The Big Lebowski

Sometimes there’s a movie, a simple, lackluster movie, more about a man and an attitude, than a plot.  Not everyone sees its greatness, in fact, it didn’t do very well at the box office and it received some pretty average reviews.  But the fans have held it up, even made a convention celebrating its main character and all his dudeness.  Sometimes there’s a movie that becomes a perfect personification of everything within that main character.  And we call this movie, The Big Lebowski.

The character is The Dude (Jeff Bridges), or Jeff Lebowski, but that’s just the name his parents gave him that he didn’t make much use of.  Like I said, the plot is not that important, but feels pushed at us with all its urgent agendas.  A few skeezy mob men just busted into The Dude’s apartment and pissed on his rug because they got him confused with another Lebowski, who is a millionaire.  Problem is, that rug really tied the room together, so following the advice of his bowling team, Walter and Donny (John Goodman and Steve Buscemi), The Dude seeks retribution from the millionaire Lebowski to replace it.  But things get complicated when the millionaire Lebowski’s wife suddenly goes missing.  With the help of his bowling team, The Dude helps look for the missing wife, hooks up with Lebowski’s daughter and has some amazing acid flashback bowling dreams.

The dude is the role Jeff Bridges was born to play and he is now most identifiable with.  When Bridges won an Oscar in 2010, 12 years after The Big Lebowski, fans cheered for The Dude and some were disappointed that his speech did not include, “The Dude abides.” The Dude is a self described pacifist who enjoys listening to whale songs in a bubble bath, smoking weed, bowling and sipping white Russians all day.  To be such a likeable, lazy bum is a wonderful dream.  The dude is the most laid back person you could ever meet, clad in bermuda shorts, thrift store ponchos or an old robe.  If you let him sit in an armchair, or bubble bath long enough, I think he could just melt into it and become one.  If it were not for Walter, who is much more aggressive Vietnam vet and converted Jew, he may not have even tried to get a replacement rug.

The Big Lebowski contains one of the best dream scenes ever.  After The Dude’s bubble bath is so rudely interrupted, he drifts off into a world of majestic bowling, introduced like it’s a short film, complete with Saddam Hussein as the shoe caddy.  He dances down an infinite staircase to chorus girls in giant bowling pin headdresses.  After helping the leader of the girls bowl, he is sent down the lane himself, on his back with a view that puts a big smile on his face.  Of course, he gets a strike.

During Oscar season, this film just isn’t the kind that drew much attention.  I understand that, it wasn’t exactly striving for Best Picture status.  However, the way fans have rallied around this film, held it up and even made conventions out of it, lifts it into a different realm of greatness.  Even Roger Ebert has included this film in his Great Movies collection.

The Big Lebowski is an interesting film that may not appeal to a mass audience.  The amount of casual cursing is extremely high here, take that as you will.  The flimsy plot is not that important, and it may irritate some viewers to know that.  This is a movie all about attitude and it is presented perfectly though Bridges’ character and the style of the film, written and directed perfectly by the Coen brothers.  For the ultimate Dude-like experience with the film, wear the most comfy, mismatched, secondhand clothes you can find, pour some white Russians and go bowling just before watching The Big Lebowski.

“I could be just sitting at home with pee stains on my rug.”

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Over my time in school, I studied Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey on about six different occasions. When I first discovered O Brother Where Art Thou? in high school, Homer and I had already been well acquainted.  To set the story of Odysseus’ long journey home in the depression stricken south was an odd stroke of genius that really works, because in some ways, the old south is as gone and mythical as ancient Greece.

The story follows Everett (George Clooney), a man who is often too smart for his own good.  He escapes from a chain gang, still attached to two other men, Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson).  Everett needs to get home to stop his wife from marrying another man.  Instead of the truth, he tells Pete and Delmar that he needs to get the money he stole that landed him in jail before the land is flooded, promising each man a share.  The three are set on a long, dangerous journey filled with interesting characters, misadventures and close calls comparable to scenes in The Odyssey.  There’s an old soothsayer, treacherous sirens along the river and even a cyclops.

Much in the same way Homer depicts Greece having a change in cultural values, the Coen brothers show a shift as the deep south emerges from the depression.  The embrace of radio as mass communication is slowly connecting the rural south.  Another level of connectivity is on the way, electricity.  And the KKK seems to be losing its power and influence, especially after Everett and the gang crash a meeting.

The music is one of my favorite things about this film.  The old timey soundtrack send us back to a simpler time.  Growing up on country music, I find this soundtrack perfect and T Bone  Burnett’s finest work.  I am a Man of Constant Sorrow is one of my favorite songs and you can regularly find me rocking out to it in my car.

