The Big Lebowski Review
by Cheng-Jih Chen (postmaster AT cjc DOT org)April 22nd, 1999
I have no rugs in the apartment, beyond the necessary absorbent bath mat. The people in the apartment below mine aren't there most of the time, maybe on weekends but that's about it. I think in real estate marketting lingo, Apartment 3C is a pied-a-terre, which is French for "I am closer to living in a Merchant-Ivory film than you are." So, I haven't fulfilled my lease requirements for having 80% of the floor covered. Nonetheless, I truly identify with the Dude when some guys break into his apartment and pee on his rug.
"The Big Lebowski" is the Coen brothers latest film, the first since they've achieved mainstream appeal with "Fargo". I'm not sure what to say about it, beyond that it was damn funny, arguably their best pure comedy since "Raising Arizona". Yes, "Fargo", for example, is a funny film, but there's a certain macabre humor to the whole thing. The body count in "Lebowski" isn't that high, and isn't related to the main action.
The central figure is Lebowski, an unemployed bowling league member in Los Angeles. He doesn't call himself Lebowski -- he's the Dude to people who know him. In some sense, he's like the Man with No Name in standard Westerns, except he's not quite a Man of Purpose and Action. Through mistaken identity, his rug, which really brought the room together, is ruined, sending him off on a quest to get a new rug. He's the object of larger forces and designs, rather than the shaper of these external powers, just going with the flow.
That's the basic plot. I won't go further into it, partly for the sake of not revelaing spoilers, partly because the the plot is there more to show Lebowski, his friends, the people they meet, and Coens-style absurdity. There are elegant dream sequences involving Julianne Moore, and this fantastic shot from inside a bowling ball as it rolls down the lane. The miracles of fibre optic cameras are revealed here.
There's not that much more to say about the movie beyond, go see it. Yes, there may be bits and pieces of the idea of identity -- the Dude is basically as you see him, unlike most of the other people in the movie, even the John Goodman character who clings to Shabbat despite being an Irish Catholic -- as well as the Dude being like a block of uncarved wood in a sort of Taoist/Buddhist philosophizing, but, fundamentally, it's a funny film. Not much more needs to be said.
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