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Happy Christmukkah to all the Little Urban Achievers out there!
Today I am reposting my love letter to my favourite movie of all time. I might just make this an annual tradition. Enjoy your time off, taking it easy for us all sinners. And if you’re in Toronto for New Year’s Eve and want to usher in the new year abiding, might I recommend you catch a screening of TBL at the Hot Docs Cinema. Thanks to my student Emily Zohar who let me in on this annual tradition.
Merry Christmas everyone. Yeah, yeah, I’m supposed to greet you with a generic Happy Holidays, but today is Christmas day, so merry Christmas it is.
I’ve always loved Christmas, which is a strange thing for a Jew to say. But what’s not to like? I love the office parties where we get to see our bosses or co-workers in sometimes compromising positions (informational hostages?). I love all the food—panettone anyone? I love the ugly sweaters. And I even love the music—my fave Xmas song has got to be Wham!’s Last Christmas. And, as a Jew, I celebrate the birth of Jesus as it should be celebrated—with other Jews stuffing our faces with Chinese food. In this spirit of giving, I decided to write a lighthearted post about my favourite movie of all time, The Big Lebowski. Think of it as a little Christmas gift for all the Little Urban Achievers out there.
I was one of those rare people who saw The Big Lebowski in a movie theatre when it was first released in 1998. While the movie became a cult classic years later, it bombed with critics and movie goers alike upon its initial release. I was in the first year of my PhD at Brown University and watched the movie with my good friend Terry McGee at the cineplex near the Lincoln Center in New York City.
I liked the movie, but it didn’t leave much of an impression and I found the plot confusing in spots. But some scenes did stay with me because they were so absurd, and when I found myself in a different state of mind (lol), they made me chuckle. Like the scene with the Black cab driver who kicks the Dude out of his cab because the Dude bad-mouthed The Eagles. I too hated (and still hate) The Eagles, so I felt like the filmmakers were speaking to me personally, showing me that my hatred was not so uncommon. Or the scene of Walter smashing a brand-new Corvette while repeatedly invoking the phrase, “You see what happens Larry? This is what happens Larry when you… find a stranger in the Alps!” These were funny scenes, but nothing more.
Then a few months later I heard my friend Kamran Diba—now a professor of neuroscience at the University of Michigan—quoting a scene, and I was amazed he had seen, let alone liked the movie. Clearly, I had missed something. The movie was out of theatres after a short run but was released on DVD (or was it VHS?) soon thereafter, and Kamran had a copy.
I watched it with him and my other grad school buddies again. And again. And again. After each viewing, the movie got funnier and deeper and more meaningful. I was in love, smitten with the Dude, Walter, and Donny, but also Maude, Jesus, Bunny, and even Knox Herrington. I started getting into the Coen brothers’ other films. What was more, I learned that other people, mostly other men, also loved the movie and watched it and quoted from it endlessly. I have since bonded with other Lebowski fans the world over and have deepened friendships based on our shared passion.
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So why do I and so many other middle-aged Gen X men love this movie so much? I’ll try to explain, though it might be unexplainable—maybe it’s some kind of eastern thing.
Let’s start by crossing one reason off the list: it’s not the plot. The plot is kind of confusing. It took me a few watches to untangle it, and when I finally got it, I realized my thinking about it had been far too uptight. The truth is the plot doesn’t really matter. Even Joel Coen, one half of the Coen brothers, admitted it’s a “hopelessly complex plot that’s ultimately unimportant.” But for those whose minds are not sufficiently limber, here’s a summary to help you abide.
Spoiler Alert (Brief Plot Summary)
Loosely inspired by the detective novels of Raymond Chandler, The Big Lebowski centers on Jeffrey Lebowski, better known as The Dude, who is mistaken for a wealthy philanthropist by the same name. This other Jeffrey Lebowski, the millionaire, is the big Lebowski. After thugs invade the Dude’s home and ruin his cherished rug, The Dude confronts the big Lebowski, only to be drawn into a bizarre scheme when the man claims his wife, Bunny, has been kidnapped. The Dude reluctantly agrees to deliver a $1 million ransom, roping in his volatile bowling buddy Walter Sobchak, who is rarely wrong but always an asshole, and the soft-spoken Donny, who is always out of his element. It’s eventually revealed that Bunny wasn’t kidnapped at all. She staged the disappearance herself, working with a group of nihilists to pocket the ransom. To make matters worse, the big Lebowski was never actually rich, living off a strict allowance from his late wife’s family, and had no intention of paying the ransom in the first place. What unfolds is a chaotic, absurd series of events where no one truly wins, but The Dude, ever unbothered, simply abides.
Again, the plot is not the issue. Forget about the plot.
So why do I love thee? Let me count the ways
1. I love the characters
First, there’s The Dude, played with effortless charm by Jeff Bridges, who somehow manages to make laziness seem heroic. The Dude gets all the love because he is easy going, carefree, tender-hearted, and quick to light a joint pretty much anywhere. He loves the band Creedence Clearwater Revival, bowling, and appears to have been unemployed for quite some time. In short, he’s a lovable 60s hippy burnout, who wears jelly shoes and Cowichan sweaters. (My awesome student Greg Depow, now postdoc at UCSD, once gifted me with a Cowichan sweater, and it is one of my prized possessions to this day). Jeff Bridges apparently strongly identifies with the Dude, too. In interviews, he’s mentioned that he sees a lot of himself in the character and has admitted to enjoying the occasional White Russian and being a bit of a hippie at heart. Bridges has also embraced the cultural phenomenon that The Dude has become.