by Jonathan English
December 2023
Since its release twenty-five years ago, the reputation of the Coen brothers’ film The Big Lebowski has ascended steadily, achieving mythic cult status. Yet even so, it remains underappreciated and somewhat misunderstood. Some have elevated the protagonist, celebrating his endearing qualities, viewing him almost as a model, with his laid-back zen-aspiring wuwei California coolness. And there may be a hint of truth in that perception. But if we look again, and simply glance beneath the surface, new contours come to light, adding complexity to the status-quo view of the Coen brothers’ beloved film in the process.
The film transcends categorization as mere comedy or mystery, or even synthesis of the two. In part, it’s framed as a Western (complete with near shoot-out at the end), and its commentary on the “West” provides a key to its self-conscious satire. In its tottering path through Los Angeles, the film satirizes three stereotypical vices associated with the city (and America more broadly): indolent aimlessness, casual drug use, and increasing embrace of the porn industry. Most explicitly it targets the first listed vice—the narrator singles it out—which significantly subsumes the two others. In doing so, as will be seen, the satire provocatively engages with the Russian literary idea of the “superfluous man.”
Yet it’s a tribute to the directors’ love for their characters that the story is never reduced to satire. Audiences justifiably continue to celebrate their iconic creation in the Dude (Jeff Bridges), admiring his endearing qualities, while missing some of the satire in the process. Like the Great Gatsby in the Roaring Twenties, the Dude in the early 90s is emblematic of his time and place—in ways that are not always admirable. The Coen brothers’ iconic narrator (the “Stranger”) makes this explicit from the outset.
In the opening sequence, the narrator (Sam Elliot) speaks with a Western accent, and he calls attention to the Dude’s nickname, his character, and his setting. “This Lebowski, he called himself ‘the Dude.’ Now, Dude, that’s a name no one would self-apply where I come from.” Immediately, the narrative contrasts the Old West and the West that had materialized in 1990, when the story is set. As the narrator hints, the term “dude” originally had a negative connotation from the Westerner’s point of view, indicating a city dweller unaccustomed to life on the range, a frivolous dandy, an inexperienced Easterner in the West. In short, the Dude’s nickname implies an unfavorable comparison to the toughness, diligence, and experience previously necessary for life in the West. Yet as we will see, the story is not exactly a paean for Old West virtues. Vices associated with both the Old and the New West—bravado, self-importance, and frivolous violence—come in for criticism too.
The narrator goes on, making a pivotal statement, almost a thesis statement, commenting on the Dude’s relationship to the City of Angels:
Sometimes there’s a man—I won’t say a hee-ro, ‘cause what’s a hee-ro?—but sometimes there’s a man . . . and I’m talkin’ about the Dude here—sometimes there’s a man who, wal, he’s the man for his time’n place, he fits right in there—and that’s the Dude, in Los Angeles.
As for the city itself, the narrator has already observed a certain irony in the name, hinting at its less than angelic nature: “They call Los Angeles the City of Angels. I didn’t find it to be that exactly.” Then he continues his characterization of the Dude: “and even if he’s a lazy man, and the Dude was certainly that—quite possibly the laziest in Los Angeles County . . . which would place him high in the runnin’ for laziest worldwide—but sometimes there’s a man . . . sometimes there’s a man . . .” The narrator repeats the refrain, hammering home the point that the Dude is supposed to be representative of something, some point, some vague dissipation typical of his time and place.
All of this evokes the core of the concept of the “superfluous man” in Russian literature, an individual characterized by passivity, lack of ambition or purpose, and a rejection of and failure to contribute to society more broadly. In this light, the film’s repeated allusions to Russian history and literature appear more strategic than accidental. One can’t help noticing: (1) the ubiquitous White Russians (the Dude’s favorite drink, but also calling to mind the White movement of the Russian Civil War which was defeated by the communist, Bolshevik Reds); (2) the much-discussed nihilist threat (a repeated subject of Russian literature); (3) the Dude’s apparently Polish surname, with its Russia-adjacent, Russia-threatened origin; and (4) the story’s unique “hero” with links to the (Russian) history of the “superfluous man.”
