The Big Lebowski - Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (1998)

The Big Lebowski is not a story, just as Jeff Lebowski is not a hero.

Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski is a state of mind and a choice.

When the Coen brothers started this project, they had in mind a plot in which nothing much happens. They were only interested in evoking a known individual who had impressed them with his style and presence: Jeff Dowd, nicknamed "The Dude". He appears in every scene of the film. The reason is to compensate for the absence of the ubiquitous off-screen narrator, an essential characteristic of Raymond Chandler adaptations. They had already worked with him and now wanted to metaphorically and emblematically translate him onto the screen. The plotless film was then an unsuccessful initiative but was to be resumed under much more favorable circumstances, a little later, through "Inside Llewyn Davis".

However, in the initial vision, Jeff Dowd did not cover the entire image required for a character, so it was imperatively necessary to complement it with another. Another collaborator was chosen for this: John Frederick Milius.

Therefore, The Big Lebowski outlines a composition between the image and lifestyle of an eccentric and inventive screenwriter (Jeff Dowd) and the creativity of an exceptional actor (Jeff Bridges), supplemented with real funny events from the Coen brothers' lives, their acquaintances, or their culture. It's like putting your feet up on the table and telling everything you can see around you at that precise moment.

A film worked down to the smallest details and made with a Chinese miniaturist's attention to detail (on rice grains), in which nothing is treated superficially:

The movie's soundtrack follows each participant individually, each being dedicated to a certain pattern. Consultant in this matter T-Bone Burnett (collaborator with the team in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and later in Inside Llewyn Davis), is asked to imagine what music would The Dude listen to? ... and he gets Dylan and Creedence Clearwater Revival, what sound would fit the narrator ??... and he is given Bob Nolan's Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Jackie Treehorn is perceived through Henry Mancini, Elvis with Viva Las Vegas for Bunny, etc. In addition, no song is on the soundtrack, but it is heard either on the car radio, in the bowling alley speakers, in the Walkman headphones, etc... invariably through meditation.

Also, the frequent use of wide-angle lenses creates an increased depth of field that provides the necessary freedom of movement and dynamics and satisfies the concern for impeccable image quality. The cross-lighting by using old sodium vapor lamps that turn cold light into warm tones, by substituting fluorescent (or LED) spotlights and vice versa, not according to the scene's requirements (as customary: evening light, sunny day, etc.) but correlated with the emotional burden imposed, from case to case. The tempered spiral (suggesting film within a film technique) through which a multitude of other episodes are inserted collaterally, with an approximate contribution to the plot but with comic or allusive connotations. Among them, is the success: Jesus Quintana (John Turturro), a gay man with billiards champion skills who shines with originality and strength (because he seems like someone you wouldn't want to ... "f ** k around with ...").

Even if only through subtext means, the convoluted construction leads clearly and unambiguously to one conclusion: The Dude is a way of being... a philosophy, and a concept. According to Entertainment Weekly, The Dude is ranked #14 in "The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years," and the prestigious Empire Magazine assigns position 49 to Walter Sobchak and position 7 to The Dude in their list of "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters."

It is a testimony and a proposal, both because, in the end:

Who doesn't love The Dude? (... nowadays ...?? ... probably only the haters..)