O Brother was rightly nominated for the Oscar for best cinematography.  The film has a near sepia tone, old and as if the colors had faded into the dustbowl, that suits the setting perfectly.  Most shots aren’t too artistic, but focus perfectly on our actors.  Really, it’s simple, honest, and faultless.  Plus, that underwater moment is really unforgettable, hound dog and all.

Best of all, this film is really funny.  Most jokes are a little deadpan and need an outside audience to get them.  Seeing Clooney in a hair net repeating, “Damn, we’re in a tight spot,” is hilarious.  Delmar’s love for animals, to the point of mistaken identity gets me every time.  Many times the dialogue is spot on with bits of quick humor.  One of my favorite scenes is when Everett is reunited with three of his daughters: “Kablooey. Nothin’ left but a grease spot on the L&N.” “Damn it, I wasn’t hit by any train!”

O Brother Where Art Thou? is easily my favorite film by the Coen brothers (thus far).  The fact that it was only nominated for two Oscars (adapted screenplay and cinematography) breaks my heart.  I recommend it to everyone, but a few people especially.  If you love The Odyssey or just want to see a different version of it, you have got to see this.  If you grew up with tall tales of life in the old south, you may find a few details from your elders.  And if you enjoy classic country or bluegrass music, you’ll at least be hooked by the soundtrack.

“You shall see thangs, wonderful to tell.  You shall see a… a cow… on the roof of a cotton house, ha.  And, oh, so many startlements.”

A Serious Man

Even when life is quickly going from bad to worse to you-gotta-be-kidding-me terrible, no one is willing to admit that they are a modern day Job.  We are always taught to seek out a silver lining and keep saying, “Everything is going to be fine.”  But sometimes someone upstairs just doesn’t like you or your ancestors cursed you by bringing a dybbuk into their house and all you can do is look around in wonder and dismay at your life going down like a sinking ship.

The doomed life in question is that of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor who lives in Minneapolis suburb around 1967 with his wife, two kids and brother-in-law.  His wife wants a divorce asking him to stay in the seedy little Jolly Roger motel.  His son listens to rock music in class with his bar mitzva approaching.  His daughter is stealing from him money for a nose job.  One of his students is trying to simultaneously  bribe and blackmail him into a passing grade.  The tenure committee is receiving threatening letters about him.  And he can’t even get an appointment with the wisest rabbi in town.

His wife is leaving him for who he thought was his best friend, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed).  Seeing that he is the friend and the lover turning Larry into the third wheel, Sy decides to take charge of the relationship going on by comforting Larry.  Larry isn’t the sort of man who would start a fight out of this gesture, sees it for what it is; a very weird way to try to help Larry while hurting him.

Larry stays mostly placid for nearly all of his burdens.  He just deals with them as they come, and eventually we see that they are starting to get to him.  He shows his desperation mostly to rabbis he seeks out for their council hoping for some answers, but they don’t have much advice to offer.  As his problems pile up, Larry also has dreams that quickly turn into nightmares.  They ways his subconscious figures out how to deal with these problems just turn into more disturbing things that wake him up in the middle of the night.

The weirdest part about this film is that it’s a comedy, and the Coen brothers know how to pull that off in the most delightful way.  It’s not slapstick or side-splitting, but a very black comedy born out of us repeatedly saying, “Oh, that sucks.”  The way the Junior Rabbi tries to enjoy his terrible view saying, “Just look at that parking lot!” gave me a hearty chuckle.  Sy being both the source of grief and comfort was hilarious.  The way Larry’s kids just dismiss him, even when another storm is pulling through cracked me up.   And that very end image, with Jefferson Airplane playing into the credits, all I could do was laugh.  Really, what other reaction can you have to such a terrible course of fate?

“I feel like the carpet’s been yanked out from under me.”

Fargo

Right here, it’s snowing outside.  The sky is a dull white, matching the snow covering the ground.  To get from town to town around here, you have to take the vacant country roads with sprawling white fields at each side.  Add in just a touch of fog or snow, the sky matches the ground and the road disappears into the white unknown.  I could drive a mile up the road right now and lose myself knowing that Fargo looks just like the world around me.  An eerie, cold no-man’s land, where the pure white snow only magnifies anything out of place.

Jerry (William H. Macy) is in some deep financial troubles.  The details are never explained because they are not important.  What is important, is that Jerry is desperate enough to hire two men from Fargo, Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear (Peter Stormare), to kidnap his wife, in hopes of splitting the ransom that his wealthy father-in-law (Harve Presnell) will pay.  Jerry gives the men a car off the lot of the dealership he works at, owned by his father-in-law.  But things get messy, the kidnappers kill a cop and two innocent people in Brainerd.  This sends a pregnant cop, Marge (Frances McDormand), out to investigate.

