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Not Their Best, Still Better than Most
by Richard McDonald
Have the Coen brothers, producer Ethan and director Joel, run out of wacky
tales to tell or compelling characters with which to fill them? Not yet.
The Big Lebowski is a sterling example of their ability to infuse the
hackneyed movie standard with originality and flair. This time it's about
the Dude, as the character of Jeff Lebowski requires to be addressed, a
career bum who happens to share his surname with a wealthy philanthropist
whose young wife has been kidnapped. The Dude is duped into delivering the
ransom and finds himself caught up in web of deception, extortion, police
brutality, bowling, car chases, nihilist porn stars and oriental rugs.
Jeff Bridges plays the Dude expertly and with subtle modulations when
events of the story require. At the beginning he is as laid back and
unmotivated as anyone can be without being dead. As the film unravels and
the convolutions of the plot become clear to him, the Dude becomes more
focused and pro-active, but his most sublime moments are the frequent loss
of consciousness he suffers at the hands of other less scrupulous characters.
Like something from a Dennis Potter story (The Singing Detective, Pennies
>From Heaven), the whimsical dream sequences, where the Dude imagines
himself in fantastic and idyllic surroundings, are built with a lush
graphic style and nostalgic reverence. In contrast, the Dude's day to day
existence is squalid and hedonistic. He indulges himself with a kind of
apathetic paranoia where he worries that things are completely out of his
control, or that someone is out to get him while he refuses to muster the
energy to do much about it.
Art direction by Rick Heinrichs and cinematography by Roger Deakins work
in very effective harmony. The settings, although often tawdry and
commonplace, like the bowling alley where much of the film takes place, are
beautifully realized in detail and coverage. The photographic elements of
proportion, point of view and colour are playfully mixed.
John Goodman as Walter Sobchak, a mildly sociopathic Vietnam veteran,
delivers the film's strongest performance, and one of the best of his
career. Similarly Julianne Moore excels as Maude Lebowski, the wealthy
heiress who takes a turn at pulling the Dude's strings. Other Coen regulars
appearing are John Turturro (Jesus), Steve Buscemi (Donny) , Peter Stormare
(nihilist porn actor) and Jon Polito (private investigator).
On the surface the story of The Big Lebowski is mundane and flat, with no
real message or meaning. In the string of sight gags there is little rising
action, climax or denouement in the traditional sense. The story, like the
life of the Dude, flows from one event to the next with a fatalistic ease.
There is a beginning, a middle and an end but nothing really changes. The
protagonist, like the audience, leaves the film at roughly the same place
he enters it. Perhaps the Coens are telling us that we should not burden
our art with providing the closure we crave but seldom achieve in life.
The Coen brothers have a certain style which elevates even the most
ordinary material. An assembly of wonderfully compelling and well acted
characters aided by stunning and playful visuals make The Big Lebowski
thoroughly entertaining, if not altogether satisfying. Given that their
failures are better then most film-maker's successes, the worst that could
be said of this film is that it is not the Coen brother's best effort.
Richard McDonald, 1998
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