No Podcast for Old Men
Three university philosophy professors provide analysis of each and every Coen brothers film, in chronological order.
No Podcast for Old Men
The Big Lebowski
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Three university philosophy professors provide analysis of the Coen brothers’ seventh film, The Big Lebowski.
"The Big Lebowski: Nihilism, Masculinity, and Abiding Virtue"
Peter S. Fosl
The Big Lebowski and Philosophy: Keeping Your Mind Limber with Abiding Wisdom
Peter S. Fosl (Editor)
Contact Peter S. Fosl, Troy Jollimore, or Robert C. Jones
Takin' her easy for all you sinners.
Thanks for listening!
Music: "The Lost Lamb" (Theme from Fargo) (traditional)
Annie Chen: recorder
Billy Jones: drums & percussion
Nathan Jones: bass
Robert C. Jones: guitars
Theme Song
SPEAKER_00Welcome
Intro
SPEAKER_00to No Podcast for Old Men. The only podcast in the known multiverse wherein three university professors provide philosophical analysis of each and every Cohen Brothers film in the Cohen Canon. And today is episode seven. And so that means today we are going to drill down into the seventh film of the Cohen Brothers. And that is, of course, the classic comedy The Big Lebowski. My name is Robert Jones. I'm joined by my co-hosts, Peter S. Fossil and Troy Jollymore. Fellas, how are you doing? Check in. What's happening?
SPEAKER_05Petey's doing great, and uh he can tell me how I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01Uh that's like uh you ever hear that old um behaviors joke? You're fine, how am I? Oh, okay. We meet on the street, yeah. Troy, look you're looking good, Troy thing. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. The Big Lebowski guys, geez, this is a big one, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05I've heard of this one.
SPEAKER_00I should mention to our audience that uh Professor Peter S. Fossil uh has written what I would say is I'm gonna put it out there and say it's the most detailed dive into the uh the big Lebowski. There's so much detail, and plus there's also philosophical analysis. And Professor Fossil, what is the name of that piece?
SPEAKER_01And we'll put a link to it in the show notes, but what's the name of your article that is the Yeah, it's it's in the Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Popular Culture, if I got that right. But the title is uh The Big Lebowski colon Nihilism, Masculinity, and Abiding Virtue. Um I want to mention though too that you know I edited a book on the Big Lebowski and Robert and Troy have perhaps maybe the best article in that uh book. Uh that's how we got to know one another, because um, you know, you just communicate when you're working with an editors and authors and all that. And uh I invited them to come out to Louisville, where I live, for the Lebowski Fest, which was started in in Louisville, and um they did. When does that happen? Um and we had uh just an epic time. I mean, it's just indescribably good, good weekend together, even with a little tornado thrown in. I thought about that like a little serious man, actually.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, I think uh the the roof blew off the hotel. We had to find another place to stay. The roof blew off the hotel, literally.
SPEAKER_05We didn't blow it off, but it did happen and we were in the vicinity.
SPEAKER_00So But Peter Fossil, now that book, can we talk about I was gonna mention that as well.
SPEAKER_01You are the editor of The Big Lebaskian philosophy, yes. It's on Wiley.
SPEAKER_00The year is 2012, 2012. So in 2012, yes, you are the editor of that philosophical masterpiece, and yes, Troy and I had a piece. I there are so many great essays. I don't even think you can say which one is best, but Troy and I had an essay in that book, and that started our our years-long love affair, the three of us, and uh we went down to the Lebowski Fest.
SPEAKER_05The Menaja Cone, as we like to call it.
SPEAKER_00What do we call it?
SPEAKER_05The Menaja Cone.
SPEAKER_00The Menaja Coney Cone. Um I think Troy, I think I don't know if Troy's the dude. I'm kind of maybe I'm Donnie Peter. You might be a little Walter. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05I don't see a lot of Walter in Peter, I gotta say.
SPEAKER_00Well, he does have a lot of guns.
SPEAKER_05So that's okay, sure.
SPEAKER_01You know, we kind of have a little bit of each of them, I think. Yeah. So I'll do that. I like Walter.
SPEAKER_00So well, let's what do we say we jump in and um and do a little do all we do, what we're supposed to do here.
SPEAKER_01Um there were when I every time I watch it, I've probably watched it, I mean, over a hundred times. Um I've noted Only a hundred times.
SPEAKER_00What you're you're a light, you're a Lubowski lightweight. Yeah, you haven't cracked the 500 mark yet? Maybe, maybe.
SPEAKER_01And that that essay you're talking about in the Palgrave uh book, that was written during the pandemic when like one could I could not have done it any other time. It's like when you're stuck, what else are you gonna do? I I went like frame by frame by frame, and I still keep noticing things, but because it's I mean, it's impossibly rich with detail. And um yeah, so I did a very slow uh you know read through it.
SPEAKER_00And you know what? It's still in this morning, just just for shits and giggles, I just turned on the film while I was doing some other stuff. And I was laughing laughing my ass off. It's still funny. It's still funny at at bottom, it's a it's a hilarious film. Yeah, absolutely. And my son who lives in Chicago, he went to one of these um late night showings of the big Lebowski at this local art house. He had never seen it. It was his maiden voyage. And um and he said that it was hilarious, but he it was hard to hear the dialogue because everyone was sort of laughing in anticipation of the next line. And so it's good to know that there are a bunch of little Lebowski out there, little dudes out there who are carrying on the tradition.
SPEAKER_01You know, I I take comfort in that, but uh it's also true that it's all over the world. I mean Lebowski Fests were I think they've waned a bit now, but um they've they're all over the world. And uh in fact, I got you know, I usually don't pick up the phone when um it was on the like the 10th anniversary of the movie, but um because if I don't know the caller, but it said it was from Denmark, and so I'm like that's not unusual. So I decided to pick it up. Sure enough, it was a reporter for this uh national newspaper that I'm embarrassed I can't remember the name of there, and um they were doing a story, and I said, Do people watch this in Denmark? He's like, let me tell you something. In Copenhagen, there's a um there's a a bar, a Lebowski bar, and every week they screen it, and it's a ticketed event and it sells out every freaking week. And you uh they you know they play trivia and they drink white Russians and blah blah blah. But yeah, at Edinburgh there was a Lebowski bar, but in Glasgow, I know there was one. Um it it went really did go all over the place. It became at a certain point this I think it was the second most popular sort of midnight cult movie after um Rocky Horde Picture Show. But yeah, it really it did, but it didn't, of course. Well, I mean we don't get it, we'll talk about it later. Didn't what it didn't land that way, but it it it it grew into that. And uh we might talk about that if it's a sociological thing. But yeah, I think that's really interesting about the film.
SPEAKER_00Well, what do you say we jump in and do a little analysis? Because that's what they pay us for to do on this podcast. That's what we're here for.
SPEAKER_05Those huge checks we keep breaking in. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Well, usually what we do is at this point in our podcast, we do a uh kind of brief opening statement on what we I think the film is about. We kind of used to call it our lightning round. I don't know what it's called anymore, but we just go around and give some general impressions. And uh unless I'm mistaken, we usually start with Professor Peter S. Fossil.
Lightning Round
SPEAKER_00Well, Peter, uh the film, the Big Lebowski, what what's it about, Peter?
SPEAKER_01And it's about a lot of things. I think it's about um friendship, I think it's about crossing political boundaries, I think it's about the way we inhabit time and history and the way we repeat things over and over and uh create meaning in our lives. Um I think it's about um other films, I think it's about noir films, it's about American cinema. Um I think it's a kind of anti-uh hero film where cowboys and millionaires and detectives um um are all sort of uh I don't want to say subverted, but they're they're taken off their pedestals, certainly. And so what figured as the heroes in m much of American cinema are are now cut uh called into question. And there's this uh and the new question is, well, what's gonna replace them with the new person that's coming along? And so yeah, I think those are and and you know and then about masculinity too. I think it challenges a lot of the um ideas of what makes a man, right? I mean the the movie opens uh with a discussion of that and the there's it's brought up several times uh within the film. So the uh question of masculinity and what what's a man in you know this moment of time, right? How do you fit in as a man uh anymore? Especially when those old uh masculinities, not just in cinema but in culture, are um withering, let's just say, or are shaky. Nice.
SPEAKER_00Excellent.
SPEAKER_05Good stuff.
SPEAKER_00Great observations, as usual, Peter Fossil. Troy Jollymore, let's go over to you. What do you think uh The Big Lebowski? What's it about, Troy?
SPEAKER_05What's it all about? It's about Robert. What is it not about? It it's a film about Los Angeles, and therefore a film about California, therefore a film about America. But the many different types of people who live in America and in LA specifically, the the ways they speak, the ways they dress, how they interact with each other, how they try to talk to each other often inarticulately and fail to hear each other. Uh, all these different people, like each of them is like a character from their own movie genre coming together into a in a city that's dedicated to making movies. Uh, it's a film about the 60s and the various legacies of the 60s: cultural, political, intellectual, spiritual, sartorial. It's a film about idealism and what might survive of idealism in a very non-idealistic time. It's a film about money and power and the ability of the people with money and power to control the narrative, to have their own stories accepted, whether they be true or false. Boy, that sure sounds timely. Uh, it's a film about the power of friendship, as Peter mentioned. It's a buddy movie about two people who are so different that it's kind of amazing they can even tolerate each other. Uh, their deep bond of affection and their amazing ability to see the real human beings underneath the surfaces. Uh, it's a film about mortality, the brief lives of human beings, the wind passeth over it and it is gone. And finally, I'd say, and this is a little overlap here with something Peter said, it's a film structured by three questions that are posed to the dude early on. There's the plot question, where's the money, Lebowski? That's the detective mystery question. And then there's two other questions. Are you a Lebowski achiever? And what makes a man Mr. Lebowski? And these are questions about the issues that Socrates said were most important to us self-knowledge and how we ought to live.
SPEAKER_00Damn, that was good. That was good. That was very good. As usual, you two guys. Well, I'm gonna, you know.
SPEAKER_05Robert, yeah, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00No, you know, there's a lot of overlap, so let me I'll just run through mine because you guys hit most of the the biggies. But um as you both pointed out, it is a film about friendship. Troy's one of Troy's uh areas of expertise. Yeah, it's a buddy movie, buddy film. It's also a Western. Um it is a subversion of the film noir genre. It's I I I like to call it a it's not a hard-boiled detective film, it's a soft-boiled detective film. If that's a genre, maybe it is. It's a critique of capitalism. It's a film that focuses on class distinctions. It's definitely an anti-war film, and it's a film about the culture wars, uh, which is still relevant. Uh it's a film about nihilism or avoiding nihilism. It's a film, as many Cohen brothers' films are, about appearance versus reality. It's a film, and this is a theme that Troy likes to push on. It's a film about transgressing lines or transgressing boundaries and borders and uh you know, lines in the sand and lines on the lane and invasions of homes. So uh that's a theme there. And of course, as you both mentioned, it's a film about masculinity. But I think there's also a little uh bit of a critique of marriage in the film. Marriage is it's not held up as a uh a kind of vaunted institution. But anyway, those are my thoughts. And yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_05That's what it's about. And it's about bowling. Did any of us say that it's about bowling? Bowling. And it's about bowling. Yeah, we'd have to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
SPEAKER_01Glad you brought in nihilism. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I immediately thought, oh, you didn't mention the name.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, why don't we go to our summary expert? I think we need like, I'm gonna start having to insert uh like music, like a little drum roll. Summary expert.
Summary
SPEAKER_00Troy Jollimore, give us a little summary of the big Lebowski.
