The Big Lebowski: Sometimes There's a Man

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. 

        - Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder               

Sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude, in Los Angeles.

         - The Stranger, The Big Lebowski

Robert Altman's 1973 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye opens with Elliot Gould as Phillip Marlowe waking up in his apartment and sauntering out into the mid-70's LA evening to get food for his exceptionally picky cat. Altman and Gould have always been forthright about the fact that the loosely-intended conceit for this opening was a Rip Van Marlow scenario in which Chandler's iconic private eye of the 40s and 50s had fallen into a deep sleep and woken up a few decades later to find himself a man out of time. Gould wanders through the rest of the film encountering a distinctly Chanderlian roster of LA eccentrics and heavies, a decidedly moral and out-of-place figure eternally yet obligingly befuddled by the modern would in which he has found himself, his mantra an echoing "It's all right with me."

If it's all right with Gould, it's certainly alright with Dude. 

While Altman literally brought Marlowe into the present day of the early seventies, the Coens ease him into the early nineties by ossifying his very essence into the lackadaisically righteous soul of Jeff "the Dude" Lebowski.  There is no cinematic scion more appropriate to take on Marlowe's dispassionately moral mantle than the Dude. As the narrator informs us, he is the man of his time and for his time. Even if the wrong with which he has been charged with righting is here nothing more than an unjustly besotted rug, even if he moves with more of a shuffle than an unshakable purpose through the streets of a comparatively tamer LA, and even though his pursuit is somewhat more flappable than his forbears, there is still some sense of justice that burns dimly within the pot-misted shell of a man who admits in one of his more tender moments that he helped draft the original Port Huron Statement ("not the compromised second draft"). The dark alleys have been lit with neon and aligned with ten pins, the rat-a-tat Tommy Gun fire replaced with the echoing ka-boom of a well-timed strike, but the Dude saunters along through them all the same.

Crime fiction had been the one most singular, consistent influence on the Brothers ever since the beginning. Blood Simple was a conscious attempt to capture the seedy, lust-soaked pages of James M Cain while Miller's Crossing is so indebted to the work of Dashiell Hammett that he probably deserves a posthumous co-writing credit. Lebowski's form is all Chandler, from the shaggy dog nature of the overall story* to the specific characters within (David Hiddleston's titular Big Lebowksi is the inheritor of a proud tradition of wheelchair-bound millionaire plot instigators).  Jeff Bridges' performance as Lebowski the lessor may rest somewhat askew to the canon of cinematic Marlowes, drawn into a labyrinthine plot that he may not understand more by chance than by drive, yet they are kindred spirits. Much as Marlowe's world was irrevocably colored by the Last Great War, the Dude is a man haunted by the specter of conflict, an eternal pacifist whose best friend is a living reminder of an unjust war effort protested in futility. And just as the threat of Saddam looms in the Middle East promising a continuance of the cycle, the Dude is drawn ever deeper into the world of violence by his crazed companion. He stands in stark contrast to Chandler's loner by being a man kept constant company, often to his detriment, yet no matter how deeply he sinks, no matter what he encounters on the way, he is a man of unshakable resolve because he lives by a very specific, very refined code.

The Dude abides. 

And as the world slides to the brink, as greed and avarice lead us to the edge of cold, unfeeling nihilism, he'll slide into a pair of bowling shoes and sip on his White Russian, and we'll rest somehow easier knowing that he's out there, takin 'er easy for us sinners. 

- cs

 *My favorite Chandler anecdote (and there are many when we talk about the man who called Alfred HItchcock a "fat bastard" and so frustrated Billy Wilder that the director  start writing the Double Indemnity script in the office bathroom just to get away from him) is one that occured during production of the film version of The Big Sleep. In the middle of writing the screenplay, Howard Hawks and cowriter Leigh Brackett were having trouble figuring out who had murdered a particular character. They called Chandler for clarification, and upon re-checking his own manuscript the famously alcoholic writer called them back and confessed that he had no idea himself. If Big Lebowksi can be dismissed as nothing more than a shaggy-dog PI tale, it's at least in very good company. 

Christopher Sailor is the Programmer of Education for the Atlanta Film Festival. He also waxes cinematic at chrissailor.com   

The Big Lebowski screens at the Plaza this Thursday night at 9:30, and also Sunday afternoon at 1:00, as part of our Fall Focus on Directors screenings celebrating the work of Joel and Ethan Coen.

Fall Focus on Directors - Joel & Ethan Coen

Joel (l) and Ethan Coen (r) have been successfuly making highly original films on their own terms for nearly thirty years.

Upon accepting one of the three Oscars that he and his brother would each collect for their 2007 masterpiece No Country for Old Men, Joel Coen harkened back to some of their earliest childhood efforts - including "a movie about shuttle diplomacy called Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go" - and confessed, "what we do now doesn't feel that much different."

There is no further explanation than that needed for the enduring cinematic success of the Brothers Coen. Indeed, the pair cannot help but frustrate the critics and interviewers who would attempt to glean some explanatory insight into their process, some trick for keeping their cinematic odysseys from ever growing stale or uninspired, because there is no secret. They are merely a pair of brilliant and talented guys who have honed their storytelling gifts and followed their own interests without deviation for the entirety of their lives, let alone for that of their 30-year careers as filmmakers. They are a testament to the fragile promise that if an artist stays true to their own vision, no matter how personal or specific, the audience will not only find you but follow you anywhere. 

You will be hard-pressed to find filmmakers with an output that has been, by every definition of the word, as consistent as that of the Coens. At an average of one film every other year, with only one arguable stumble during that whole span (Ladykillers defenders, make your presence known in the comments!), the Coens are mystifying in their ability to hop so effortlessly over lines of genre and tone while maintaining a level of quality that leaves their fans in constant awe and delight . 

And they're only getting better. 

Atlanta Film Festival 365 is proud to present local cinephiles a chance to view a sampling of the Coens' best films on the big screen. We're starting with their debut feature, Blood Simple, this Thursday at 9:00 with an encore Sunday afternoon at 1:00. An equal mix of James M Cain and EC Comics, the film shows how fully-formed the skills and sensibilities of the brothers were right out of the box. It's also the first instance of the duo giving their unique twist on the Film Noir genre, a thread that continues through the rest of the series as we present No Country for Old Men on October 10th and 13th, Fargo on October 17th and 20th, and The Big Lebowski on October 24th and 27th.

Showtimes for all screenings are 9:00pm for Thursday shows and 1:00pm for Sunday matinees. Don't forget that members get in free, so tell all of your non-member friends to buy a pass to this year's festival and enjoy some of the best movies of the last 30 years on us. I'll be in the center row, grinning like an idiot the whole time, and I hope to see you there.

- cs

Christopher Sailor is the Programmer of Education for the Atlanta Film Festival. He also waxes cinematic at  chrissailor.com.