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After a night of bowling, philosophizing (with Walter and, partially, Donny) and grocery shopping (he needs cream for his Kahlua), the Dude arrives home to a mysterious predicament: From out of nowhere, two thugs pounce on him, slam his head into his toilet, and then--the ultimate insult--piss on his rug. Mistaking the mellow Lebowski for the Pasadena millionaire "The Big Lebowski" (David Huddleston), the criminals attempt to recover money owed by the wealthier Lebowski's porn-star wife, Bunny (Tara Reid), who has run up debts all over L.A. It doesn't take long for the thugs to realize that they are in the residence of a poor man, and they leave an annoyed Dude with a ruined rug and creamer spilled all over the bathroom. From this incident, the movie begins to take on its highly bendable form. After much prodding from Walter, the Dude goes to Lebowski's mansion in order to demand a new carpet, because, as Walter puts it, "That rug, it tied the room together!" The Dude doesn't get his rug, but he does get a screaming lecture about being a worthless bum--and soon, he gets much more. After the Dude's visit, Bunny is kidnapped; thinking that the Dude's confused trespassers may be responsible, Lebowski hires the Dude as the bagman for the ransom money. Lebowski figures the Dude will be able to identify the kidnappers, and he promises generous payment. What ensues is a fantastical story of extortion and embezzlement that features among its many oddball characters a group of New Wave German nihilists (led by Fargo's Peter Stormare) fashioned after the band Kraftwerk; a feminist performance artist (Julianne Moore); a Busby Berkeley dream sequence; and a perverted Latino bowling champion (John Turturro), who fits tightly into a lavender stretch jumpsuit, but not necessarily into the film's plot. Any such wacko would figure prominently into the Coens' version of the American landscape. No sense makes perfect sense. As usual, Bridges is his underrated, understated and intriguing self, and he gives the film a dose of sanity. From his lazy L.A.-speak to the fattening up of his once-fit body, Bridges is comfortably in character, working nicely against Goodman and Buscemi; Bridges helps make their hilarious characters seem more human. His portrayal is not of a "white-trash" or stoned-hippie guy, but a likable and unromantically dumpy person who is also strangely attractive. Inside the Coens' gorgeously filmed picture, the normal guy, the Dude, is King, despite all those far more powerful people around him. But The Big Lebowski is not so simple as Jeff Bridges' perfections. Like all Coen Brothers films, the picture demands at least a second viewing, not only to remember all of the images, ideas and references packed onto the screen, but to properly digest them as well. To many critics, this exemplifies the Coens' shortcomings. The brothers have been accused of calculated coldness, shallow insight, excessive gimmickry and mocking their characters (as in Fargo and Raising Arizona). The Coens can be excessive, but this is an element of their style; Fellini was excessive, too. They are also occasionally distant from their characters (which isn't the case in Raising Arizona and Fargo), but not with the intention of cold exploitation. By not coercing the viewer into immediate attachment to their characters, they allow us the distance necessary to think about what is being presented. Like pondering the meaning of a particularly intense dream, their films force us to float outside ourselves, hang over our bodies and look back in. What we see is more than just a reflection of our own absurdities, but a distorted mirror of our collective consciousness as well. In their visual brilliance, clever satires and impeccable casting, the Coens have the power to make something as simplistic as a tumbleweed enigmatic, culturally significant and exotic. |
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