Sam Hoffman recommends The Big Lebowski

Filmmaker Sam Hoffman explains why "The Dude Abides".  

The Big Lebowski
Joel Coen, 1998
Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

One needn't be a Pauline Kael wannabe, a New Yorker intern, or a Truffaut-quoting NYU film-schooler to know that the Coen brothers are among our era's wittiest filmmakers. But is it my imagination, or has the genius of The Big Lebowski slipped through the cracks? I saw and enjoyed the film in the theater (on opening day) but dismissed it as "a lesser Coen." It was fun maybe, but coming on the heels of the wood-chipper-sharp black humor of Fargo, it somehow registered as a disappointment. Until a colleague showed me his tattoo.

This colleague is no slouch; he's a successful movie producer and a man I respect. He rolled up his sleeve, and I saw, across his bicep, Jeff Bridges's final words in The Big Lebowski: "The Dude Abides." Tattooed across his arm. Permanently. I decided to give the movie another look.

The Big Lebowski is a Coen take on the L.A. detective story, with the gumshoe character replaced by the Dude, a hapless, aging hippie bowler. True to genre form, he's beaten up by bad guys, beaten up by cops, slipped a mickey by the rich thug, and seduced by the society dame, and he ends up essentially unchanged. But within this structure, the Coens subvert everything familiar. The "artists" care about nothing, the "nihilists" complain that things aren't fair, the rich heiress just wants to get pregnant, and the hot-tempered Polish Vietnam vet is Shomer Shabbos. The only sacred thing seems to be bowling (penance for Fargo's Midwest bashing?), and those oiled lanes have never gleamed more radiantly than for Roger Deakins's camera. The cleverness, humor, and beauty are no surprise; these elements exist in every Coen brothers' movie. But Jeff Bridges's Dude pushes this film to another level. Like the rug that holds the room together, he takes an archetypal character and makes him human enough to recognize and care about and yet doesn't rob him of his essential dudeness. When he says, "The Dude abides," I let my guard down. I believe the Coens are serious. It's a life lesson worthy of a tattoo. Or at least a nice embroidered throw pillow.

Sam Hoffman
During a twenty-year career in the New York film industry, Sam Hoffman has produced, directed, and assistant directed numerous films, shors, and commericals including The Royal Tenenbaums, School of Rock, The Producers, Donnie Brasco, Dead Man Walking, and Groundhog Day.