and hard to describe; a strange mix of affectionate film noir parody, LA eccentricity, bickering buddy comedy, and hallucinogenic romps for the herbally enhanced (it’s a complicated flick, lotta ins, lotta outs). But most importantly, the movie is hilarious. In fact, it now has to be considered one of the greatest comedies of all time, with Jeff Bridges as a shaggy, unemployed ex-hippy earning a slot next to Charlie Chaplin’s tramp in the movie comedy hall of fame.
Following a strange voiceover introduction from Sam Elliot that ends with the Western icon deciding that he “done introduced enough,” we meet Bridges’ Jeffery ‘The Dude’ Lebowski, possibly the laziest man in Los Angeles. A burned out ex-political activist who now lives for drugs, bowling, and paying 69-cent bills with cheques, the Dude doesn’t really have much going on. Of course, that all changes when a porno producer’s hired goons show up at his apartment demanding money and piss on his rug as a warning. Turns out they were looking for another Jeffery Lebowski, who the Dude decides to track down on the advice of his Vietnam veteran bowling buddy Walter (John Goodman) to try and get a little rug pee compensation. He quickly ends up in the middle of a bizarre kidnapping mystery, which he kind of solves inadvertently while sharing scenes with cameo appearances from some of the finest character actors of the 90s (John Turturro, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, etc).
The Coens are nothing if not classic crime film/novel enthusiasts. And, in a weird way, The Big Lebowski is their homage to the spiraling and vaguely surreal work of LA-based author Raymond Chandler (especially Robert Altman’s hazy ’70s spin on Chandler’s The Long Goodbye). His books featured gumshoes inadvertently drawn into mysteries from the sidelines. The mysterious crimes seem to balloon in scale with every strange side character the detective meets, before coming into a fuzzy focus they’ll never fully understand (famously, the screenwriters adapting his novel The Big Sleep for Humphrey Bogart called the author asking him to clarify a plot twist and Chandler admitted to being as confused as his readers). In many ways, The Big Lebowski follows this structure closely, the twist being that their protagonist is an unemployed stoner rather than a detective and his confusion is often as much as result of his recreational smoking habits as the convoluted nature of the case. It’s a hilarious little spin on an established formula that adds an extra layer of movie-geek hilarity if you’re looking for it.
Whether planned or not, the Chandler influenced structure is also ideal for the Coens special brand of eccentric character comedy. This style of gumshoe mystery demands a sprawling cast to fill out the plot and the Coens wring their ensemble players for endless laughs. Whether it’s Julianne Moore’s motor-mouthed “vaginal artist” or John Turturro’s obsessive bowling pederast (a character type we will never see again), every character who appears in the labyrinth narrative gets at least one scene to make the audience pee their pants. Writing their roles specifically for most of the cast, the Coens get incredible work across the board. Turturro is an amazing actor, but when he dies it’ll be clips from his less-than-five minutes of screentime as Jesus that plays on the evening news (he constantly claims that he wants to do a spin off movie with the character and hopefully it will happen one day). The same can be said of Goodman whose fascist, violent, war vet Walter qualifies as a career highlight. The role was apparently based on Dirty Harry/Red Dawn screenwriter John Millius and while he is typically too subdued in interviews and public appearances to tell if that’s completely true, Walter definitely looks exactly like the ’70s movie brat. Then of course there’s Jeff Bridges, one of the finest actors of his generation, who slips into the role of the stumbling stoner like a comfortable pair of jelly shoes. Bridges has never been more natural or hilarious, with his movie star looks disappearing under all the shaggy hair and ill-fitting slacker attire. The film is filled with what have become career-defining roles for members of the cast and in a performance driven medium like comedy that certainly doesn’t hurt.
While there are still plenty of people for whom the appeal of The Big Lebowski remains as difficult to grasp as the Dude’s perception of the movie’s plot, for all the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers out there, it’s an all time great. Lebowski Fests are held annually where fans can dress up and swap jokes like a Star Trek convention for indie film addicts. Given the film’s lackluster theatrical release, who would have ever seen that coming? But that’s the joy of cult films, a last haven of popular acceptance where forgotten classics are recognized for quality over timeliness and star appeal. But no matter how clever the screenplay is, how strong the performances are, or how stylized the Coens’ direction feels, this film will always be remembered for the laughs and that’s entirely subjective. For a certain audience, movies just don’t get any funnier than this and overhearing lines like “you’re out of your element,” “I’m just helping her conceive,” or “careful man there’s a beverage here” is enough to lead to an afternoon of nostalgic laughter. At this point, it’s probably clear how you feel about the film and nothing I say will sway you either way. I wish everyone could fall in love with The Big Lebowski, but I suppose the selective appeal is part of its charm. Everyone can live, but only a select few like the Dude can abide.
The Big Lebowski will screen at The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on Sunday April 15 at 3:30pm
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Phil Brown writes about classic films for Toronto Standard‘s Essential Cinema column.
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