SPEAKER_05Let me tell you, summarizing the big Lebowski, like I think in my in my long and illustrious career of summarizing films, this may have been the greatest challenge. So I you cannot summarize this film, but let me give it a whirl. And of course, uh this is probably goes without saying, but uh spoiler alert, if you haven't seen this film, who are the people who haven't seen the Big Lebowski? If you haven't seen this film, or if even if it's been a long time, go watch it refresh your memory first. Uh, don't have the any elements of the plot given away. It's such a pleasure to go in not knowing. All right, the Big Lebowski plot. Uh, the place, Los Angeles. The time, uh, let's say the early 90s, around the time of the first Gulf War, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. So there's this guy, the dude, played by Jeff Bridges, an aging hippie who takes a relaxed attitude toward life, has no job or mean or visible means of support, whose main activity is bowling in a league on the team with his two friends, the short-fused, high-strung, belligerent Vietnam vet Walter Sobchak, that's John Goodman, and Donny Karabatsos, the meek third wheel, who happens to be an excellent bowler, played by Steve Buscemi. The dude's real name, incidentally, is Jeffrey Lebowski. This matters because as the film opens, his cozy little bungalow is invaded by a couple of thugs who ask him, Where's the money, Lebowski, even though the dude has no money? And makes some remarks about his wife, even though the dude has no wife. It transpires that they've mistaken him for a different Jeffrey Lebowski, one who has a lot of money, and a hot young trophy wife, Bunny, who is also a lot. Before leaving, the thugs urinate on the dude, or micturate, we should perhaps say, on the dude's rug, a prized possession, which, as Walter reminds him, really tied the room together. Now, the dude being the dude is inclined to just let the matter go. But Walter convinces him that he's been the victim of an injustice and he should go to the wealthy Lebowski and demand compensation. The dude is not given a rug by the wealthy Lebowski, but he takes one anyway. On his way out, he meets both Bunny Lebowski and her German friend Uli Kunkel, who we learn is a nihilist. He remains at some distance from Uli, who's down in the pool but gets close enough to Bunny, almost a blow on her toes, which she has just painted. Not long after, he's contacted by Brandt, wealthy Lebowski's obsequious manservant. Incredible performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Love it. The dude learns that Bunny Lebowski has been kidnapped, which is a bummer man, and her husband wants him to deliver the ransom money, a task for which he will be amply compensated. The dude agrees, but only if it doesn't interfere with their bowling league schedule. He's got his priorities. Although the kidnappers insisted that he go alone, then that there be no funny stuff. Walter insists on accompanying him, and it turns out there's all sorts of funny stuff. Walter has a plan, he swap out the ransom money bag with a decoy bag containing his dirty underwear so that they can keep the ransom, and find out Bunny's location by grabbing one of the kidnappers and beating it out of him. As was frequently the case in Walter's primary point of conversational reference, Vietnam, things don't go quite as planned. The dude's car gets pretty badly shot up by Walter's own gun, and they find out nothing about where Bunny is. The good news, thanks to Walter's scheming, the ransom bag is still in the back of the dude's car. One million bones or clams or whatever you call them. The bad news, almost as soon as they get back from this escapade, the car is stolen with the money in it. The other bad news, since they failed to make the drop-off, Bunny Lebowski's life, which was in their hands, is presumably in grave danger. You can imagine where it goes from here. Or maybe you can't, the story's ludicrous. This is a complicated case, lots of ins, lots of outs, lots of what have's use. And I'm not going to try to summarize it all here. Let's say that they do track down the car, they find the kid they think stole it, but they find out nothing from him about where the money might be. Meanwhile, the dude is being chased by a variety of parties, wealthy Lebowski and Brandt, who are furious that he failed to deliver the money, especially after receiving a package that appears to contain one of Bunny's toes, perhaps the very toe the dude almost blew on. Also, the smut peddler, sorry, the smut peddler, Jackie Trehorn, to whom Bunny Lebowski owns money. Also, a shadowy figure, mysterious guy driving a Volkswagen Beetle, not to mention a group of nihilists led by the aforementioned Uli Kunkel. Also, Maude Lebowski, wealthy Lebowski's daughter, a painter and conceptual artist who clearly has some agenda of her own, who takes back the dude's new rug, borrows his robe, and borrows his Johnson, although with permission in this case, for a knight of natural zesty enterprise, also known as Coitus. Post-Koitus, the dude learns from her that wealthy Lebowski in fact only appears to be wealthy. It's all a front, he has no money. Which leads him to a sudden insight. He realizes that wealthy Lebowski grew tired of his wife and never wanted Bunny to be rescued, and hence sent the dude to the drop-off, bearing not a bag of cash, but an empty bag, a ringer. The plan was to take the million dollars from a charity account and keep it for himself, claiming that he used it for the ransom. The dude and Walter rushed to the Lebowski mansion, where as it happens, they find Bunny there. She was never kidnapped at all, and she's returned on her own. They confront the old man with the truth, to which he more or less shrugs and says, So what? You have your story, I have mine. Not that far off from something the dude himself told a rival bowler sometime earlier. Well, that's just like your opinion, man. So the mystery is solved, and it doesn't really seem to matter. Uh, as they leave the bowling alley, they are confronted by Uli and his gang of nihilists. During the confrontation, Donnie suffers a fatal heart attack. The dude and Walter place Donnie's ashes in a modestly priced receptacle and scatter them into the, well, actually, near the ocean, uh, then return to the lanes to knock down a few pins. The dude utters his famous final line, The Dude Abides. And as the film ends, we learn that Maud is pregnant. Uh, a little Lebowski is on the way. That's the movie in a nutshell. Wow. With lots that I could not mention because, man, this movie has a lot going on.
SPEAKER_00Now, Troy, you took a movie that is the the plot is convoluted and obscure, and you clarified it for us, and yet it still is even though I've seen it a hundred times, I'm still scratching my head. Not quite clear on um what the Cohn brothers were thinking. And of course, I was thinking about the big sleep and how I often watch that film and and say, Well, what the hell were they thinking? So, anyway, great, great summary though. Let let's let's acknowledge that summary. Uh Peter, sorry, go ahead. Hold on, thank you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I did want to see if pick up on what you said there, Robert. Here's my sort of theory on the the way that it drifts along or winds around. Is um, you know, the big sleep does that too. This film is, of course, an homage to uh the big sleep, and um that's a really convoluted plot as well. Um, and I but there also might be like a symbolism of the way that the dude kind of drifts through life, um, you know, um and winds around without a clear direction. And I think there's a that's a bigger film about the state of the country and the culture of the time. But we'll get into that later. But uh anyway, those are two of my quick thoughts about that.
Social/Political/Cultural Themes
SPEAKER_00Oh, Peter Fossil, that's a good segue. Perfect segue for us to head into our next segment of the podcast, which is our political, social, cultural themes of the Cohen Brothers film. And I think in this one, as we mentioned in our uh opening uh lightning round, there's a lot to talk about. So Peter, why don't you start us off on that uh journey?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I mean there's obvious things. So it's set, you know, during the uh first Gulf War. Uh-huh. And so there's this background of war. Um Walter's a Vietnam veteran, and um the dude was a you know anti-war protester. So there's the background of the Vietnam War. I think there's even like a small allusion to uh World War II in the sense that um I you know I once was thinking like, well, where's race in this film? And uh I think you get it with uh Asians and um Germans, which I guess German about race, but it's very curious how both of those ethnicities, I mean Asia and uh Germany, and you're thinking, well, maybe World War II is a little bit behind that. Um but uh you know there's this this um you know background of violence and uh violent conflict that I think is interesting. Also so it comes out in ninety eight, set in ninety one, but but comes out in ninety eight. And uh I should say, you know, the the film does announce this question at the beginning, I mean it comes off as a question to me anyway, how the dude fits right in with his place and time. What is that wh how does he fit in? What does it mean to fit in? Um and so you know the place and time is what 1991 and uh under the first uh Bush administration. That's at on the heels of the Reagan era, of course. Um and so there are these figures that are these throwbacks, kind of, right? I mean they're they're inhabiting the forms of the Vietnam era, Walter and um and the dude. Um and I think you know it does raise the question, and this might be true of 1998, uh too, you know, which is you know sort of the end of the Clinton era uh towards um and uh about where we stand, you know, what we have got these old kinds of things. I've noticed um uh what's her name? The she's a film critic of the um Los Angeles Times. Uh Amy Nicholson, I think, yeah. Anyway, she um made this observation and I thought was kind of right, is that the culture was kind of in a loose place. Identities were slipping and um kind of vision of the future wasn't quite you know clear yet. So I I think you know there's this question about what do we do about these old tropes? How do we continue to inhabit them? And uh one of the ways, well I'll get into more of the philosophical, but there's a way that we keep repeating these. And um, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think uh it raises. So I think there's these questions about war, there's uh uh questions about um a s a society that's sort of a wash drifting along with the tumbleweeds, and um and again there's the themes of gender that I already mentioned a bit, although I will say, just as a teaser for the future, we talk more about that. I think you can make a case that Bunny is the real big Lebowski. Um I think you know, if you compare the how the women are in the film, they're they're certainly backgrounded, and that's often a criticism of the film. But I think there's a way that, and this happens a lot in Coden Brothers films, that uh women become the heroes. Um and uh I think Bunny deserves um Whoa, Bunny is the big Lebowski.
SPEAKER_00That's it. I think you can make an argument. Wow, you just dropped it, you just drop that one off. It's easy to do.
SPEAKER_05That's what the kids call a hot take. That's a hot take.
SPEAKER_01So anyway, we'll get to that later. Yeah, that's that's my quick uh summary.
SPEAKER_00That's great. Hey Troy, you want to jump in with uh some of the uh political, social, cultural themes of the Big Lebowski?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean the the war background is a big one. And of course they put it out there at the very beginning, and then uh don't advert to it very explicitly very often, and yet it's always kind of there, and it's coming up in, you know, the things that people say. I mean, one of the things this movie does, of course, is it has its characters repeat things other people have said or things that they've heard in the news and so on, and recycle them for their own purposes. So this whole Bush rhetoric of drawing a line in the sand, you know, this this aggression will not stand and so on, gets picked up by Walter when he's trying to convince the dude to go and pursue his own little brand of justice because he's been aggressed upon rather as Kuwait has been. Walter doesn't make it that explicit, right? He doesn't say that, but it's there. The comparison's kind of there. And so definitely it's the way that these big world events get into our consciousnesses and then play out in people's lives and in much smaller affairs and control our thinking in a way. So there's that all that war stuff, which is very important there. There's political stuff connected with that. I mean, Peter, I think you said, you know, these guys are kind of recognizable in terms of where they are in the political landscape, at least in a lot of ways, though they sometimes go against the positions they seem to occupy. But the dude is clearly, again, that kind of aging hippie on the left somewhere, sort of a live and let live kind of guy. Uh Walter is on the sort of violent individual rights, uh, strident righteous right. Uh, the big Lebowski, well, again, Peter thinks Bunny's the big Lebowski, so I'll say wealthy Lebowski, the rich guy. Of course, he's not even really rich, so I don't know what you call this guy, the big faker. Anyway, he's on the right too, but he's a very different right than Walter. You know, he you don't get the feeling he cares much about individual rights of the sort that Walter does, maybe. He's into property rights, especially for the wealthy. So you've got this sort of constellation of uh political figures representing different ideas and reactions to different ideas, all interacting in various ways and all connected in various ways. I mean, you know, dude and Walter are good friends. Uh, the dude shares a name with this apparently wealthy guy. Uh, the dude also, in some ways, turns out to be like the wealthy guy in certain respects, very different in important others. But and Walter, too, you know, is is like uh the wealthy faker Lebowski, in that both of them uh used bags of fake money, ringers or meta ringers, ringers for ringers to try to cheat somebody. Both of them seem sort of unconcerned with the possible fallout in terms of you know damage to innocent people, what it might do to Bunny, and so on. There's these interesting connections between these people that on the surface look very different. And I do, I do think, of course, as Robert said earlier, then and you know, that one of the most interesting connections here is the friendship between the dude and Walter, because they both of you actually alluded to this in your comments that they seem so different and they're such good friends. Can we really be good friends with people whose views on the world are so different from us and who are in many ways, you know, really hard to get along with in daily life? Because Walter certainly isn't easy. The question of can we and the question of should we, I think is also lurking there. What's the line that a person crosses when you should stop being their friend? So I'll mention two more sort of quick things. The film again is set in LA. We get kind of a tour of LA as the dude goes around meeting different people, kind of pursuing, you know, the trying to get the money back, trying to answer the question and so on. Uh, but it's a quite different LA than we often see in the films. And it's sort of an more of an underworld in a way, it's kind of seedier in a lot of ways. It's marginal. You know, the dude lives in a marginal LA. You don't see the LA of the bowling alleys very often in film, but here it is. And then these other people, like for instance, you know, maybe my favorite example that LA again is a movie city. It's the movie industry. The only movie industry, though, that we really make contact with here is the porn industry, right? We get Jackie Treehorn, that's sort of the movie industry. It's it's these seedy videos again, and we see a little of one. And that's the extent to which the this movie set in LA gets into the Hollywood film industry. Well, it's not Hollywood at all, it's something quite different. And yet it's a real industry, and people work in it, you know, and it's very important. In fact, there's a lot of money in it. And then the last thing I'll mention, and this came up earlier a little bit, you mentioned the big sleep, clearly Chandler's novel here and the movie made from it being kind of models for this. And this noir framework, I think again, that that relates to this thing about the underworld LA. And the a noir story is very often a story of a person taking a journey into the underworld, and maybe sort of an innocent or somewhat clean person being sullied or corrupted by that journey, or seeing if they can remain unsullied and uncorrupted, which in noir at least, you know, they they rarely do. So, and this gets into some of the philosophical themes, I'm sure we'll bring up later, that noir is very much about the darkness that lurks beneath the surface, which it's the detective's task to penetrate and and reveal and uncover. And so it becomes this kind of metaphysical quest. And I think that the dude is certainly on a version of that metaphysical quest. So that's all I'll say about this for the moment.
SPEAKER_01I do just pick up a plant another seed for when we get the philosophical theme. Because, you know, in my own work I addressed that bit about, you know, overcoming the um, I mean, there's these borders that are crossed, but one of them could be the um division political divisions. And I do think it's a a lesson for our time. You can really see, you know, Walter being a kind of MAGA person, maybe, the dude being much more of a progressive. Um, and the the fact that they get along is just, you know, it kind of cries out for analysis and questions what what makes that possible? What virtues do they have that makes that possible? And you know, as a as a kind of socialist who l anarchist who lives in uh Kentucky, a couple blocks away from Mitch McConnell, I I'm familiar with it in a very practical way, but uh trying to have friendships and uh teach students and you know um pursue a life among people whose political views are very different from my own.
SPEAKER_05I I got to tell you on that theme. Like so many people, the first time I saw the big Lebowski, I enjoyed it mildly, but was kind of let down, didn't really get it. When I watch that movie now, A, it's so much funnier, but B, that final scene uh after they scatter Donnie's ashes and and the dude blows up at Walter and then they hug each other just moves me. Oh my god, that is one of the most moving things that I can think of. It's it's gorgeous. And I wonder when I first saw it, I thought, what is the the end is so crazy, right? Donnie dies, it makes no sense, it doesn't work at all. And now I I just think it's glorious. It's so profound and moving. It's glorious, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It transcends friendship. It's like a familial or tribal kind of connection, in the sense, like no matter what Walter does, no matter what boundaries he transgresses in the mind of the dude, in the end, you know, family is family. It's that kind of um relationship where there is no.
