77. The Big Lebowski (1998)

Show Notes

  Jason's guests this week on the pod are Micheal Chernus and Emily Simoness, a married couple who join him to take a very deep dive into all the wonderful, like, greatness, man, of 'The Big Lebowski'.   Michael's a Julliard-trained stage, TV, and film actor currently appearing on TV as speechwriter Ken Rosey opposite Edie Falco on the CBS series 'Tommy'.     You might have also seen him as  Piper's brother Cal Chapman on 'Orange Is The New Black' or playing Congressman Edward Tavner in Amazon's 'Patriot'.   Michael's movie roles include portraying The Tinkerer, the original McGyver, in Marvel's Spider-Man: Homecoming; playing Tom Hanks' first mate Shane Murphy in the excellent Paul Greengrass film 'Captain Phillips'; and appearing opposite Will Smith in 2012's 'Men In Black 3".     The other half of this power-couple, Emily, is the founder and executive Director of SPACE on Ryder Farm, a non-profit artistic residency program and organic farm located on the grounds of a 225-year-old family homestead in Putnam County, New York.   But outside their professional accomplishments, they're just wonderful midwestern good people, whose self-effacing humor and innate smarts you'll hear on display in the podcast as we discuss the Coen Brother's 'The Big Lebowski'.

ABOUT THE MOVIE:  The Big Lebowski (/ləˈbaʊski/) is a 1998 crime comedy film written, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker and avid bowler. He is assaulted as a result of mistaken identity, after which The Dude learns that a millionaire (also named Jeffrey Lebowski) was the intended victim. The millionaire Lebowski's trophy wife is kidnapped, and he commissions The Dude to deliver the ransom to secure her release; the plan goes awry when the Dude's friend Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) schemes to keep the ransom money. Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, John Turturro and Philip Seymour Hoffman also appear, in supporting roles.

The film is loosely inspired by the work of Raymond Chandler. Joel Coen stated, "We wanted to do a Chandler kind of story – how it moves episodically, and deals with the characters trying to unravel a mystery, as well as having a hopelessly complex plot that's ultimately unimportant."[4] The original score was composed by Carter Burwell, a longtime collaborator of the Coen brothers.

The Big Lebowski was a disappointment at the U.S. box office and received mixed reviews at the time of its release. Over time, reviews have become largely positive, and the film has become a cult favorite,[5] noted for its eccentric characters, comedic dream sequences, idiosyncratic dialogue, and eclectic soundtrack.[6] In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[7][8] A spin-off based on John Turturro's character, titled The Jesus Rolls, was released in 2019 with Turturro also acting as writer and director.

Cast

• Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski. Bridges had heard or was told by the Coen brothers that they had written a screenplay for him.
• John Goodman as Walter Sobchak; a Vietnam veteran and bowling partner and friend of "The Dude." Walter was based, in part, on screenwriter and director John Milius.
• Julianne Moore as Maude Lebowski; Jeffrey "The Big" Lebowski's daughter, a feminist and an avant-garde artist.
• Steve Buscemi as Theodore Donald "Donny" Kerabatsos; a bowling partner and friend of "The Dude." Walter's repeated response, "Shut the fuck up, Donny!" is a reference to Fargo, in which Buscemi's character was constantly talking and interrupting conversations when he is not paying attention to the story.
• David Huddleston as Jeffrey "The Big" Lebowski; a millionaire philanthropist for whom "The Dude" is mistaken.
• Philip Seymour Hoffman as Brandt; Jeffrey "The Big" Lebowski's executive assistant
• Tara Reid as Bunny Lebowski; Jeffrey "The Big" Lebowski's blonde 20s-something trophy wife and former porn video performer (“Log Jammin’”) for Jackie Treehorn Productions. According to Reid, Charlize Theron also tried out for the role.
• Philip Moon as Woo; a Jackie Treehorn thug
• Mark Pellegrino as the Blond Treehorn thug
• Peter Stormare, Torsten Voges, and Flea as Uli Kunkel/Karl Hungus, Franz, and Kieffer, the German nihilists; Uli originated on the set of Fargo between Ethan Coen and Stormare, who often spoke in a mock German accent.
• Jimmie Dale Gilmore as Smokey; a hippie bowler in the league whom Walter threatens at gunpoint over an attempt to mark his frame an eight despite letting his foot move over the alley line
• Jack Kehler as Marty; The Dude's landlord, who is also a performance artist
• John Turturro as Jesus Quintana. The Coen brothers let Turturro come up with a lot of his own ideas for the character, like towel-shining the bowling ball and the scene where he dances backward from his bowling alley line, which he says was inspired by Muhammad Ali.
• David Thewlis as Knox Harrington, an avant-garde videographer-friend of Maude Lebowski
• Sam Elliott as The Stranger, a smooth-talking urban cowboy who also serves as the narrator of the film
• Ben Gazzara as big-time porn video producer Jackie Treehorn, to whom Bunny Lebowski owes money
• Jon Polito as Da Fino, a private dick who mistakes the Dude for a "brother shamus", hired by Bunny's family to return her to them
• Leon Russom as the Malibu police chief
• Aimee Mann as Nihilist Woman/Franz's Girlfriend who donates her amputated green nail-polished little toe (proof of Bunny Lebowski's kidnapping)
• Lu Elrod coffee shop waitress

SOUNDTRACK

The original score was composed by Carter Burwell, a veteran of all the Coen Brothers' films. While the Coens were writing the screenplay they had Kenny Rogers' "Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Was in)", the Gipsy Kings' cover of "Hotel California", and several Creedence Clearwater Revival songs in mind.[25] They asked T-Bone Burnett (who would later work with the Coens on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis) to pick songs for the soundtrack of the film. They knew that they wanted different genres of music from different times but, as Joel remembers, "T-Bone even came up with some far-out Henry Mancini and Yma Sumac."[26] Burnett was able to secure songs by Kenny Rogers and the Gipsy Kings and also added tracks by Captain Beefheart, Moondog and Bob Dylan's "The Man in Me".[25] However, he had a tough time securing the rights to Townes Van Zandt's cover of the Rolling Stones' "Dead Flowers", which plays over the film's closing credits. Former Stones manager Allen Klein owned the rights to the song and wanted $150,000 for it. Burnett convinced Klein to watch an early cut of the film and remembers, "It got to the part where the Dude says, 'I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man!' Klein stands up and says, 'That's it, you can have the song!' That was beautiful."[25][27] Burnett was going to be credited on the film as "Music Supervisor", but asked his credit to be "Music Archivist" because he "hated the notion of being a supervisor; I wouldn't want anyone to think of me as management".[26]

For Joel, "the original music, as with other elements of the movie, had to echo the retro sounds of the Sixties and early Seventies".[16]:156 Music defines each character. For example, "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" by Bob Nolan was chosen for the Stranger at the time the Coens wrote the screenplay, as was "Lujon" by Henry Mancini for Jackie Treehorn. "The German nihilists are accompanied by techno-pop and Jeff Bridges by Creedence. So there's a musical signature for each of them", remarked Ethan in an interview.[16]:156 The character Uli Kunkel was in the German electronic band Autobahn, an homage to the band Kraftwerk. The album cover of their record Nagelbett (bed of nails) is a parody of the Kraftwerk album cover for The Man-Machine and the group name Autobahn shares the name of a Kraftwerk song and album. In the lyrics the phrase "We believe in nothing" is repeated with electronic distortion. This is a reference to Autobahn's nihilism in the film.[28]