Guest GregM Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 (edited) . . .and I thought I was obsessed with the film The Big Lebowski. http://www.lebowskifest.com/faq.asp Edited August 1, 2003 by GregM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Dye Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 (edited) They even have a Lebowskifest Forum. http://www.lebowskifest.com/forum/default.asp Edited August 1, 2003 by Jim Dye Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Williams Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 I love the Coen brothers, but I've tried three time to get through that film, and can't do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest GregM Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 (edited) Keep trying. It will grow on you like a tumor. Jeffrey Lebowski: Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn't that what makes a man? The Dude: Sure, that and a pair of testicles. Edited August 1, 2003 by GregM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Dye Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Templejazz Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 I'm with David, I couldn't understand after watching it why this movie is so great. My favorite Coen Bros. films are Raising Arizona and Fargo. I haven't seen any others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest GregM Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 My favorites are O! Brother, Big Lebowski and Barton Fink. Tha's right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Templejazz Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 Barton Fink, eh? I didn't know that was the Bros. on that one. I'll have to check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Larsen Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 My favorites are O! Brother, Big Lebowski and Barton Fink. I'd go with Barton Fink. Blood Simple was somewhat flawed, but a classic nonetheless, for the final "through the wall" shooting scene if nothing else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 Love LEBOWSKI. Especially because I see it as being a big middle finger in the face of Quentin Tarrantino. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest GregM Posted August 1, 2003 Report Share Posted August 1, 2003 How so (the finger to Tarantino)? I didn't make that connection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzdog Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 "Where's the fuckin' money, Lebowski"? I had trouble with it he first time I saw it, but the second and EVERY successive time I have enjoyed it tremendously! I would say, if you can't get pas the dream sequences and can't figure out how they parlay into the film, you are gonna have trouble getting through it. Is it their best film? Perhaps not, but as Walter says in the film, "The beauty is in the simplicity" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFrank Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 Basically, what JazzDog said. I was not impressed the first time around, either. Shut the fuck up, Donnie!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minew Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 I love the Coen brothers, but I've tried three time to get through that film, and can't do it. Try smoking some marijuana before the film starts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 I see the film as a send up of Raymond Chandler novels (hear me out on this one). Like most of Chandler's Philip Marlowe stories, "The Big Lebowski" is set in L.A. It involves a wheelchair bound millionaire (reminicent of "The Big Sleep") and a blackmail/kidnapping attempt. Most of Chandler's books are set in L.A.'s seamy underbelly, often involving pimps and pornographers. "The Big Lebowski" basically takes a clueless everyman (the Dude) and lands him in the middle of a Philip Marlowe novel. But while Marlowe is always a step ahead, the Dude is always a step behind (notice that he's always repeating the last thing a person said, usually after they've moved on to another topic). But, like Marlowe, the Dude manages to pull everything together and solve the mystery. It's very funny, if you are at all familliar with the conventions of Hard Boiled Detective fiction and Film Noir. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzdog Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 I see the film as a send up of Raymond Chandler novels (hear me out on this one). Basically that is exactly how the Coens saw the whole film. It is as much a send up of Marlowe as much as it is an homage. If you check out the interview on the dvd version of the film they discuss a few details for comparisons sake!  But while Marlowe is always a step ahead, the Dude is always a step behind (notice that he's always repeating the last thing a person said, usually after they've moved on to another topic). "You mean, coitus?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest GregM Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 (edited) I see the film as a send up of Raymond Chandler novels (hear me out on this one). Like most of Chandler's Philip Marlowe stories, "The Big Lebowski" is set in L.A. It involves a wheelchair bound millionaire (reminicent of "The Big Sleep") and a blackmail/kidnapping attempt. Most of Chandler's books are set in L.A.'s seamy underbelly, often involving pimps and pornographers. "The Big Lebowski" basically takes a clueless everyman (the Dude) and lands him in the middle of a Philip Marlowe novel. But while Marlowe is always a step ahead, the Dude is always a step behind (notice that he's always repeating the last thing a person said, usually after they've moved on to another topic). But, like Marlowe, the Dude manages to pull everything together and solve the mystery. It's very funny, if you are at all familliar with the conventions of Hard Boiled Detective fiction and Film Noir. The entire film can be viewed from the context of Bush 1's statement "I am drawing a line in the sand". The footage of Bush I delivering that line is shown right at the get-go and paraphrased at several