SPEAKER_01One of the great scenes that way too, but I mean I think the hug is the best. But um, after the the debacle at little Larry's, you know, the dude's really angry and you know, he's he runs off to his house and he put he nails the dumb board into the phone. And uh Walter calls and uh you know he says, leave me the fuck alone. Then he then he just says, Yeah, I'll be a practice. Of course, I'm still coming to practice.
SPEAKER_05It's just so matter-of-fact, you know, yeah, of course, yeah. This doesn't affect that. I love that moment.
SPEAKER_00Well, let me let me jump in with a few of my political, social, cultural themes. I think it's a critique of capitalism in the following way, and that is the uh, you know, there's this myth that wealthy capitalists promote, and this goes way back to the Chicago school and uh Reagan and but the the idea that uh the wealthy are generating wealth and there's this trickle-down, and it's the movement of the wealth is from the top down. But really what happens in the in the real world is that the wealthy extract wealth from the poor and the middle class, creating inequality and and poverty. And so the big Lebowski, Jeffrey Lebowski, he promotes this myth of himself as being industrious and you know not living on the dole like the dude, but in actuality he is extracting wealth from Maud's charity, right? So I think the idea that capitalists create wealth, this movie pulls the veil away and says, no, it's actually the it's the opposite. That's really what's going on. So I think there's that aspect, that critique of capitalism that Cohen's in the past. And in other films, they do critique capitalism. And the second theme I was thinking about that is uh social, which is it's a kind of class distinction. And and Troy, you you alluded to this. There's a sense in which Walter and the Big Lebowski share certain political beliefs, but class-wise, there's a serious class distinction, right? And I think it's it's not a coincidence that Walter and the dude and Donnie, you know, they they play the the working man's game. They play the working class game. They're they bowl, right? But you know, like bocce, all these things are not these are these are peasant class. So there's class distinction in the film. And uh even though there might be political alignment between someone like Walter and and the Big Lebowski, there certainly is a vast uh chasm between them class-wise.
SPEAKER_01Can I just quick jump into Roger to sort of compliment what you say there? I mean I mean, um you know, there with capital too. I mean, so they've got the big Lebowski, he's big capital. But Walter's, you know, a petite bourgeoisie guy. He's he's got his own business. Uh he's he's a kind of you know capitalist himself. And almost none of them work, if you if you notice. Um very few of them. It's Defino works and uh Walter works. Is any anyone else work in that movie? There's a real I guess Brandt works.
SPEAKER_05The the thugs work, but uh you know, the the the thugs who come in they do a kind of work. But you're right, there's very few the drivers of the cars, you know. These are the working people that we generally see.
SPEAKER_00But going back to the anti-war theme, you know, I think that you know the dude is obviously at odds with the establishment, um, which I should mention that so is uh McCord from the Branded. He is like the dude, they are both uh it's kind of Western heroes, you know, the dude and and uh branded. Um his name was Jason McCord. That was I think it was Chuck Connors. Anyway, they're both kind of like the Western anti-establishment. And of course, we hear from the dude when he's uh Maud his her entreaty is to tell me about yourself. And he mentions that he was uh one of the original writers of the Port Huron statement, which uh for you historians, you know that I didn't know this until I looked it up. But that was written in 1962 and uh you know was a kind of a manifesto of a leftist student uh organization. It was written in Michigan, Port Huron uh Port Huron. And then also he says he was a m member of the Seattle Seven, uh which was uh a famous uh kind of anti-war, kind of leftist radical group in the s early 70s, and uh of course Jeff Dowd is uh who the dude is sort of loosely based on. He was a member of the Seattle Seattle Seven. Um so we do have the anti-war aspect. Now it's you know it's n it's not clear to me if the Cohen are taking the anti-war aspect seriously. You know, they do this oftentimes, they raise these issues and then they parody them. So we're never quite sure. Like, I guess it's anti-war, but maybe they're critiquing anti-war, but they're also uh valorizing it. Anyway, so I think the culture wars, which in my lifetime, though, you know, the culture wars, I I have distant memories of uh like Newt Gingrich and all that going back to the Reagan era, but it's alive and well, right? We're st now it's like woke culture. So anyway, there's a little culture war issue in there. And then last two things I'll say is of course, as you brought up, the issue of masculinity and what it is to be a man. And I think that uh again, the Cohen are sort of subverting the uh the genre here. You know, it's instead of having the hard boiled detective and the tough guy and the bogart beating people up and the uh and and Peter Fossil, you you're an expert at this, you wrote your essay. But you know, the the it's subver it's subversion and also parodying and also in some ways valorizing what the Coens are all over the map when it comes to their view of masculinity. So they sort of let us uh make decisions about that. And the last thing I wanted to bring up is a kind of critique of marriage, right? As sort of like marriage is not really a workable institution. So the dude he mentions when they break into his apartment, he says, obviously, I'm not married when he's talking about, you know, where's your wife? Your wife is spending money. And then we have, you know, the big Lebowski and Bunny, their marriage is a sham. We have Walter and Cynthia, which, you know, Walter becomes like a like a cuck. He's kind of like uh, you know, he's like watching the dog, and so that marriage is a sham. And then lastly, the dude and Maude. It's not there, there's no intent for love. I mean, she says, love me, Jeffrey, but it's not about love, right? She's trying to reproduce. There's no talk of we'll raise the kid together, we'll get married. So, but when I when we see in the film this marriage as an institution, it's not uh the Cohen's don't doesn't come off as uh as a positive thing.
SPEAKER_05Anyway, it's very interesting. If I can yeah, jump in on that just for a second, because Robert, you mentioned earlier about the family bond between uh Walter and the dude. And I think that's exactly right. And I the the Cohn's are so often interested in family, and then we've seen it in Raising Arizona, certainly, uh more than any other film up to this point, but also in Fargo, and you know, we see some dysfunctional families there too. Um the one family that really works in this film is not a literal family at all, but clearly the the trio of the three main male characters, the bowling league team, is a kind of family.
SPEAKER_01And maybe you could say it'd argue that Philea is more important than Storga family.
SPEAKER_05I think I think there's something to that, but but I really think that this this triad of people are sort of playing roles of a traditional family in the sense that Walter's clearly the father, he's the you know, the the strong uh father figure giving orders, laying down the law, the ape of hammock sort of figure, the dude is the mother, right? Gentle, you know, kind, nice, sweet. Donnie's clearly the kid, right? Donnie, what can you even say about Donnie? What do you know about him? You know, at the end, when Walter summarizes his life, he he says he spent his life playing. He bowled and he surfed, like that's who Donnie was. Um, Donnie asks questions, like what's a pederast? And uh, or when they're talking about the dude's Johnson and the the uh threats to it, Donnie says, What do you need that for, dude? Like he doesn't know anything about sex. He asks all these and and Walter tries to change the subject. He's always telling Donnie to shut up because he doesn't want to answer these questions. And and Walter literally says to him, of course, one of the first things he says to Donnie is uh you're like a child who has wandered into a movie in the middle, right? Like Donnie is the child of this. And so part of the tragedy of this film is that this is a couple who loses their child, I think. Uh and uh and and Donnie and Walter says when when they're they're eulogizing him again before scattering the ashes, he says, he compares them to the Vietnam, you know, people who died there and says that like so many there, Lord, you took him before his time, you know. So I just think that that it's set up to be this family. And and it's sad in the sense that again the child dies, but it is really the one family in the film that works. Whereas every other family that we see or attempted a family is just coming apart. Yeah, people are leaving. You know, Dafino seems to make a lot of his living on what he calls wandering daughter jobs, right? Tracking down children who have run away from their parents. So families are splitting up everywhere, but the three these speaking. Once they've seen Carl Hungas, that's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So uh you know what I always thought was um uh not strange, but I guess it does reflect Donnie's naive today when they're at the bowling alley in the beginning and he says, um, yeah, the guy who this is really about the big uh the uh the Jeffrey Lebowski. And Donnie goes, Lebowski, that's your last name, do you? I always wondered like the way he says it, it's almost like it's um it's like an insight he has.
SPEAKER_05It totally is. No, I love that. I love that. And of course, Donnie later, he's such a kid, right? When they're talking about going to get the money from Larry's sellers, he's like, Oh, can we go to In N Out?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05It's a big concern. That's near the In N Out.
SPEAKER_01Can we go? Oh, by the way, but connecting capital to um um masculinity, I think a really interesting moment. And it it's meant, I think it it's a kind of counterpoint to the the Rich Lebowski's tirade about the revolution being over. So when you know the dude is coming in, he's looking at all the awards and shit on the wall there with Brand touring him through it, gets to a mirror with the Time magazine, you know, picture on it. Man of the year, and it's the dude. The dude is the man of the year, not you know, the big Lebowski. I mean the wealthy Lebowski. And uh just to to update that a little bit, you know, remember Donald Trump got really mad when he wasn't uh man of the year in I think it was like 2017 or something like that. So yeah, the uh Trump doesn't get to be man of the year, at least not that year. Um Rich Lebowski doesn't get to be man of the year. The dude is the man of the year, but he doesn't really give a shit about it anyway.
SPEAKER_05That that's part of what makes him the man of the year. That he doesn't make it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think we need to talk more, if we will, about the the dude's masculinity and his his his amazing self-confidence, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
Philosophical Themes
SPEAKER_00Well, why don't we use this as a segue into our philosophical themes of the big Lebowski and uh what do you say, Peter? You want to lead us into that domain?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, where to begin with this. So we've already touched on one of them. I think it's a question of virtue and you know what it means to abide. And I'm gonna have actually a question here because I there's a little detail I can't believe I missed before. And it has to do with the earth and being kind of earthbound. Um you in your essay, by the way, on rules, um, I think you you know really put your finger on something in a way you could look at um the nihilists as being like anti-rule, and even though you know they're not very good at that. Um, and Walter being excessive in his rule rigidity. I use that phrase from your article a lot. He's rule rigid. And maybe you know it's a kind of Goldilocks thing. The dude has this maybe a proper relationship with rules. And I think that's a really interesting question. So he doesn't freak out and pull a gun when somebody, you know, uh uh, which is disproportionate to the violation, of course, and he's committing all kinds of rule breaking at the moment. Uh and he also doesn't pretend that there's like there are no rules, but um I think there's uh there's something about almost Aristotelian and there's a kind of golden meme there. Um I think uh you know, this virtue of abiding is really interesting. And his sort of life of uh I think one of the essays in my book calls contented poverty, which uh which is a philosophical theme sort of too. But uh you know, we I think um um if we just talk about the virtue of abiding for a second, you know, you know, so abiding means in a way first of all, you can abide by the law, right? So you can abide rules and principles and and laws, but um it's also a way of like persisting, right? And so there's a way that um abiding is a way of kind of continuing through and the which the dude does, he abides, he continues through. Although there's a sense of his m mortality and his finitude at the end, but he's he's gonna repeat himself in the child, which is a way that human beings, which Aristotle rec understood, you know, Aristotle understood that you know the natural world is these cycles. You know, there's cycles of the planetary, you know, the celestial spheres, and I mean celestial things up there, and then there's the seasons, they revolve, they change, but they come back around. Acorns become oaks, which then shed acorns. It's kind of like a hula hoop, I think. Yes.
SPEAKER_05We're back again at the theme of revolution and of things coming around again. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Literal let revolution and bowling, you know, you do it over and over again, and the film opens, showing these people one after another after another rolling their balls, which I think um um is very much like by the way, Sisyphus and rolling his rock. In fact, Donnie says, I'm really, you know, throwing throwing rocks tonight. Yeah, first thing he says, right? Exactly. Um so I think there's this way which you know by the it's kind of and there's that's ri there's a repetition that persists and you go through these cycles and you re-inhabit these forms. So they're like the dude is re-inhabiting every day. This is like a Kierkegaard thing about repetition. You reinhabit these forms, but you uh tweak them, you know, you inhabit them in slightly different ways as you move through time. And um I think you know that's a a a real theme of the way things go. And in fact, what I met noticed, which is not to take too much time, but um um that I couldn't believe I missed before, I didn't really never really analyze the lyrics, the tumbling tumbleweeds, you know, which the damn thing opens with. I was always reading this just as like a symbol about the the West, and it's a Western, it's announcing its place in the West, maybe the American uh West, but also just Western films, etc. Western heroes. But if you look at them, it says, you know, pledging their love to the ground, lonely but free, I'll be found, drifting along with the tumbleweeds. I mean, is that kind of abiding? Drifting along with the tumbleweeds? Cares of the past are behind. Nowhere to go, but I'll find just where the trail will wind, drifting along with the tumbleweeds. Um, and it's uh the last uh uh uh verses um I I know when night has gone, that a new world's born. Born, the child at the end, a new world's born at dawn. I'll keep rolling along. Deep in my heart is a song here on the range I belong, drifting along with the tumbleweeds. I mean, like it tells you a little bit of a sort of thing. It's the whole movie right there. It's a whole freaking movie. And um, but it's the ground bit because so pledging their love to the ground, and you know at the end, like this can't be a f is this an accident? This is the kind of shit I would notice. But um, you know, the dude's wearing a bowling shot uh shirt that uh is about a company that sells sod. Sod, earth. And you we know that the um this the biblical quotations are you know uh allude to the earth too. One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, right? The little Bowski's on the way, but the earth, the earth abideth forever. Whoa! And uh, you know, that's uh Ecclesiastes 1.4, by the way.
