I first saw Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski upon its release in 1998. It didn’t exactly blow me away. The film was their follow-up to Fargo, which remains a masterpiece, and which itself could well be an entry in this series. That picture was a hard act to follow. I firmly recall liking Lebowski, but feeling that it bogged down the longer it went on. “It’s no Fargo” was the thought that kept running through my head. A decent enough flick, but not one of the Coens’ high points.
Man, was I ever wrong about that!
My occasion for revisiting The Big Lebowski was simple: I’d just seen No Country For Old Men and decided to go back and re-watch a few of their earlier efforts. A 10th anniversary DVD was released and on sale, so I picked it up. On second viewing, I laughed non-stop. Not only did I laugh, but I began quoting the movie constantly. “Be careful, man, there’s a beverage here!” and “Is this your homework, Larry?” became popular refrains in my household. (My wife, who’s never seen the film, doubtlessly wondered what I was talking about. Then again, she’s used to this sort of behavior from me.) A few months later, I stumbled across Lebowski on cable and couldn’t stop watching. After initially dismissing it as good-but-not-great, I’d somehow gained a radical new appreciation for this comedy.
How did I fail to “get” the movie on first viewing? Well, for starters, The Big Lebowski is not an easy movie to grasp. On the surface, it is a simple story about Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), a stoner who is mistaken for another guy named Jeff Lebowski – one who owes money to some very dangerous people. With the help of his intense Vietnam Vet friend Walter (John Goodman), the Dude attempts to clear his name. Underneath that basic exterior lies a story that incorporates bowling, a ferret, a urine-stained rug, a pornographer, German thugs, a child’s homework assignment, Saddam Hussein, and a mysterious artist played by Julianne Moore. And, oh yeah – there are musical dream sequences. To say that digesting all this in one sitting is overwhelming would be an understatement.
A more relevant explanation is that The Big Lebowski was ahead of its time. The film’s deadpan humor wasn’t particularly in style in 1998, a year in which the biggest comedy hit was the outrageous There’s Something About Mary. The Coens intentionally took a lot of bizarre, not-necessarily-funny-on-their-own elements, then mixed them all together in a straight-faced way. Yes, the movie is intentionally eccentric, but it never seems to want to admit that it’s trying to be funny. When Cameron Diaz mistakes Ben Stiller’s man-juice for hair gel, it’s your cue to laugh. Lebowski never gives you the cue; it just throws this stuff in your lap and lets you figure out why it’s supposed to be funny. No wink wink, no nudge nudge. Time has deepened my ability to appreciate the cutting-edge manner in which the Coens pulled this off.
The performances are so good that, in retrospect, one has to wonder how Bridges and Goodman weren’t nominated for Oscars. Their chemistry – one playing the ultimate slacker, the other bringing new meaning to the term “high strung” – is nothing short of brilliant. The screenplay is filled with quotable lines. The Dude’s dream, which at one point has him gliding just above the ground and looking up the skirts of dancing female Viking bowlers, is one of the greatest musical sequences ever committed to film. There is so much to love here that you almost have to see Lebowski multiple times in order to fully embrace it all.
I may have underestimated it in 1998, but these days, there’s no denying that The Big Lebowski is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. The Dude abides.
Next time: A movie so powerful it literally made me question the reliability of everything I ever learned in school.
