The Big Lebowski

  Viewed September 5, 1999 on video

As is expected by now, the Coens throw out another impeccably-crafted weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird work to be marveled and puzzled at. But for what?  For one, it is a contemporary comment on Philip Marlowe, trying to reconcile (or not reconcile) Marlowe’s L.A. with that of the present.  It’s actually surprising to see how much it hasn’t changed ­ after all L.A., the quintessential city with no center, is perfect for horizontal movement from one isolated region to the next in a fruitless search for cohesion.  However, I found the real draw of the film to be its latest manifestation with the Coen’s continuing bout with their characters.  This movie, though less exhilarating, is a step up in characterization from the glorious overwrought-ness of, say, Raising Arizona from a decade ago. Two characters, the Dude and Walter, the guy John Goodman plays, are believable, interesting and more complex than the caricatures that surround, complicate and threaten their mundane bowling ball-driven existence. That's twice as many developed characters than Raising Arizona had. On the other hand, the Coens shouldn't be criticized for doing what they want to do if they want to litter their sets with hyperbolized versions of zany TV characters, it’s their budget.

  In a way it’s not even fair to smack the Coens for being un-realistic; their plots, their character, and even their general sense of humor is a swallowed up and spit out version not of reality (as my friend who will go nameless would contend) but of TV’s swallowed up and spit out version of reality.  At least they willingly make their sources fairly evident; the problem that they have come upon (especially since Fargo proved what wonders they can do with real people) is that somehow over the years of hyper-stylism they have developed an ear and eye for behavior from real people.  This is highly evident from Jeff Bridges wonderfully mannered performance as the Dude, and to a lesser extent, John Goodman’s character.  In stark contrast, everyone else seems to be randomly tossed out there for us to be amused by, like so many flashes of paint sent from the airborne Maude Lebowski’s brush.  Perhaps the slovenly arrangement of characters, like the plot, which unravels into a mess from one day to the next, is supposed to reflect the manner in which the muddling Dude filters his existence.  Whatever the case, the experience of this film manages to be highly watchable for all of its pointlessness, not unlike rubbernecking.

We know that the Coens have consciously bouted with the issue of depicting working-class characters with a sense of truthfulness, ever since the point was exposited quite plainly in Barton Fink.  Since then the Coens have gone from transforming obvious stock characters (The Hudsucker Proxy) to hyper-realistic ones (Fargo) to this movie, which has more of the former than the latter, and then some.  Their upcoming project, O Brother Where Art Thou? promises more along this line of inquiry.  To be honest, character development is really all I look forward to examining with each new Coen brothers’ movie, since no matter what new genre twists, narrative contrivances or point-of-views from bowling balls they come up with, their visual weirdness remains a predictable constant.

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