SPEAKER_05That's wonderful. Now, of course, uh can I just mention here that if you look at the psalms, uh you find these lines, these are written on the wall of the funeral home that they go to at the end. Right. As for man, his days are as grass, yeah. As a flower the field, so he flourishes, for the wind passes over it and it is gone. So yeah, we have the book ending, the film we have these lyrics at the beginning and then these words on the wall at the end, yeah. Oh, and maybe we should I suppose since you said since we're on this uh the town's Van Zant cover of the Rolling Stones song at the end, right? Dead flowers were also in the earth and things dying.
SPEAKER_00Of course, Donnie is ashes to ashes.
SPEAKER_05Donnie's ashes, yep, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and you know, Peter, can I can I ask you to expand on something? Because I know this is your area. Uh there are many, but this is you know, the the implicit Epicureanism, the kind of valorizing the doing of nothing, or kind of letting the wind blow where it takes you. Can you can you pick up the phone?
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't know too much that drifting along bit, which I think is interesting and and could be, as you know, I mean Nicholson says that's a comment on where the culture was at the time, didn't know where it was going. But on the other hand, maybe that's a virtue, not to to just move, you know, to to be able to uh you know move along in that way. But um yeah, but epic this is um in one of the essays in my book, I forget who wrote it, but it's something many have noticed actually. So the dude is poor but content. And um the the Epicureans, ancient Epicureans, you know, uh contrary to how we that word is used today, you know, they advocated kind of simple living. You know, they were against what they call kinetic pleasures, which are like, you know, orgasmic, you know, whoo wow, you know, adrenaline-filled wealth they weren't into. They thought simple living without much material wealth, just eating, you know, very simple foods, um, friendship was a very important virtue for Epicureans. That leads to a kind of peacefulness, um, an autoroxia, a tranquility. You know, it's it's when people pursue these excessive kinetic, you know, uh um, you know, luxurious and um ecstatic pleasures that they actually end up it's like drinking and then you have a hangover later, but uh these simple kind of per they're calm and they endure um pleasures are characteristic of uh Epicureans. I mean, some people think that that the the virtues of the Epicureans are kind of you know embodied in the dude anyway. I think he does get upset though, more than you know, the Epicurean sage would.
SPEAKER_05He's not perfect. There are certainly moments when he does get very undoed, as Walter accuses him at one point. But he's not, I mean he's not a hero. He's not you know, but on the whole, he's so easygoing about things, he doesn't grip things tightly, right? Even the rug, he has to be talked into going after it. Yeah, he's not gonna do anything about it. And he complains, so Walter talks him into it, and that's where so many of his troubles come from, because Walter says, you know, Walter's the man of action always. We got to do something about this, we can't let it stand. This aggression will not stand. That's fucking interesting. The dude says later on, you know, yeah, um, you know, I could just be sitting here with pea stains on my rug. Like you had to talk me into going and pursuing this and making all this trouble. And then there's the wonderful moment in uh when he's in the limousine uh talking to uh tell the guy that the driver tells the uh joke about uh you know, that's the guy's name. That's right. Yeah, yeah. But you know, I mean I can't complain about it. Tom Herrera. Yeah, Da Merera, that's right. And and the dude says, you know, yeah, I'm doing okay. You know, I was a little down, I lost a little money. But you know, you can't get worked up about that stuff. Well, the little money he's talking about is a million dollars. But he just lets it go, you know, he's okay.
SPEAKER_01Like here's what the past are behind.
SPEAKER_00You know, one of the things I just maybe I'm just thinking off the top of my head, but it seems like the things that the dude gets does get riled up about are about people, right? Like he doesn't a lot of people will be really angry about the rug or losing the money, but he gets angry at Walter because he thinks that Bunny's life might be in danger. He gets angry at Dafina because he thinks, what kind of what kind of person do you think I am, right? That I she's my um lady friend, right? That's right, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So his weird concern with the the precise terminology from that's right.
SPEAKER_00But Dafino is the only person he's really mean to.
SPEAKER_05He is he is he is he is a little bit mean to Dafina, but I I guess what I'm saying is is that um No, but you're right, yeah, he cares about people and almost always when he's upset. He he's mad at Walter because Walter pulled the pistol on Smokey. Um he's mad at Walter in general because Walter's mean to people, he's dangerous, he's reckless, you know. There is one weird exception, of course, that I've I still have never understood, and that's uh how much the dude hates the Eagles. Like, what is the what that's about? But I'm supposed to be an inside joke with that. I got the theory. Come on. I I know, but the dude should just let it go, right? He's the dude. Like, whatever.
SPEAKER_01Before you go to the music, Robert, I mean, there is a dark moment with the dude when he's upset. He threatens to castrate little Larry.
SPEAKER_05Okay, that's true. That's a child. He does go over the line with Larry Silvers. That is true. Yes.
SPEAKER_01That was wrong. That was really in the heat of the moment.
SPEAKER_05You know, again, the dude's not a hero, he's not perfect. But but no, I agree with Robert that uh, yeah, in general, that's his real concern, is with people.
SPEAKER_00Troy, do you want to we can we jump over to your philosophical themes? What do you say, Troy?
SPEAKER_05I mean, uh we've already at least mentioned the appearance reality thing, and that's pretty big. That comes up the thing I love about this theme, is is it it's it never dies, you know, it philosophically just keeps on giving, and it's always there in some way. It is one of the deepest, most persistent themes of of Western philosophy. And and in the Cone films, we find it, I think, in everyone in some version, and here it is again, but a different version. And in this case, so much of it is about people's presentation and their identity and the question of who they really are. Um, the wealthy Lebowski being maybe the most obvious example of somebody whose appearance and reality are so at odds and who is so concerned with cultivating a fake appearance to precisely as a means of getting power. If you look like you have power, people would treat you as if you do, and then you have power. That's the trick that he is using for his life. But the reality of it is he's sitting there spewing these right-wing epithets about the bums and so on, and he's a bum himself. He talks about how important it is to achieve, and he's never achieved anything. So the whole thing is just a fake, right? It's a false front. And and you know, which enrages the dude when he finds out, but it really enrages Walter, right? Walter certainly can't stand this sort of uh fakery. Um, and one of Walter's uh it's not so much quite fakery, maybe as amateurs, but he loves that as an insult, right? People who pretend to be good at things, but they're not, the amateurs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then he accuses them of being a fake um, you know, uh, well, of course, Walter goes too far, right?
SPEAKER_05You're you're not even really uh handicapped, you don't even need the chair, and so there's that Goldberger. Is that what he says it calls? Yeah, Goldbricker, that's right. He's gold brick and ass, doesn't he? Yes, that's right. Yeah. So that whole sequence is great. It Walter, as usual, you know, takes the valid insight and carries it too far into the realm of the false conclusion. But uh, this appearance reality thing, like this movie, it it's so interesting to me that this came out right after Fargo. And and of course, uh it was written uh before Fargo, and they would have filmed it first, but John Goodman wasn't available, so it ended up being done after. These two films are so different in such interesting ways and so similar in such interesting ways. But one of the contrasts that really strikes me is that in Fargo, it's said in the Midwest, there's almost nobody in that film who thinks a lot about their presentation and how people see them, right? I think the only ones who really do it overtly are Jerry, who's trying to look like something he's not. And in some ways, Wade, but Wade is what he looks like. So, you know, he he might it might be important that he's a looks like a businessman, but he is a businessman. But in the big Lebowski, almost everybody to some degree seems to have an image that they've cultivated and that they're trying to impress people with. And and I think an interesting question is does the dude, or is the dude just who he is? He's just that's naturally who he is, and I'm tempted to think that. But you might think that somebody with that kind of strong image has to have put some thought into it. And he does tutor people occasionally on what they call him, right? Stuff like that. I'm not Jeffrey Labaski. I'm the dude or El Dudorino or whatever. So so he's put a little thought into it, but for the most part, it seems to me that the dude is really just happy to be who he is. Whereas almost everybody else, in one way or another, I think, uh has cultivated.
SPEAKER_01I do wonder if Maud is really all that much of an artist.
SPEAKER_05Nobody can be quite like that, right? That Maud's, you know, and I like Maud. I think Maud is one of the more positive, admirable characters in a lot of ways, but clearly to some degree, that accent's a put-on and the whole the hair of the Catherine. Yeah. She's thought a lot about how she looks and how she comes across.
SPEAKER_00How does she have a mid-Atlantic accent when she's gonna be?
SPEAKER_05Where is that coming from California? So there's a little pretension there too. I still like Maud, but there's a little pretension there too, I think. So I think she's envious of Bunny, too, by the way. Oh, yeah, the Maud Bunny thing. Because you know, the yeah, that's an interesting dynamic we should probably talk about.
SPEAKER_01Because she says, you know, she has sex without joy. You know, her screen name is Bunny La Joya. And um she looks pretty joyful to me, I'll tell you what.
SPEAKER_05But anyway, we'll get back to that. Yeah, no, but I think you're right about that. Yeah. The identity thing, of course, you know, the Donnie again being the child who doesn't even really have an identity yet, and so he's always wearing the bowling shirts with names on them, but it never says Donnie, it's always somebody else's name. Yeah, I love that.
SPEAKER_01Um, he's not exactly who presenting that as who he is because it's not clear who he really is.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think Donnie may be the other character who hasn't really thought about his image because he's a child. So children at that stage just don't do that yet. He just isn't anybody. He doesn't have an identity to project. But then there's Walter, of course, who, among other things, insists that he is Jewish and insists on the authenticity of his Jewishness when, in fact, you know, to borrow a line from a leader film right into it. He thinks Jewish is fucking Dev. Yeah, that's right. Fucking Devia. I love that line. Yeah, that is such a classic line.
SPEAKER_00Troy, can I just jump in quickly on that identity thing? Because I'm thinking one one of the things that, you know, this is like the the tumble and tumbleweed that is the dude. Many times we see him um parodying lines, and it's not even clear that he is conscious that he's doing it, right? But many times through the film he utters things that we've seen earlier, like the George Bush stuff about the line. And and and that's all also raises question of like exactly who who is the dude an amalgamation of these things, of the 60s, of the of the Zen dude, of because, you know, and I'm I mean uh many look, a lot of us maybe this is like a um it's a parody of the of the fact that many of us we get a little bit of info and then we at the next party we go, did you know this, this, and that? So we all kind of do it, but the dude, he does seem to be um porous in that stuff comes in and it kind of like just comes out at whatever time. Yeah, so it's that that's part of his identity.
SPEAKER_05The phrase like the parlance of our times is gonna stick with him and then he's just gonna use it, you know. And I love that. He does do that. But of course, there's one moment where there's one moment where he does it, and I feel like it's intentional and it's really a great moment, and that's where again he he's figured out the mystery, and he and Walter storm into wealthy Lebowski's uh office and he says, Where's the money, Lebowski? So there's that question again. But the dude has taken ownership of that question, right? It was directed at him almost as a weapon at the beginning, and now he's grabbed it and he's using it, and he's using it against the right person, right? He's got the right target now. So I think that's a beautiful moment. I love that. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Please continue with your philosophical observations.
SPEAKER_05On this identity thing, I just want to mention again this question of names. I mentioned Dandy and the dude himself, but also, of course, Bunny Lebowski. Her real name is or original name, at least is Fon Knutsen, and then she's got the porn name as well, Bunny La Hoya or LaJoya, depending on pronunciation. And then Uli Kunkel also goes by Carl Hungus, right? There's such a multiplicity of identities, and in a lot of these cases, like both Bunny and Uli, but but probably wealthy Lebowski too. It's people really trying to change who they are and really trying to, you know, adopt a whole new identity in some way.
SPEAKER_01Don't you think that connects back in a way to the subversion of the um the masculinities and the heroes of American cinema? Because it's this way of trying to show like all these heroes, you know, whether it's wealthy men, think of like Elon Musk today, or you know, cowboys or sexual athletes or um, you know, um detectives, uh noir detectives. You know, there's a phoniness to that. You know, yeah. The film kind of points that out.
SPEAKER_05I think that's right. There's a real concern with phoniness in this film. What is real, what is authentic? Is Walter's Jewishness authentic? Is the big the the wealthy Lebowski authentic, and so on. And and the dude is, I think, you know, again, you can point to moments where he's not perfect, but he's a pretty authentic guy. You know, you know who he is when you first meet him, that's who he is. And he really abides by that identity, I think.
SPEAKER_00I think it's interesting too that Bunny's real name, Fawn, is a sort of like a pre-sexual being, you know, a mammal. And then her adopted name is a hypersexual mammal. But they're both mammals. They're both little fuzzy mammals.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, she didn't change the name that much. That's right. I love that. I think also in terms of philosophy, it's like a bunny. Exactly, clearly. And she loves laughing.
SPEAKER_01She's got that license plate with the She's got the devil. Remember, she's got the devil some love to spare.