points throughout. Someone stepped over the dude's line and peed on his rug that held the room together. The Marlowe spoofing and Chandler rip-offs were really just a vehicle for the Coens to pay tribute to one of their influences. It's not just spoofing for spoofing sake--the Coens always have something going on under the surface, even if it's not serious. Also, I don't think the dude was a step behind. He comes up with the theory that "she kidnapped herself" right away. What really makes his thinking on the case "very uptight" (as he says), is his view throughout that the "big" Jeffrey Lebowski is more legitimate and upstanding than him, which is the real illusion as it turns out. The movie goes from the dude being called a bum by lebowski to lebowski being called a bum by the dude. The dude stayed true to his line in the sand and lebowski didn't. That's my read, anyway. Edited August 2, 2003 by GregM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 By "send-up," of course, I didn't mean that the Coens were mocking Chandler. I had not seen any interview with the Coens regarding this film, so I came up with the whole Chandler/Marlowe thing on my own. Pretty cool, since I was right on the money. Greg, the Gulf War I stuff was as much a part of the film as the Marlowe stuff, no question. Otherwise they wouldn't have set the film in 1991. I just think the Marlowe parody is more to the point than the "line-in-the-sand" stuff, important as it is. Now I have to defend the Dude always being a step behind. He is always a step behind. He's constantly stoned and distracted! Yes, he came up with the right answer immediately, but he had John Goodman shouting in one ear, the Big Lebowski shouting in the other, the Nihlists making their demands, Lebowski's daughter coming on to him...etc. All of these distractions keep the Dude from putting the pieces together they way Marlowe would. The Dude is, after all, just a stoner who likes to bowl. He's not a Hard Boiled Detective! The pay-off, if you will, is that in spite of all the distractions, the Dude still figures it all out. And it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to him! "The Dude abides," after all. Donnie's death means more to the Dude in the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacman Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 the Coen Bros. crack me up. so far i've liked all their films, especially, The Big Lebowski, Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Fargo, Raising Arizona, The Man Who Wasn't There, O Brother, and Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy. Looking forward to seeing, Intolerable Cruelty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest GregM Posted August 3, 2003 Report Share Posted August 3, 2003 Alexander said: I just think the Marlowe parody is more to the point than the "line-in-the-sand" stuff, important as it is. It's a question of style vs substance. You're focused on the stylistic nods to Chandler. But what does the story really say, if anything--that's what intrigues me. Now I have to defend the Dude always being a step behind. He is always a step behind. He's constantly stoned and distracted! Yes, he came up with the right answer immediately, but he had John Goodman shouting in one ear, the Big Lebowski shouting in the other, the Nihlists making their demands, Lebowski's daughter coming on to him...etc. All of these distractions keep the Dude from putting the pieces together they way Marlowe would. I don't see it like that, but ok. The Coens are experts at plot twists, avoiding cliches and keeping an audience guessing. They threw in elements like Treehorn's goons and the toe from the Eurotrash chick to do exactly that. The Dude is, after all, just a stoner who likes to bowl. He's not a Hard Boiled Detective! And this isn't a hard boiled mystery. It's more about identity, i.e., who is lebowski? He may be a stoner who likes to bowl, but that is just the zen of his "time and place". "It's good knowin' he's out there, the Dude, takin' her easy for all us sinners. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes The finals. Welp, that about does her, wraps her all up. Things seem to've worked out pretty good for the Dude'n Walter, and it was a purt good story, dontcha think? Made me laugh to beat the band. Parts, anyway. Course--I didn't like seein' Donny go. But then, happen to know that there's a little Lebowski on the way. I guess that's the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' it-self, down through the generations. . ." The pay-off, if you will, is that in spite of all the distractions, the Dude still figures it all out. And it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to him! Yeah, it does. He storms into the socialite's mansion more pissed off than at any other time in the story, and Walter pulls the big lebowski out of the wheelchair and dumps him on the ground. In the end, the Dude is the bigger man and the big lebowski is a charlatan. Appearances aren't what they initially seem. The man who served his country and lives in the big mansion turns out to be the bum and the man who gets stoned and goes bowling turns out to be the. . . I won't say a hee-ro, 'cause what's a hee-ro?--but sometimes there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here-- sometimes there's a man who, wal, he's the man for his time'n place, he fits right in there--and that's the Dude, in Los Angeles. And even if he's a lazy man, and the Dude was certainly that--quite possibly the laziest in Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide--but sometimes there's a man. . . sometimes there's a man. Wal, I lost m'train of thought here. But--aw hell, I done innerduced him enough." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFrank Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 (edited) After a screening of "The Big Lebowski," Patrick Evans laughs at Billy Doyle as The Dude character. Chronicle photo by Mike Kepka SF Chronicle Bowling, 'The Dude' and 200 'Achievers' Showing of cult film 'The Big Lebowski' draws the faithful - Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, September 27, 2004 The cult of Lebowski has arrived in the Bay Area. That's Lebowski -- as in Jeff Lebowski, the protagonist in the 1998 Coen brothers film, "The Big Lebowski." But please, call him "The Dude." The movie about a middle-aged stoner/slacker anti-hero played by Jeff Bridges has grown in popularity since its paltry box office debut. And, in only a few years, it has joined that special class of cinema that inspires some fans to go a little nutty. "Lebowski Fest" -- a celebration of all things Lebowski -- has been held around the country, and a showing of the film Saturday night in a parking lot near Oakland's Jack London Square attracted more than 200 people. Many of those same fans attended a party later at the Oakland arts cooperative Oaklandish, which sponsored the showing, competing in a costume contest and a trivia challenge. Melissa Schaefer, a 26-year-old "Achiever" (the preferred name for the Lebowski faithful) who organized the event, has seen the film a mere 15 times. "That's not average for Achievers at all," she said, somewhat embarrassed. Schaefer was dressed as Saddam Hussein, who makes an appearance as a bowling shoe cleaner in one of the movie's dream sequences/drug trips. She envisioned such a showing as a way to connect different groups of friends who constantly quote the movie. "I was like, 'I need to get them together so they can quote at each other and away from me.' But the funny thing is in watching this a million times and organizing it, I am now one of them," she said. The movie's fans in Oakland couldn't pinpoint why the movie resonates with so many, but they had an even harder time articulating what the movie means. "What's it about? Good question. I can't really say," said Billy Doyle, a 33-year-old San Franciscan who dressed as The Dude, for the event - pajama bottoms, sandals, a Corona Baja pullover and a White Russian in hand. His shaggy hair was pulled into a pony tail. "I think why a lot of people like it is they see The Dude, and want to have a life like that. Not particularly like his, but one that's carefree," he said. Generally, the film's plot revolves around The Dude's quest to replace his living room rug. In a case of mistaken identity, thugs looking for a different Jeff Lebowski, who is a millionaire, beat up The Dude, then urinate on his rug. He's upset because -- and here's an oft quoted line -- the rug "really tied the room together." The Dude, whose only real interest is bowling, finds the other Lebowski. The film continues in a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" style where the plot results from the interacting personalities of the characters rather than life events guiding the development of those characters. Or simply: The characters don't learn from their mistakes. John Goodman plays The Dude's closest friend, Walter, a Vietnam veteran who fluctuates between states of post traumatic stress disorder and devout Judaism. Other characters include a feminist artist seeking a sperm donor, the ex-porn star wife of the millionaire Lebowski and an arch nemesis bowler/child molester. "I think it's really about the characters," Schaefer said. "You think of your friends like this who you can't deal with and you love them anyway." The movie is so popular more than 4,000 Achievers attended a "Lebowski Fest" in Louisville, Ky., in June and 1,500 packed a bowling alley in Queens in August for the New York City stop. The Bay Area is not an official festival site, so Saturday's showing was a guerrilla event. For Dan Moore, a 34-year-old Mountain View resident who set up lawn chairs and a coffee table on top of a Dude-esque rug, the film gets funnier every time he watches it. Many of the film's scenes have subtleties that appear elsewhere, in effect tying the film together, he said. "It's about The Dude; for him, he has a really simple life. And something for him that tied it all together was taken and he is trying to get it back. He's not really sure how he's doing it and all these forces are acting for him or against him. He just goes along trusting that it will work out," said Moore, who has seen the film more than 30 times. Moore said that philosophy resonates with him, and it's a connection with The Dude that seems to draw most of the film's fans. "Everyone can understand The Dude. You know, sometimes you just got to let go, just like The Dude," Schaefer said. "The Dude abides." Edited September 29, 2004 by BFrank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Alfredson Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 The Coen Bros. are brilliant! I love The Big Lebowski but I've noticed that it's a guy's movie. I mean, my wife's sister, who is a fanatic movie buff, doesn't even like the movie. If any woman dug it, it would be her. Do you know any women who like this movie? O Brother, Where Art Thou? I could watch that movie a thousand times! The atmosphere, the acting, the movie, the music, the cinematography... it's all brilliant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 Barb loathes this movie, but then she hates any movie where the word "fuck" is used more than twice. This one definitely qualifies! The thing is, I watched it by myself first and didn't even notice; the dialog was just so "right" for the characters! And since Sam Elliot is a favorite of hers, I thought.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTMX Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 Great dialogue. The Dude : That's a great plan, Walter. That's fuckin' ingenious, if I understand it correctly. It's a Swiss fuckin' watch. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Dude : Jesus, man, could you change the channel? Cab Driver : Fuck you man. If you don't like my fuckin' music get your own fuckin' cab! The Dude : I had a rough... Cab Driver : I pull over and kick your ass out! The Dude : Come on, man. I had a rough night and I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 (edited) "You're out of your league, Donnie!" Edited September 29, 2004 by Matthew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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