Ethan and Joel Coen's The Big Lebowski was released in 1998 to general
bafflement. A decade on, it had become a cult classic and remains so
over 20 years later, inspiring a thriving circuit of 'Lebowski Fests'
during which costumed devotees gather at bowling alleys and guzzle White
Russians. Beyond its superabundance of deliciously quotable lines, how
has the movie inspired such remarkable affection? And why does its
critical stock continue to rise?
The film's unlikely anchor is Jeff Bridges' career-best performance as
Jeffrey Lebowski, a fully-baked 1960s radical turned Venice Beach
drop-out known to his friends as 'the Dude'. Mistaken for an
identically-named grandee whose young trophy wife is in trouble, the
Dude finds himself embroiled in an impossibly convoluted kidnap plot
involving pornographers, nihilists and threats to his 'johnson'. Worst
of all, it conflicts with his bowling commitments.
In part an irreverent pastiche of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep (as
filmed by Howard Hawks), The Big Lebowski is also a jukebox of film
history, littered with playful references to everything from Hitchcock
and Altman to Busby Berkeley. This riot of addled quotations reflects
the film's Los Angeles setting, a discombobulated world inhabited by
flakes, phonies and poseurs with put-on identities.
Like many Coen films, the movie plays havoc with the conventions of the
crime genre and the absurdities of classical American 'heroism'. But
it's also that rare thing: a comedy that gets richer, funnier and more
affecting with each viewing. Beneath its breakneck pacing and
foul-mouthed ribaldry, the Dude's story offers disarmingly humane
lessons in the value of simple things: friendship, laughter and bowling.
In their foreword to this new edition, the authors reflect on
Lebowski's cult status and its contemporary resonances as a film about
gentle non-conformity and friendship in an increasingly polarized world.
The new edition also includes an interview with the Coens, revealing the
origins of the name 'Jeffrey Lebowski'.