SPEAKER_05I think a deep philosophical issue in this film is is this a is the vision of the universe we get here optimistic or pessimistic? And I think that's a very difficult question in this film because it feels again, it's a comedy in the sense of being very funny. And comedies are generally set in optimistic universes. But of course, as we know, it's the Cone brothers. They can make a very funny film set in a very bleak universe, Fargo, for example. Um, is this another film like that? Well, on the surface, it's not Fargo. It's much friendlier, brighter, funnier, more colorful, etc., you know. And yet there's still a kind of pessimism here, I think, that I find it, and maybe it's linked to one meaning of the word nihilism, again, which of course keeps coming up with us, um, which I find in a lot of Cone films, which is that in their films, when people try to improve their life in some way, when they take decisive action, it rarely succeeds. It almost always has some sort of bad consequences. It sets in motion a chain of events, right? It backfires in some way. And so sometimes, and maybe with the lucky ones, I think, with the more comedic ones perhaps like raising Arizona, the people just end up back where they started. They haven't really made any progress, but they haven't been damaged either. Um, inside Lou and Davis is kind of like that too, a circular motion, right, in the plot. Uh, more often I think they end up dead, like in Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn't There, Llewellyn Moss in No Country for Old Men, Carl Schwalter and Fargo, Chad Feldheimer and Burn After Reading, many characters in Buster Scrugs, right? There's many examples of this, ending up dead as a result, again, of chain of events you set in motion. Or they end up alone, confused and injured with an unhealable wound of some sort, like Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, True Grit, and Sheriff Ed Tom in No Country for Old Men. So the dude, again, this goes back to something we're saying about him. He mostly avoids decisive action. He's he's drifting. This is his sort of strategy in a way for getting through life. But again, strategy is not right because it is who he is. It's authentic. He's just happy to abide. He's wise enough not to get too attached to things. He would have let the rug go, but again, Walter's the one, the decisive one, who says, let's do something about this. And as as is typical, it and you know, Walter's Walter's pursuit here and the dude's pursuit once he takes it on, the pursuit of the rug, it's like Marge's pursuit of the wrongdoers in Fargo, or like Matty Ross's pursuit of the wrongdoers in True Grit. He's seeking justice. There was a cosmic balance, then there was a violent act involving a family or a home being ripped asunder and invaded by outside forces that destroys that equilibrium. He wants to get his rug back, the rug that tied the room together, in order to restore that cosmic balance. And again, in almost every one of these films, when somebody tries to do that, it ends badly. They don't restore anything. It's impossible to bring back the world that was before. They just end up doing more damage or causing more damage. It becomes a kind of a tragedy, even where the intentions are good. You see that over and over in uh Cone Brothers films, and I think you certainly see it in this one. And for me, one of the really deep philosophical films, the philosophical themes, is that issue. Because I think that on the surface, you know, the the last few minutes aside with Donnie's death and so on, on the surface, it looks, it's very funny and bright and colorful, and it looks like an optimistic film, and it feels that way. Uh and I do think there's a way of reading it, which is, you know, absolutely valid. It goes back probably to some of the things we were saying about the cycles and human life abiding and going on, and every death balanced with a birth, etc. But the other flip side of that is every birth is balanced with a death. There's this very sort of pessimistic thing that you know, don't try to act decisively, it's not going to go well for you. This is like you with the splat in Hudsucker, you know.
SPEAKER_01You find these dark themes, which increasingly persuade me. But I think it's pretty optimistic at the end. I mean, with the um now it is there is the p possible subversion that comes out of the mouth of the stranger, but I mean, you know, there's there's hope. A birth is always hopeful. People you know find birth hopeful, and uh that and he the dude persists. And I have a sort of postmodern, you know, read on this is that um that connects with this sort of drifting, you know, equality is that the the the the rug is like a transcendent trans insignifier, and you know it's what holds the room together. But now we're in a a society, this is like Nietzsche and nihilism, where they're you know, this sir, you know, the the widening gyre, you know, from uh you know uh Keats is like it's widening, the falcon can't hear the falconer, you know, blah, blah, blah. Um, meaning has been lost. Um, yeah, if you tie them like to God or you know, who's dead now, the and the rug is lost, like God is dead, is like the rug is gone. And uh, but the dude doesn't need it. He doesn't need that kind of anchor. You know, he it's his abiding that um that uh defeats nihilism and that creates meaning, and it'll persist in the next uh revolution. And that's my more optimistic reading, but yeah.
SPEAKER_05I think I think the optimistic reading is there. I did more and more as I watch these films, I feel like each one. Ends in this place where there's two ways of reading it. And there's a more optimistic one and there's a more pessimistic one. I mean, there's some that you just have to be pessimistic, but there's no optimistic reading of No Country for Old Men, you know, so I'll I'll grant you that. Definitely not. But in so so many of them, I feel like you know both readings are there, especially in the comedies, I think. And and it's it's it's sort of up to you to choose, but they want you to feel both. They don't want you to just see one, they want you to feel the pull of both because I think they think both of them get something right.
SPEAKER_00I I think on that point, um, it's not a coincidence that the final scene we see the bowl, there's someone bowling and the ball is headed towards the pins and it they fade to black. It goes to black and we hear the pins. The question is, did he bowl a strike or didn't he? And I think that ties into this theme. Is it a is it a optimistic or a pessimistic film? Is it optimistic or a pessimistic universe? And I think it's no coincidence that we don't really see the conclusion. It's left to us to figure out or to ponder if it's I totally agree.
SPEAKER_05And I've been fascinated by that choice to cut that scene exactly where they do, because you can't quite and I looked so hard to see, could you tell? Because it sure looks like it's going to be a strike, and it sounds like well, you feel like it's a strike, but you don't know for sure. You can't do it. I knew Robert would solve it.
unknownThat's good, Robert.
SPEAKER_05But you know, that scene, or that that's a quite long take at the end. That that it's several minutes, and it begins, I think, with that same bowler bowling a strike. Yeah. And then so so, of course, one theory, a much more pragmatic theory, is that they just couldn't get it so that he bowled a strike at the end, and that was sort of the best take. And so they said, look, we got to use it, and so we won't show that it's not a strike. But I like your thematic reading of it better. I think you're good.
SPEAKER_01It's that guy's name is uh Barry Asher, he's a professional bowler.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna you know what, Peter? I was gonna say, just watching him bowl, that his his whole form, yeah, deportment. It when you watch it, you're like, okay, this guy is a professional bowler.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_00So I have a feeling that guy, let me just say, I put my money on that guy. That's not the reason they cut it, that he couldn't bowl a strike.
SPEAKER_05I suspect that you're right. And and your suggestion makes sense of it. I love that long, last, that long take at the end. It's that's a beautiful ending.
SPEAKER_01You know, back to Philia with that. I the dude's last words are actually not uh due to Bides. It it's it's oh it's almost, you know, um, you can't barely hear it, but he's he's walking off towards Walter and he raises the beers and he just calls out to his friend. He's like, Walter, and he's got the beers. And you uh I think that's also a way that you know the last word from the dude, anyway, is is about friendship and beer.
SPEAKER_05Friendship and beer. Friendship and beer.
SPEAKER_00They're the forever intertwined friendship and beer.
SPEAKER_05Robert, what have you got for philosophical?
SPEAKER_00You know, you guys covered a lot. I'll just I'll just go through. Um I did I was thinking about, of course, the issue, the theme, which we've talked about before, recurrence. They love recurrence, like in Hudsoccer, you know, the bowling balls and the cycles, and you know, even the notion of Zen as being at the heart of this, uh, even though it's not explicit, but the dude is kind of a Zen guy, and the uh the kind of like a striving for nirvana, you know, get that you're in the cycle until you can uh make your way out. And also the theme of appearance versus reality I was thinking about. Um a couple things quickly here. Well, I think another theme is relativism. And I think you mentioned this, Troy. But uh, you know, uh we've talked about Ethan Cohen having been a philosophy major at at Princeton, your albumater, Troy. And uh so I don't think it's a it's not a coincidence that the dude says, that's just like your opinion, man. And of course, as you mentioned before, when the big Lebowski is caught red-handed, he's go he says, You've got your story, I've got my story. So I think the Cohen are always ready to remind us of um kind of the dangers of relativism. I think I I don't I don't believe that they're relativists, but I think they always like to inject this this um possibility or this specter of relativism. And of course, you know, when you think about it, the response, well that's just like your opinion, man. It's it's ridiculous. I mean it it's true, but it's ridiculous. That's the his response is it's the most tepid kind of response he could give to that aggressive um uh act on the part of uh Jesus. But uh so anyway, we see relativism throughout the Cohen's, but also that you know it has a philosophical theme. And the last thing I want to say, and then we can if you want to jump in, is I want to circle back to the nihilism theme. And Troy, you to both of you touched on this, but I think nihilism plays a central role in the film, but I think avoiding nihilism plays a central role in the film. And so so thinking about how do we how do we avoid nihilism, how do we get out of nihilism? And and there are many ways to do it, right? We can become a uh Ubermensch, we can think uh, you know, I am I can accept the eternal recurrence, I can accept the meaninglessness and absurdity and do it as a s in this macho kind of a way, in Nietzschean way, but I think the dude's answer to how do we avoid or how do we deal with nihilism is that non-achievement is like the honest way of being in the world that that is a fuck you to nihilism, but it's a but it's a it's not an act of fuck you. It's just like this is non-achieving is the way to deal with nihilism, at least from from what you were getting from the dude. You know, he's blown about like the like the tumbleweed, right? That's his answer to nihilism. And you know, going back to Sisyphus, Peter, right? It's just like he he gets meaning from this this kind of repetition. He gets meaning from existentialist meaning from um this this task that is uh of course representative of the the absurdity of our existence. So I think that's important to see the dude. And and Troy and you and I have written on this that you know the world is nihilistic or could be, or the world is morally corrupt. And the dude is kind of like this noble anti-hero, right? He's like, this is I'm just living my life, I'm just being blown around. And so I think in a way the Cohen are saying if the world is nihilistic, here's a way to live. And of course, as we've talked about before, it's come up in previous conversations that the dude is like the anti-macho, anti-capitalist, like we're not taught to live like the dude. That's what partially what makes him so funny. We're taught to strive and accomplish and achieve, emphasis on the word achieve. And of course, the dude says non-achievement is actually the way. And so I think that um that take on nihilism, I find that kind of brilliant. I'm I'm I'm gonna say it's Ethan because of his philosophy background.
SPEAKER_05Seems likely. There's something very thorough about the dude, right? The thoreau of civil disobedience, you know. Uh just don't get your hands dirty, right? Don't be part of anything bad. And the best way not to be part of anything bad, not to be complicit in something awful, is not to do anything at all and sort of withdraw from the game, which is what the dude has done, you know, into a different game where nobody gets hurt, bowling. So I think there's a real purity in a way in his lifestyle. And whereas contrast that with Walter, and again, Walter's the one who gets the dude not to be like the dude, and all the troubles come from that. But Walter, and yes, we did write about this in our paper, you know, that going back to the rule rigidity thing and so on, Walter just seems to have this terror of nihilism and is so afraid that the world fundamentally deep down is meaningless that he fills it with rules that he has to stick to. It seems like one of the things that attracts him to Judaism is the fact that there are these rules about things you can't do on the Sabbath and stuff like that. He loves that. It gives his life structure and meaning. And he he feels like, you know, it's not nihilistic because he he lives by these principles. But he's so tightly wedded. Walter loves security, and and what is his business? It's a security business, social security, right? Like he's craving security. He's selling or trying to sell what he wants himself, but never really has because no matter how tightly you bind yourself to rules, you still feel that yawning chasm, right? It's there. You can't really cover that up. So he's always still a little bit afraid on some level. If he could learn to just you know let go like the dude does, you think he'd be so much happier.
SPEAKER_00And Troy, on that purity point, notice too, the dude says uh when he's recounting the highlights of his life, when he says, you know, I was one of the authors of the Port Hur Huron statement. The original man, I not that uh compromised second draft.
SPEAKER_01I love your analysis, Robert. That is so great, especially when you talk about the Ubermensch. Like um, it's a way this is his answer to the Ubermensch theory. Like, you don't need it's not the Ubermensch that'll overcome um nihilism, it's gonna be the dude. And there's a sort of like the non-achiever. Untermensch or something. But in fact, you know, the achiever, the the people at Lebowski Fest have picked up on your theory here, I think, because like they sell t-shirts when you go to the Lebowski Fests that just say achiever on it. And they ask you to like go around the world and take pictures of yourself at places wearing your achiever shirt. Well, the you know the documentary about the fest is called that two achievers, but it's it's totally ironic, right? I mean, they're not achievers, is the whole point.
SPEAKER_05They're they're not achievers by the conventions of standard society, but they are achieving something, right? There's something to be achieved by not achieving in the ordinary sense. Oh, you're so Buddhist.
SPEAKER_01Achieving that's not achieving.
SPEAKER_00Or you Deridian, maybe they're not achievers by the Big Lobowski's supposed uh standards, right? Which he, of course, himself falls short of.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I love it. Yeah, great, great, great job, Robert. That's awesome. Oh, can I say one last thing about the philosophical bits there? Just two little details. This is not themes, but so after um Maud and uh um the dude, you know, uh sex, um on like uh one of the You mean coitus? Coitus, I that's what the word I was looking for, thank you. They after they coit, they um make a verb, they um one on the one of the uh tables or bookshelves there is being in uh nothingness, Sart being in nothingness there. And Walter, um, as they're walking out of the um the um bowling alley at one point, um just just before they encounter the nihilist in the parking lot, he refers to the Rombaum, which is like a medieval Jewish um philosopher, Maimonides. It's his nickname, and uh although he gets the years wrong of the guy, he puts him in the wrong century. Um I forget what he says, 14th century or something. But anyway, um yeah, those are two places where there's little tiny illusions that I again I can't think that they weren't put there intentionally.