Carl and Gaear are a perfect duo of scumbags.  Carl is repeatedly described as the little funny looking one who’s looking for action, entertainment and money.  Gaear is the more stoic and ruthless one who can shoot a cop in the head without batting an eye.  Carl complains that he hardly talks their entire car ride from Fargo to Minneapolis.  I see Gaear as a human embodiment of the harsh, snow covered, flat scenery that offers nothing much to talk about.

Marge is one of the greatest portrayals of women in modern cinema.  McDormand won the Oscar for lead actress in this role.  Marge is an amazing, tenacious woman who can walk out to a murder scene in six inches of snow six months pregnant.  She and her husband have a loving and simple support system with each other.  Marge is the breadwinner while Norm is an artist, and he makes sure his pregnant wife is eating well.  It’s so refreshing to see a strong, bold, successful woman, in a loving relationship that that has a level head on her shoulders and doesn’t need to be wearing anything more flattering than a fuzzy deer-stalker hat.  That thick Minnesota accent just tops it off as perfection.

What makes this film so amazing is the perfect mixture of senseless violence and the chilling setting.  There’s something about snow that’s so peaceful, pure and innocent.  In the dark, it has this power to become reflective, giving illumination to whatever wrongdoing is going on at the moment.  It can even contribute to the chaos, causing cars to lose control and flip over onto the side of the road.  What is most chilling is when we see a body or blood strewn across and tainting all that was once pure and white.

The most shocking thing about Fargo is that it is based on a true story.  And if the film’s plot follows the truth well enough, it was set in motion by a bumbling family man with money problems.  Of all the horrible ways for senseless violence to be set in motion, it was all completely preventable by one mild mannered man.  Jerry has no idea the string of bloodshed he set loose until it’s far too late and we have no sympathy for him.

Fargo is, by far, the best film of 1996.  The story is shown to us perfectly and the bleak visuals are spellbinding in their simplicity.  Each character has perfect contributions to the plot and are brought to life wonderfully by each actor.  And the ruthless violence among an otherwise peaceful setting stirs us down to our core.  If you want to see the Coen brothers at their best, Fargo is it.

“OK, so we got a trooper pulls someone over, we got a shooting, these folks drive by, there’s a high-speed pursuit, ends here and then this execution-type deal.”

No Country for Old Men

Within the first ten minutes of the film, we see the tone it will keep: barren of hope, calmly violent, and intriguing.  The Texas desert landscape and few and far between characters make the film feel lonely and isolated, like it was raised this way to become a quiet and unsettling person.

You’re not feeling too warm and fuzzy are you?  And you won’t watching this movie.

In No Country for Old Men, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a hunter stumbles upon a horrific multiple murder scene. It’s a drug deal gone wrong and Llewelyn finds a bag full of money.  He takes the money, but is soon pursued by Anton (Javier Bardem), who’s planted a tracking device in the bag.

In the second scene of the film, Anton calmly chokes a police officer to death with his handcuffs on the station floor, leaving scuff marks all around them in the struggle.  (I now count this as one of my favorite murder scenes, thanks Coens!)  It’s clear that Anton is a psychopath, the menacing kind that will kill anyone with no remorse.  Listen carefully for a little story about a kid who killed a fourteen year old girl in the film, I believe this describes Anton’s first brush with the law, though it is never explicitly told.

Javier Bardem must’ve had a lot of fun playing Anton (villains are often more fun to play than the hero).  His voice is menacing and creepy in a calm and natural way, unlike Bale’s Batman growl.  One of the scariest things about Anton is that he’s nearly quirky.  Think about it, take his stupid haircut, the end of the coin toss conversation and rolling down the window to shoot at a bird on the bridge and you’ve got quite a quirky guy, but of course we put the psychopathic murderer upfront with good reason.  It’s no surprise that Bardem won Best Supporting Actor “for making a bad haircut look scary.”

So, Llewelyn has the money, is running from Anton, Anton is leaving a senseless trail of blood behind him as he follows Llewlyn and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is always just a step behind Anton.  Bell is an aging Sheriff, he’s proud of his work, but is fed up with how fucked up the world has become. “Who are these people?  It’s all out war.”  The messed up stuff he has to deal with has become more than he bargained for.  He’s becoming more and more disillusioned, he thought things would only get better as he got older.  In short, he’s getting too old for this shit.  This ain’t no country for an old man.

I think we can all agree that No Country for Old Men is a complete downer.  In fact, four of the five nominations of 2007 are, I believe John Stewart said it best, “Thank God for teenage pregnancy!”  There are some people that just plain wouldn’t like this movie.  There is a lot of violence.  Senseless, psychopathic, blood on the walls violence that is never brought to justice, and for many people I understand what a moral killer that is.  If you’re one of those people, you’re better off watching Juno five times.  But if you can stomach it, No Country for Old Men is a really amazing film.  The Coen brothers know what they’re doing and if you let them lead you into this horribly violent and lonely world you can still come out to be a normal functioning person in society.

“What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?”