Indeed, the film’s carefully crafted opening narration—invoking the word “hero,” identifying the Dude as “the man for his time and place,” and hinting at the principal vice of the Dude and his city—echoes the title and in-your-face irony of the novel A Hero of Our Time by Russian author Mikhail Lermontov. The novel is considered an emblematic “superfluous man” narrative. But the author notes that his satire goes beyond the individual. In his own preface, Lermontov provocatively claimed: “[the story] is in fact a portrait, but not of an individual; it is the aggregate of the vices of our whole generation in their fullest extent.” A parallel claim can be made about the aim of the satire in The Big Lebowski, though it differs greatly in tone from A Hero of Our Time. With its unique, endearing, empathetic touch, the movie comically incites its entire cast of characters to satirize the vices of our own time and place.
The rest of the story flows fittingly from this introduction, as the Dude’s life is thrown into tumult by both nihilist antagonists and a neoconservative friend. In a case of mistaken identity, bumbling bad guys mistake the Dude for the “Big Lebowski” (a more prominent, unrelated Lebowski) and urinate on the Dude’s rug in the process. Our hero’s friend, Vietnam veteran Walter Sobchak (John Goodman), suggests that this “unchecked aggression” will not stand, and he incites the Dude on a quest to restore his rug. Along the way, the Dude is dragged into a complex plot and several ironic roles—ransom courier, go-between, quasi-detective, and quasi-lover—all while trying to keep up with his bowling team’s all-important league tournament.
On his epic quest for the sake of his rug (itself a symbol of upside-down or petty priorities), the Dude employs a “strict . . . regimen” of various drugs, ranging from his popular White Russian cocktail to less licit concoctions. His language comically lifts his drug use to the realm of the medicinal—he claims they keep his mind “limber.” He’s even drugged by others a time or two, prompting some of the wildest (dream) sequences in the film.
But the Dude is not without natural intelligence, flashes of intuition, or feelings of conscience as he meanders through his investigation of a complex mystery. (In fact, he’s a natural PI, and he’s mistaken for one in the film.) Part of the brilliance of the Coen brothers is the way they create characters that are flawed yet still so central, endearing, relatable, even lovable. The Dude, with his nearly universal name, represents the common man—all of us viewers, “all of us sinners,” as the narrator puts it. In fact, the title of the film invites questions as to its significance and who really is the “Big” Lebowski. The film may be implying that the Dude is a bigger man—a more magnanimous character in some ways—than the more prominent, and fraudulent, Lebowski.
An ultimate tragedy of the film is how the Dude’s laziness, or tepid conviction, makes him unable counteract the rash aggression of his loyal friend Walter Sobchak, who is willing to fight for any principle, no matter how petty. Earlier, this includes pulling a gun at the bowling alley to enforce an immaterial lane violation. But its most potent revelation comes at the end. When confronted by the nihilists in the parking lot of their bowling alley, the Dude is wisely willing to give up a few dollars to avoid a fight. Walter is not, and tragedy ensues. But the story hints things could have been different, if only . . .
As the film’s gentle satire suggests, our hero takes things a bit too easy at times, while the Walters of this world can learn a bit more humility and humaneness from people like the Dude. Indeed, Walter’s rash self-righteous overconfidence, closely associated with the stereotypical “Ugly American” type, is a clear subject of satire in the film too. Perhaps, the story seems to be saying, great tragedy or evil can be avoided with a little more effort, and a dash of deliberation and virtue. Even if the effort, at times, employs strategic wuwei non-action. Put another way, the film is a love letter to LA, as well as a cautionary tale. Slyly, it cautions and cajoles, its dreamlike reverie striving to wake us to avoid the LA vices as well as the superfluity of the “superfluous man” and the rash self-righteous imposition of the “ugly American.”
The film ends with the Stranger narrating again, with a carefully modulated tone shifting from sincerity to mild irony to pointed thoughtful sadness and back to humor. “I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that [the idea that the Dude “abides”]. It’s good knowin’ he’s out there, the Dude, takin’ her easy for all us sinners. . . .” That’s the partly ironic part, arguably. Then the narrator comments pointedly on the tragic element of the story, shaking his head and lamenting that he didn’t like that part.
In the end, the Dude doesn’t change. He may abide—with his admirable aptitude for contentment, social commentary, and commitment to friends—but he doesn’t really grow. As if to punctuate that conclusion, late in the story, when the Stranger asks about excessive cussing, the Dude reflexively responds, true to character, with yet another expletive-rich reply. Yes, the Dude abides, but without maturing much. In contrast, the Stranger offers the audience a gently critical perspective. He offers a chance to step back a bit from immersive or excessive identification with the everyman protagonist of our era. Our own response to such criticism is an open question. Even if the characters don’t learn from the story, maybe . . . eventually . . . we will.
Photo by Rafal Maciejski, courtesy of Pexels.
ENCOMIA 