SPEAKER_00You know, I was thinking too, going just circling back for just a moment to the dude's you know, interfacing, if you will, with nihilism and his response to it. And even literally when she says, um, well he says, will he will he mind if I blow and she said he's nihilist, and he goes, that must be exhausting. Exactly. Another piece of evidence that that's the way he deals with nihilism.
SPEAKER_05Great line.
SPEAKER_00To be a nihilist is to that's Nietzsche. Not only is to be a nihilist exhausting, to be an Ubermensch is exhausting, but to be the to be the the dude is the the anti-achiever.
SPEAKER_05That's right. Of course, what's funny in the ubermenship that line in connection with uh Uli is that he's not really a nihilist. He's not really committed to it, he doesn't even really know what it is, and he's there's sort of revealed fake it's not fair, right? At the end, who's the fucking nihilist here, right? And this goes back again to the thing about image, right? Here's one more guy trying to project an image. I love the fact that the same actor in the previous film, Peter Stormair, plays somebody who's clearly a kind of a very dangerous nihilist, but never calls himself that he doesn't care what people call him, he doesn't think about labels. Whereas he's the authentic nihilist, and here we see the inauthentic nihilist who labels himself that, but isn't actually the thing. Which maybe is more nihilistic ultimately, who knows?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think
Coen Brothers Themes
SPEAKER_00this is a good place to segue into Cohen brothers' themes, and there's a lot of them here, but uh Troy, do you want do you want to?
SPEAKER_05Um sure, okay. Well, yeah, I'll I'll say a little something. And I mean, because we get to talk about the dudes Johnson. We have said very little about that yet, and yet it's central. Um we talked some about the family already, so I won't say much more about that. But again, you know, Cohen brothers like to make movies about the family. I was surprised when I started re-watching their films how many children there are in a lot of these films. I hadn't really thought of them as being very interested in that, but there are. And so here again, we we have Donnie as the child, and then we have the literal child who's coming along at the end of the film. But I do think, as we've said, and I won't go on, we've talked about this already somewhat, but I do think it's a film about family. And when you ask the question, how should we live or what is a good human life? I think uh if you're an American or if you're an Aristotelian or whatever, it's natural to take part of that question to be what's a good family? How can we live as well, what is good family life and family structure? And how can we flourish as parts of families?
SPEAKER_00Then there's a big family, because you know, remember the big the big Lebowski, racially, he's pretty cool. So he has a lot of kids who are different from He's a rainbow, the Benetton of children. Right.
SPEAKER_05And then of course at the end of the film, the two family lines, the two Lebowski lines are coming together because uh, you know, Maude, who's the the wealthy Lebowski's daughter, is having a kid with with the dude. So they're I mean, imagine if they did go on to hang out, the family vacations and stuff, they'd be so awkward. I think just gonna be a good thing. That's it, you know.
SPEAKER_00Troy, that is a great I've another I've never thought of that is that the two Lebowski come together with the child, the child is a true big and little Lebowski.
SPEAKER_05It really is, yeah. Yeah, that that guy's grandfather is is the the the Goldbrick and ass guy. I mean it's gonna be, or I shouldn't say guy, because I don't think we know if it's a boy or a girl, but uh the the little Lebowski. So um, but well and and then I suppose this is related to the question of the dude's genitalia and so on, and and this comes back to the masculinity theme again. Uh there's something about uh there's a lot of first of all anxiety in the film as it goes on directed towards the threat of castration and such things. This comes up repeatedly, both literally and figuratively. That is, you know, people there's not a lot of violence in this film, but there are people who get parts of their body either cut off, as in uh, you know, the female nihilist's toe, or um bitten off, the ear of you know, the other nihilist at the end, right? Walter bites the guy's ear off. But then there's also, of course, threats of castration, many of those quite literal, coming from, again, the nihilists. Um, and uh, you know, there's the scene where they come in, God, this is such a funny scene. They they break into the dude's uh bathroom and you know he's he's in the bath relaxing. He's just learned to think that the police found his car, so he's in a good mood, and they come in and they throw the ferret into the tub. And the the ferret, of course, is going after his Johnson. And I mean, the yeah, right. He calls it a marmot. He just recognizes what he's being attacked by. I love that. Nice marmot. So all this stuff about the dude's Johnson, and he talks about it later, and that's when Donnie says that thing, right? You know, he says, You're gonna cut off my Johnson man. He said, What do you need that for, dude? And there's all these exchanges. Then, of course, he has the dream. And if we're talking about Cone stuff, we we ought to at least mention the dream sequences, and so and we gotta say something about the narrator. There's all, you know.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_05But right now, so there's the dream with the nihilists and their huge cartoon of scissors, which are ridiculous. Um, what does the dude's Johnson have going on here? Well, I I think it's pretty central. And the the thing that really got me thinking about how central it is, it was actually a combination of two things. One was uh the scene in Jackie Treehorn's place when uh Jackie is on the phone and it looks like he's writing something down in the notebook and then he leaves for a minute. And the dude, like a good P.I., or like you know, one of the only moments in the film where he's really being a good PI, he hustles over there. He he does the little pencil shading trick to see, you know, the impression of what Jackie wrote. And of course, it's this drawing, this doodle of a guy with this massive heart on, this is huge penis. And but what's great about this, I love it, is that the dude takes it anyway, right? He treats it like it's a clue. Maybe he's just covering up his tracks, but I get the feeling that no, he feels like this is a clue. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought it is a clue, right? It tells you what's really going on in this film. Um that's great. And and and then the other thing was when a friend of ours mentioned something about uh Jeff Bridges' performance, which is his physical performance, which is so amazing. Uh, he walks around and especially when he sits, he just thrusts his pelvis forward. He sinks into whatever chair he's in. And and he's just out there. He's so exposed. One of the great ironies is he's worried about castration and having his Johnson cut off. But he's just putting it out there. He's not trying to shelter it at all, right? The way he moves and holds himself. Fully manspreading. He's really such a manspreader. It's it's amazing. And so I think, first of all, there's this sort of hidden pun going on here between the phrase private dick, which is what he's acting as, you know, the private eye, right? The dafino-type character, the brother Seamus, uh, and the public dick, which is what he got, he's got, right? He's got a public dick. It's out there, he's not trying to hide it at all. This very much fits in with the dude's overall. Um I'm gonna draw two conclusions from this. So, first of all, it's a reflection of the cone of the dude's personality, both in terms of how comfortable he is everywhere, no matter who he's with, what social status, you know, stratum he's in, or whatever. He's just gonna make himself at home. The way he sits in that chair in the wealthy Lebowski's office in the first scene with him, like he's just draped all over it. It's nuts, right? He's he's just comfortable everywhere with everyone, right? He just belongs everywhere. I I think there's some truth in the stranger's claim that he he's a man who fits right in there, you know, in that sense. That no matter where he goes, he fits right in. But then there's also this other thing going on with him in terms of, again, the lack of privacy. Like the dude's house, people just walk in and out as they please. He can't keep anybody out. When somebody wants something from the dude, they go in and they take it. And even when he tries to bar the door and stuff, he can't do it. It goes so deeply against his nature, right? He's a completely it for me. One of the biggest laugh lines in the film, and it's partly just his delivery, is I think it's that same the tub scene again, when the nihilists come in and he's and of course he's high, you know, he's in the tub, and he says, Hey, this is a private residence. Private property does not sit well with the dude. No, no, like like they've just made a mistake, right? It's so innocent of him. Like, oh, they just they they got the wrong address, right? They've already started beating stuff up. That's what he thinks. But it's not private. That's right. It's never been a private residence, like nothing the dude has. You know, in the sex scene with Maud, right, where she says, love me, and he says, Hey, that's my road. That's my road, that's my room. You can't even lock the door right, you know. There's nothing, there's no exclusion in the dude. There's no element of whereas so many of the other people we see are so focused on excluding certain people or being in, you know, with being with their kind or whatever. That's why the dude goes everywhere in this movie, right? And he talks to everyone. Dafino says it, right? I love your method. You're in bed with everybody, right? He goes everywhere. So anybody comes in whenever they want to his place, and he goes anywhere he wants. And I think this is really important understanding him. Um, and the way he sits and stuff, you know. And then the other connection, I'll stop with this, but the thing about his Johnson and so on is that uh I think this goes back to that scene of uh when they confront the wealthy Lebowski and uh Walter again goes too far, picks him up out of his wheelchair, throws him on the floor. It's a terrible, it's it's hard to watch in a way. Darkly humorous, as many of their hard-to-watched scenes are, you know. But of course, uh this guy, you know, he's in a wheelchair, he's probably impotent. He probably, probably his Johnson doesn't work and hasn't worked for a long time. And I think if you want to understand this guy's psychology, why does he do what he's doing? It's rooted in insecurity. And so when he's looking at the dude, uh acting superior and saying, you know, you're the bum, I'm the employed person, I'm the valuable member of society, you're shit. The truth is he feels less than the dude. Um, and you know, we get this even in the first uh the the great room scene after Bunny's kidnapping, right? Where he comes in, he says, What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski? Uh, is it a you know willingness to do the right thing at any cost? And the dude says, Yeah, that and a pair of testicles, which, you know, I think probably cuts this guy like a knife. Like it's a joke, but this guy. Yeah, like wow, in a way, and I have nothing to do with Mend it, but I think that it was a very cruel, biting thing to say. Oh, I never thought of that so good.
SPEAKER_00Troy, I was thinking about the the going back to the issue of um of uh Donnie's question when he says, uh, what do you need that for, dude? We actually find out what he needs it for to carry on the Lebowski name. That that's what he needs his Johnson for. He needs because Maud doesn't seem to have any male siblings. The dude seems we he doesn't there's no mention of that. So maybe the dude's Johnson is going to continue the Lebowski line. Maybe that's the purpose of the.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think that's right. There is an answer to that question, which we find out soon enough. Yeah. It's fascinating how many characters in this film have an interest in the dude's Johnson, and it keeps coming up, you know, one way or another. And then, of course, if we're thinking of insecurity and so on, like the wealthy Lebowski, but I think Walter also, his gun thing is partly it's a penis substitute. Walter Austin, yeah, don't you think? So Walter's the only one in this film with guns, right? The only time we see guns, which is unusual for a cone film. It it's Walter's guns.
SPEAKER_01Well, I have a question for you, Troy, about the silk. I usually look at all that castration anxieties tied to like the anxiety around masculinity that the film, you know, is engaging and maybe and generating in a way too. But we do have this suggestion that Donnie's the Johnson, right, with the shirt. So, you know, one of the things you can only see if this if you stop frame by frame like I did, when um when he's bowling in the very first time we meet him, stitched onto the back of his shirt. It's at a weird position. It's like at the top left shoulder, says Johnson, right? And then he is killed or dies later on. They're Johnson, the Johnson who's identified in the opening, actually is you know removed from the nice, nice.
SPEAKER_05Wow, that's great. I don't know how he's the Johnson. Well, either it's like Chekhov said, you know, a Johnson in the first act has to be cut off in the third, and soff's Johnson.
SPEAKER_00Chestnorff's Johnson. Fossil, again, coming up with uh that's like a deep look and see what I saw.
SPEAKER_01First saw that's like, are you kidding me? No freak awake. You can only see it if you stop, you know, if you pause the thing and look at it. I love it.
