Analysis: "The Big Lebowski"

Hackneyed Internet memes aside, The Big Lebowski is one of the funniest movies made in the past 25 years, and one of the best comedies of all time, joining the esteemed ranks of Dr. Strangelove, Airplane!, National Lampoon's Animal House, Ghostbusters, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Caddyshack. It tells the tale of slacker and bowling enthusiast Jeff Lebowski  (Jeff Bridges), herein referred to as "The Dude" and his journey across Los Angeles, meeting a great deal of, interesting, characters. After a pair of thugs ambush him at his home and urinate on his rug and demand one million dollars, "The Dude" is left stupefied. After discussing this incident with this frineds and bowling partners, the erratic Vietnam vet Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi), he decides to visit the other Jeffrey Lebowski, the "big" Lebowski, known as such for his wealth. After arriving and demanding a new rug to compensate for the ruined one, he discovers that he must bring one million dollars to the thugs, thanks to some debts owed by Mrs. Lebowski (Tara Reid). The plan goes awry when Walter decides they should keep the cash for themselves. From here, "The Dude" must deduce what Mrs. Lebowski did, and whom she owes money to, meeting eccentric characters like Maude (Julianne Moore), the daughter of Jeffrey Lebowski, and director and loan shark Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara). There are really two ways to look at the film: a satire of classic detective stories, and an exemplary piece of modern absurdism or Dadaism. When the Coen Brothers were asked why they wanted to make the film, Joel Coen responded, "We wanted to do a (Raymond) Chandler kind of story- how it moves episodically, and deals with the characters trying to unravel a mystery, as well as having a hopelessly complex plot that's ultimately unimportant." For those who do not know, Raymond Chandler was a well-known novelist and screenwriter, whose works include writing featured in the pulp magazine The Black Mask, as well as writing the stories The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, both of which featured the character Philip Marlowe, who would be portrayed on film by the excellent Humphrey Bogart. All of his works are very influential, and The Big Sleep was adapted into a film noir that has since been a staple of the genre.

Any readers who have played LA Noire owe a huge debt to this film.

Like most detective fiction, Bogart portrays a hard-boiled, wisecracking, hard-drinking but intelligent and philosophical PI who is unfazed by femmes fatales and is determined to crack open any case. This is the antithesis to "The Dude," who is an unemployed slacker who spends his time drinking White Russians, getting stoned, and bowling with his buds. He's something of a fish out of water when he's thrown into the case of investigating just what happend to Mrs. Lebowski. It's really quite a satirical piece, and played hilariously by the Coen Brothers. Of course, almost all satire and message in the film is overshadowed by the farce of the situation; the entire film is set into motion because two dimwitted thugs broke into his house and soiled his rug. It only gets stranger and more surreal as the film progresses, from the dream sequences to the idiosyncrasies of the characters, such as Walter, who is so crazed he destroys a sports car with a crowbar because he suspects a teenager of foul play, to the German nihilists, who break into "The Dude's" home and drop a ferret in the bathtub, while "The Dude"bathes. Then, of course, there is Maude and her deeply feminist tendencies, to Jesus, the bowler who gets a bit too intimate with his bowling ball. It exemplifies a modern example of a 20th century European philosophy called Dadaism. Dadaism was an avant-garde philosophy that produced works that were marked with nonsense, absurdity, and incongruity, as showcased by this installment of xkcd. Sound familiar? It perfectly sums up the film: an absurd man and his equally bizarre friends traverse a Los Angeles filled with characters who flaunt absolute nonsense. The scene where Maude and "The Dude" meet is marked by Maude sharing details of her artwork, which are complete nonsense. Of course, the biggest example are the dream sequences. They are utterly nonsensical: depicting "The Dude" as a bowling pin, having him fly and hit the group, the ridiculously bizarre choreography. Everything that makes this film hilarious is what makes it a work of absurdism, and one that needs to be shown to all university students majoring in philosophy.