SPEAKER_05Let me mention a couple more, and I'll be pretty brief. These are ones I generally talk about. Um Robert, you already mentioned the uh border violations and boundary transgressions. There's a whole lot of that in this film, uh, including stuff we were just talking about, with the dude again, you know, people just going into his house at will. Um, but of course, then there's so there's this contrast between the dude and Walter, where the dude just doesn't seem to care about these lines very much and stuff. And Walter's the guy again saying we had to draw a line in the sand. This aggression will not stand. Walter's the guy freaking out when another bowler's toe allegedly goes over the line. I think that's a wonderful uh symbol, you know, of Walter's overall attitude to life. Somebody went over the line, and he's just got to respond by pulling out his gun. So, you know, it's this crazy overreaction. But uh a lot of the stuff I think relates to, again, the the dude's uh just his willingness and his ability to go anywhere he wants. So it's it's like these doors don't seem to keep him out very much. Uh and like Fargo, where when we talked about Fargo, the at the center of it there was this uh border violation, uh the home invasion, which we find a version of in so many films. We we've got various home invasions here too, again, mainly inflicted on the dude. But of course, at the end, again, the dude turns the tables when he figures out the mystery. He and Walter invade the wealthy Lebowski's home. They go in there without permission in order to confront him. So that gets flipped too. And then in terms, yeah, we can also connect this to stuff we've already talked about of families coming apart, right, and stuff like that, the family not holding together. All this, I think, is linked in these interesting ways. Um the dream sequences we should certainly talk about. Common, you know, Cone Brothers thing, we see that a lot. Uh, I've got my Cone Gun rule, right? Which you'll recall, which again, my theory that um in every Cone Brothers film, if a character fires a gun, that act of firing tells you something about their real character, about who they are. Now, in this film, of course, Walter's the only one with guns. And we see him with guns twice. He he pulls the pistol, first of all, in the bowling alley in order to threaten Smokey. Doesn't actually shoot anybody, but he sure seems like he's ready to. I mean, he's on the verge, and uh the dude manages to talk him down. I certainly think that reveals a lot about Walter's character in that moment, even though he doesn't actually fire the gun. The other scene. There's the oozy. That's the other scene with the oozy. And he also doesn't actually fire the ozi, but the oozy fires itself, right? Walter It's like a premature ejaculation. Exactly. Going back to the theme again about yes, Walter's penis, etc. Exactly. He loses control of it, he brings it with him inappropriately, loses control of it, and of course it shoots up the dude's car. So, you know, we what we certainly if we take this as emblematic of Walter's character, uh, he loves his guns and they make him feel safe, but they shouldn't, because he has no control over them and he wields them very inappropriately and hazardously, and also symbolically, basically. They they represent something to him. Um maybe the last thing I I think the uh last thing I'll mention here is the uh the narrator. Uh again, cones love their narrators. Almost every film we've watched so far starts out in one way or another, either with the sort of explicit off-screen narrator or with somebody on screen like Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink saying things that sort of perform the role of a narrator, telling us what the movie's about. Well, this is a really interesting case, isn't it? And I want to hear what you guys think about this one, right? Because this narrator, he seems to be telling us or trying to tell us what the film is about, and in particular trying to describe the dude, but he does such a poor job of it. He says almost nothing. He he loses his train of thought, forgets what he's saying. He says these very vague things that are hard to understand. The dude, you know, he just fits right in there. He's the man for his time and place. Well, what is he talking about? Because it's not at all obvious what that means. Um, it's puzzling. He doesn't seem to know. He tells these weird stories and little jokes and stuff, you know. He doesn't seem to make sense. So one gets the oh, and then of course he appears again a couple times in the film. So at first he's just an off-screen narrator, but he comes back later on on screen twice uh and actually meets the dude and talks with him. So he becomes a character in the film as well. So, I mean, to me, and I want to hear your thoughts on it, both of you, but to me, it seems like there's something in here again connected. Maybe this goes back to relativism, Robert, you were talking about, or something closely related to that, the question of truth and how the cones are very aware of what their characters know and what they don't know. Um, all the way back to Blood Simple, again, where we the audience know more than the characters do and we're in a position to understand what's going on, etc. That doesn't so much happen here in Big Lebowski because you know we're as confused as anybody through most of it, trying to figure it out. And the dude presumably gets to the solution before we, the audience, do. But we definitely are aware of limitations on people's knowledge and misunderstandings, you know, even the basic misunderstanding of mistaking one Lebowski for another that sets the whole plot in motion. And and and there's this talk about expertise, right? In the little porn video, uh, when Carl Hungus shows up to fix the cobble, um he says, I am expert, right? That's why I'm here. He's the expert is gonna fix the cable, right? So there's these little mentions of ideas about expertise. I think Walter's use of the word amateur again is something related to that as well. Nice. You should be an expert on something, not an amateur if you're gonna dabble in it, and so on. Um, and you know, you would expect your narrator to be a kind of expert who knows what's going on, and instead we get this amateur narrator whose knowledge is very limited, who we feel like isn't really helping us at all and can't really be trusted. And so I think that there is this theme of limited knowledge, lack of trust. Um, there's a lack of omniscience, right? There's nobody in this universe who really knows what's going on. Uh, there's a certain point at which the dude figures out a big part of what's going on in terms of the detective plot. And then, of course, what happens is we get the wonderful thing, the subversion, a very noir gesture in a way. You know, in the classic Sherlock Holmes story or whatever, when the detective figures out the truth, that's it, right? Thing is, everything is good now. We we've resolved it, justice is restored, the wrongdoers will go to jail and be punished, whatever, you know. But in a noir film, and in this film, that may not happen. The person might figure out the truth, but it doesn't matter because that's not the way the universe works. The guilty party has money, or in this case, no, but they have power, they have respectability, nothing's gonna happen to them. So again, when when they confront the wealthy Lebowski with the truth, in the moment where you're, as the audience sort of expecting, you know, oh good, it's resolved now, day one, the guy just shrugs and, yeah, so what? You've got your story, I've got mine. Nothing's gonna come of this. Maybe that is what happened. It doesn't matter what happened. So I don't think it's a skepticism about the truth exactly. They there is a truth to what happened, but it's a skepticism about the power of merely knowing what happened to make a difference in the world. And so I think there's a real kind of deep epistemic anxiety that's coming out at various levels in this film. And and it's it's signaled by the very beginning with this narrator who, even though he's the narrator of the film, doesn't really know what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00Nice. That's great. Well, since you since you solicited about uh The Strangers uh monologue, you know, I always found it to be a little bit of a puzzle when he says sometimes there's a man for his time and place, and he fits right in, and then he says, and that's the dude in Los Angeles. So you know, at first, or you know, still puzzling, it's like, wait, the dude, people go to Los Angeles to pursue their dreams and they, you know, they auditions and everyone's got a screenplay in the drawer. The dude is not like that at all, right? He's not he's the opposite of that. But on the other hand, and we find this in a lot of Woody Allen films reflected that uh, you know, on the East Coast, there is a reputation that LA is like the cool laid back laid-back kind of place, right? So so even though it is the second largest city in in the country, and it's a megalopolis and everyone's striving, um, there is this weird reputation of LA as being chill and people just sort of surf and lie on the beach. So maybe the puzzle, the answer to the puzzle is that the stranger is reflecting a kind of caricature of LA, where the dude is kind of he's he reflects that LA, a whole LA vibe. I'm not sure that, you know, I'm convinced. I it I always found that puzzling because I never thought the dude is the man who fits in his place, Los Angeles. Maybe the dude like Santa Cruz or uh I don't know, something like that.
SPEAKER_05Santa Cruz, I like that.
SPEAKER_00He's more of a Santa Cruz kind of cat.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I don't know what to make of it. Uh to me, it does feel at least partly ironic in the sense that the dude sort of fits in everywhere. So the idea of the dude fitting right into one particular place, I don't know if it makes sense because he just sort of gets comfortable wherever he goes. But he also he would be sort of an oddity wherever he goes, because he stands out in a certain way, too.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell And the stranger tells us right after that that he's he's so he's lazy and and he makes he actually so he makes a kind of a reference to Los Angeles being a city rife with lazy people because he says something like uh, you know, he's possibly the laziest in Los Angeles, which would place him in the running for the laziest worldwide. And yeah, as someone who is in Los Angeles and lived in Los Angeles, I it's it's weird because I don't the impress I don't get the the impression of people and even friends of mine who are like hardcore surfers. Just lazy isn't something that's it's a weird moniker to give to Los Angeles, I think. So I'm it's still kind of confusing to me.
SPEAKER_05It I I just don't feel like you can trust this guy at all. Whatever he says, you've got to take it with a big grain of some.
SPEAKER_01Although, you know, I was thinking, you know, there are places the dude wouldn't have fit in. I think like, I don't know, some authoritarian North Korea, I can't see the dude. And North Korea. I mean interesting thing. But um, yeah, but it why exactly in Los Angeles? Then I was thinking also that time period, you know, 91 was the way at which at that moment, at the end of the Reagan era, when every when all those Vietnam tropes are kind of getting exhausted, maybe that's where he fits in. And it's just that it's the West Coast, you know, so like when the tumbleweed gets down to the beach, like that's as far west as you're gonna go, you know, in the the US. So maybe it's something about the you know, the um the w the West at that moment, you know, and it's suffering from nihilism. I don't know, that's a that's a big uh stretch there, but uh that's kind of the way I might think about it.
SPEAKER_00Well, Peter, did you want to take this you want to pick that up, Peter, the Cohn brothers themes?
SPEAKER_01Sure. I mean, I just wanted to talk, I mean, sure I usually talk about skepticism, but I like what you said about epistemic anxiety. I think that was all pretty, pretty right. Um if there's like um maybe some skepticism about the future, certainly. I mean, there's we talked about maybe the hope with the baby, but there's just like where is this country going? Where's it, you know, what's gonna happen in the future. But um uh, you know, for me, nihilism is a is a theme that goes through a lot of their films, whether it's the tornado in serious man or the dark rider of the apocalypse in uh raising Arizona or you know, Anton Shagur and No Country for Old Men. Um the nihilism here isn't just the nihilist, I think, though, it is that phoniness to everything. And that's also something it's associated with Los Angeles, by the way, even if it's not true. People I think think of it as a you know all surface and there's no depth and um all appearance and no reality. Um just a play of you know signifiers without any you know anchors. Um yeah, so I I think the film engages it in ways we already mentioned, and that is it responds to nihilism with abiding, and then you know, you know, unpack abiding in the way we have. Um yeah, I think that's that's uh to me the most important element of it. And it is that way in which it's not just the these characters that nihilist, which of you also mentioned Fargo, of course, it's on the scene, it's it's in the West, but written large, it's like you know, the the loss of masculinity is the loss of the big phallus, it's the loss of the big, you know, signifier, it's the you know, it's no longer a phallocratic society, not just in a feminist way, but it's like it doesn't have any um resolute sort of um pillars of meaning or whatever. The church is gone, and um you know Hollywood's presents all these phony things that aren't real, and um we're right back at Barton Fink with that. Yeah, exactly. Barton Fink is another one, right? And the the gun in Blood Simple and also in Blood Simple, just the fact that like, you know, no not only does nobody know what's going on, what you feel like is like even if they did, it would still be a really bleak kind of you know place. Bleak and cruel and um hopeless in a way. So um, yeah, I think that's the thing, but you're right, Barton Fink brings us back, and that's an interesting connection, isn't it? Because uh we're we're back into Hollywood again. And um, but here in a different way, several other films, of course, you know, deal with Hollywood. So I think that response to uh when you when I think about how does it fit in to their you know river, I think it's it's it's the way it's another way of addressing nihilism. I mean, one thing I sometimes think is that we haven't gotten in no country, but like in Lebowski, um maybe in Arizona we don't know about nihilism winning, but it's it's sort of optimistic. But here uh nihilism is defeated, but in um no country uh nihilism wins, you know, something like that. And blood simple nihilism wins. Um so that that to me is like a theme that I see pervading not just this film, but all their films, or most of the films. You know, Fargo too. I mean the the nihilist's defeated, but it is we don't know where that future is going. That baby's coming into a very bleak world, you know.
SPEAKER_00So as far as Cohen Brothers themes, there's so many, and you guys have touched on them. I I think it it is a you know, the buddy movie, but but I think w going to the uh and it's aga it's also a Western, which they love westerns, but um I wanted to go to the their sort of subversion of the film noir, which this isn't their first one. In fact, they've done a lot of those with their their first film too. But it seems like the Coens Um they set themselves an interesting task to make a film noir that's hilarious and also kind of mirrors some of these um confusing, confounding plot points from the big sleep. So it is a subversion of the film noir, but it's an interesting subversion in that they bring in the comic elements, which of course, when you think of film noir, it's kind of antithetical. You don't think of a comedy. So I think the this it's a unique Cohen subversion of of their uh their history of of their practice of subvert subverting um film noir. Um and and also another theme is that we saw in Hudsucker is this, as I mentioned earlier, this kind of critique of capitalism or capitalists, if you will. I don't know if it's a critique of capitalism full stop, but it is a critique of capitalists. And of course, as you both mentioned, you know, the appearance versus reality, they love I I I I'm trying to think, is there a Cohen film that doesn't in some way echo that theme? As well as, as you mentioned, Troy, the transgressing boundaries, they love that theme. Um so yeah, that stuff, and you've also mentioned the theme of masculinity, which appears in a lot of Cohen brothers' uh films. But the only last thing I had jotted down was I think of all the Cohen films, and perhaps of all the films in movie history, I think one could uh reasonably argue that this is the most quotable film in movie history, right? Um and I think uh I think how many people learned what the word micterated means just from from the Cohen brothers? Um so yeah, I do think that's uh it the a lot of the Cohen films are are quotable, but this one I'm gonna put my money on this is the most quotable film in movie history. So there's my I think you're right.
SPEAKER_05I I think if you did the scientific study, like the ratio, you know, running time to quotable lines or or just number of words to quotable, there it's ridiculous how quotable this film is. It's I I swear, you know, more than half, probably at least two-thirds, maybe 75% of the lines can be quoted. And there it's such great dialogue. It's it's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, that's how the Lebowski Fests got started. In fact, there was two uh Louisville guys, Will and Scott, they are more at a like a Comic-Con type thing, and they're sitting around, and all of a sudden they start just like quoting from the film, and others joined in, and they just like sat around for like a couple hours, like quoting from the film. They're like, we gotta do something with this. And hence Lebowski Fest were born.
Music & Score Observations
SPEAKER_00Well, what do you say we start to head towards the musical themes? Yeah, sounds good.
SPEAKER_05Sounds good. We've got to hear Robert's uh theory about the dude and the eagles.
SPEAKER_00Should we start with that or should we let me start with I read a great essay, and a lot of this I I'm gonna credit this guy Jeffrey Adams, who wrote on the Cohen's, but he he I think it's a chapter in his book uh called Musical Signatures of the Big Lebowski. And so he has this theory that I thought was really spot on, which is and just to mention it's this this uh the Big Lebowski, which um presages, you know, the O Brother art thou, which is the this it's like an eclectic soundtrack of you know, compilation of these songs, some popular, some it's the first time the cones have really done a soundtrack like that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00They they they uh it's an amalgamation of all these, it's mostly from the 60s and 70s. And it's it we should note that the producer of the the music producer was T Bone Burnett, who is still he just released an album with Ringo Starr just a few uh weeks ago. Um so he's still out there working. And uh I think T Bone Burnett he did the music. What was that Jeff Bridges movie where he plays like a kind of a country singer or like a singer song?
SPEAKER_05Was it Crazy Heart? Crazy Heart of it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that was and that had a big uh soundtrack, and that was T Bone. So T Bone Burnett is he's kind of like the man when it comes to these amalgam these amalgamations or compilations. But this guy, Jeffrey Adams, he had an interesting theory that said that the soundtrack is they it kind of picks out uh what he calls the musical signature of certain characters. And um and so let me just go through some, I'm not gonna go through everything he talks about, but he has some interesting connections, like for example, you know, the tumblin' tumbleweed that we get in the beginning. That's uh that's the dude's theme, right? His his the commentary on the dude's kind of lifestyle and uh and that. And then the the credence, Clearwater, he he mentions, you know, it has the word revival in it, which is like the dude he's living back in the 60s uh with regard to his lifestyle, but also his music he he listens to. It's funny because he was on the road with Metallica, but we don't we never hear him, we never hear any heavy metal. It's a very it's the CCR that we hear. Um you know, this kind of revival to authentic authenticity, right? Cle credence and purity and clear water, right? So um, yeah, so that's that's sort of the dude that that that's supposed to reflect the dude. And um and of course, uh and I brought this up when we were talking about uh Barton Fink, but you know, the musical signature, if you will, of Jesus, the Hotel California. And my theory was because we always or many of us wondered what what does the Hotel California have to do with uh the John Totouro character? And uh and my theory was well, because the last time we saw Totouro in a film, he was in stuck in Hotel California in in Barton Fink. So I'm I just wanted to resurrect that theory. This this was the time and the place to resurrect.
SPEAKER_05That is a good one. I like that a lot.
SPEAKER_00And you know, there's other obvious ones like Leave a Las Vegas for bunny. And uh and uh the uh and the he also thinks that uh the send me dead flowers is kind of that's his unbeknownst to Donnie, that's his theme, right? It's a farewell to Donnie. Um so that's that's the sort of uh I I thought that was an interesting essay. But my theory on and you know I don't know how persuasive this is, but I think that the dude's obvious utter antipathy towards the eagles maybe and this goes to our essay, Troy, about the authenticity of the dude, is their sort of commercial co-opting of that genre, that that you know, credence clear water revival is you know, you're you're getting the real thing. You're getting the uh the anger and the angst and the beauty of that time, and then the eagles come along and they sort of co-opt it and they turn it into this I gotta peaceful. I mean it's like that ain't that ain't credence, right? I mean, you know, love 'em or hate 'em, they the the critique is, at least my critique is that the eagles kind of represent the the capitalists L out the to commercial interests of that music, and they're sort of the pinnacle of that. And I think given that the dude is authentic, then it's it's just it's antithetical to who the dude is. And so the question is like, why does he get so pissed off at the Eagle? It's a weird when when we witness it, you go, why does he hate the Eagle so much? I mean, the Eagles are the kind of band where you go, either you like them or you're like you're indifferent. But it's rare to have, you know, active antipathy and anger towards the Eagles, but I think that's what's going on. I think I think the dude sees them as sellouts. And that is uh, like I said, that's antithetical to the dude's genuineness, his authenticity. So I don't know. I'm putting it out there, ladies and gentlemen.
SPEAKER_05He just wants their gold brick and asses out of the music business, right? They're human parake. Yeah, okay. I can I can go along with it. I think you're right. I mean, that is uh that there is something about them that that does seem inauthentic. And it's very calculated, isn't it? You picture a bunch of people sitting around the table trying to doing the working it out, you know. What exactly do we have to do to to sell a million records by sounding sort of like this but without the intensity of that?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell I mean, no one would accuse the eagles of having too much angst in their music.
SPEAKER_01Why do they have a black guy motivating all that? Is it just for part of the incongruity and they find that humorous or something? What's that about?
SPEAKER_00That's a because you you pr Peter, you brought up the race issue, and it does seem that the other than the the uh Asian American proper nomenclature, there's also that's I think that's the only black character in the A.
SPEAKER_05There's one black cop. He gets like one line when the two cops come to the dude's place. But the credence. He mentioned the credence.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Or the credence. And you know what's interesting, that those cops are speaking of they're pretty chill. Those are the most chill cops you've ever seen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, those cops are great.
SPEAKER_00That's a great question, Peter. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I did think that the blonde one reminded me a little of like Scandinavian Fargo type copy, you know.
SPEAKER_05He had that look. I wanted to mention about uh the credence song that you mentioned, looking out my back door. The lyrics to that are really interesting, right? I had a look at him, and uh it it's it's this story of this guy who comes home and he's tired. He just got back from Illinois, right? So he comes home, he's happy to be home. Uh many people theorize it's about drugs because basically he just sits and he looks at his back door, but he sees all this crazy stuff. It's like a carnival back there, a parade or something. And so it seems like you know, many people take it, it's the story of somebody sitting there getting high. Uh, and the dude, of course, listens to it in his car while he's smoking and getting high. And it's very applicable to the dude's lifestyle. So uh you can understand, you know, why he identifies with credence so much if we take that particular song and look at the lyrics of it.
SPEAKER_00And you know, there's only one other credence tune in the in the film, which is Run Through the Jungle, which is definitely primal and uh it's touching on something uh kind of atavistic.
SPEAKER_05So Yeah, and their use of that in that sequence is just so brilliant. It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Uh can you imagine the eagles doing doing Run Through the Jungle? I don't know.
SPEAKER_05No, they couldn't do it. They and they shouldn't be allowed to try. No, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Tequila sunrise, no. The dude drinks white Russians, he's not drinking tequila sunrise.
unknownNo, no way.
SPEAKER_05That's not his drink. I like the thought of uh the Dead Flowers cover as uh Donnie's song. And so great. You know, it again accompanies that final shot, uh that final scene, which I think is all one shot. And and they play the song in its entirety. It spills over into the beginning of the credits, but uh, they play the whole thing, and it's just perfect, you know, lyrically, but also just the feeling of it.
SPEAKER_00And you know, that and the fact that they they use the Towns Van Zant version rather than the Rolling Stones version, that was perfect.
SPEAKER_05It's perfect, and I love the Stones version, but I think the Towns Van Zant version is better, but it's definitely better for this scene. It's more fitting. It's just it's it's a lament, it's so poignant, honestly. It's I I find like I said before, you know, when again, common experience. First time I saw the film, kind of cold, not sure about it. Now when I watch it, it's so funny, and in the end, it's so poignant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a beautiful, beautiful touch on the in the film. Um, one musical thing I observe is that it's just along some similar lines. So when Bunny's, you know, driving her little red uh convertible um down the road, she's singing viva Las Vegas, but it's not Elvis, it's Big Big Johnson, Big Johnson's version. What? No, really, yeah it's Viva it's Big Johnson. The artist's name is Big Johnson, not that's too perfect. Yeah, it's a it's a 1989 Jaguar X uh XJS, by the way. But yeah, it's I thought that was a nice little uh Cohen touch there, too.
SPEAKER_05Big Johnson. Wow, that's just too good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, then at the end you've got uh of uh Sean Colvin singing it too, when the credits are rolling. So you've got the female voice coming in uh again, but not um, yeah. So the king, the king is not does not appear. I mean the Elvis, the king. No, that's right, that's right.
SPEAKER_05We got the Big Johnson, and then we got uh the female voice uh closing it all out. Wow. You know, another perfect music choice, I think, is uh the music that they associate with Jackie Treehorn, the Henry Mancini. Uh is it called Lujon? I know I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, but that that is just so good. And and and the scene in which he appears too, if you recall that shot and the way the camera moves, and suddenly he's just he's striding across the beach and he's all lit up with that crazy smile, and that music is playing. But that that is just a perfect choice. I just love that. But Robert, yeah, I'm very persuaded by this idea that different characters are associated with these different songs. And I mean, they really thought a lot about it, clearly.
SPEAKER_00Let's not forget the music at the uh what have you. Um I think that's Mizorski. I can't remember. But uh it's so perfectly inappropriate that it's it's perfect. It's perfect in an inappropriate way.
SPEAKER_01It's pictures of at an exhibition second part of it. Sometimes called the gnomus. Which is a gnome. And he kind of looks like a gnome. I mean, the way he's dressed. Marty.
SPEAKER_00It's it's it just it heightens the ridiculousness of the entire what happens.
SPEAKER_05Well then we haven't mentioned Bob Dylan, but of course there's uh The Man and Me, which is used twice during the opening credits and then uh the first dream sequence. And and certainly some of the lyrics.
SPEAKER_01You know, used that twice without purpose. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, well, Peter, I would I was thinking about your ideas about how important the female characters are, even though they don't get a lot of screen time. And so I was thinking about those lyrics. Uh what are the lyrics again? It takes a woman in you to bring out the man and a woman like you to bring out the man in me. Yeah. I mean, that that fits the plot, you know. The whole plot centers on Bunny, and uh so something is brought out of the dude by his you know engagements with all this crazy uh fru-for-alls.
SPEAKER_04Coming around with you.
SPEAKER_05No, that's the center pole of the whole thing. I'm I I I actually do find myself quite drawn to the view that their female characters are really important and that they don't look like it because they're almost never on screen very much. But I argued that with Fargo, and I really think it's true in Fargo. And I think it's true here too. I can see it. These characters are again, it goes back to that perspective thing, you know. From from their point of view, this movie is about something very different. And we only get a little bit of that. Just like you know, for the dude and Walter and Donnie's from their point of view, what's really important going on right now in their lives is bowling, right? This other stuff is sort of a distraction from if you ask them to tell the story, it would be focused on the finals and who would beat who, and you know, who bowl the strike here and who choked. And like that's what I is obviously.
SPEAKER_01If the call comes in during a match, you know.
SPEAKER_05Right, yeah, yeah. Don't worry. I told them I wouldn't pick up, right? Yeah, that's the center of their lives.
SPEAKER_00Let me just, if I may, interject on that. I just something popped into my tiny brain, and that is well, there is a man at the end of the film. We discover that the man in Maud is the future Lebowski. So there's a little man growing in it.
SPEAKER_05Yep. Every episode you guys nail something. That's so great. Yeah, that's right. Isn't that good? That's awesome. While we're talking about music too, let me just mention the very interesting how many well-known musicians uh show up with little tiny parts in this movie. Uh Amy Mann as the female nihilist, uh Flea, I think, also is one of the nihilists. And then uh, of course, Smokey is played by Jimmy Dale Gilmore. Um Smokey. And there may be more, but I know there's at least those three. So uh I don't know how that came about or why that was, but the this is a movie full of music and also full of musicians doing things they don't ordinarily do.
SPEAKER_00I think these are friends of T-Bone Burnett, but I'm not 100% sure.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that would make sense.
SPEAKER_00But we did see the we we saw Smokey's band at the uh Lebowski Fest.
SPEAKER_01Lebowski Fest, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Troy, were you at that one? I think I was at that one. Yeah. Um yeah, they were good. Yeah. They were rocking. What
Cinematic/Character/Plot Observations
SPEAKER_00do you say we move on to our final category?
SPEAKER_05I think we're there.
SPEAKER_00And that is cinematic plot character observations. And I have notes. You know what I wrote down? I put many. So I just thought we'll just let, first of all, we'll let we'll let Maestro uh fossil, he's the he's the observation genius of the Big Lebowski. So take it away, Peter.
SPEAKER_01So Joel Cohen says that every movie ever made is just an attempt to remake the Wizard of Oz, and I take that pretty seriously. Um I think he's right about that.
SPEAKER_00And what about movies made before the Wizard of Oz? How does he explain backwards causation? It is just that good. It was just that good.
SPEAKER_01Um, it can transcend time. Anyway, um, you know, when you think about uh Bunny, so she starts off on this black and white, like just like uh Dorothy farm, um, in this bleak Midwestern kind of, you know, depression sort of looking uh uh place, Moorhead, Minnesota. Um, and she f she leaves it to go to like um you know, kind of Emerald City, where there's uh there are all these gold brickers and um where now she doesn't have a wizard unless you want to call it the big Lebowski, the wealthy Lebowski a kind of wizard for her, but um yeah, she goes there and she's transformed. She goes from uh von Knutsen to uh Bunny, I call her La Joya because of the I think it's the play they're making on it. Bunny La Joya. But she's the happiest person in the film, and she stays in the Emerald City. When she's coming down the the road singing Las Vegas, you know, she's wearing ruby slippers. I mean, they're red uh the red sandals, and her toes are painted green, emerald green. And um, when she gets back to, you know, even though the only time she looks a little bit sad is when the the wealthy guy's yelling at her, but it doesn't really stop her for very long. She she's out there fucking Carl Hungis, and um she's not uh she's not just engaging it without joy. She seems like she's having the time of her life. She has all these friends in where is it, Palm Springs she goes off to or something. And then when she comes back, she's literally dancing around the fountain naked. I mean, like, who else is like happier than Bunny Lebowski? That that that girl has just you know, she's she's got the pool, you know, she's got the emerald green uh bikini on.
SPEAKER_00I mean, she's um I have a question for do you think that Bunny Lebowski is happier than the dude?
SPEAKER_01This would be like where I say to the class, now discuss. You know, but um I mean she's very happy, and the film centers around her. I mean, everything is about trying to find Bunny. Um, where is Bunny? You know, she let's free her from her captives, which is all a lie. Um she's not captive to anybody. You know, she's um she's in control of her life in in the you know a deep way. So uh unlike and I think the contrasting person is the Amy Mann character, the the nihilist um girlfriend, she literally has no voice of her own. She orders um um hellbeer uh pancakes, which is kind of you know p pan beer pancake. Um but is it Uli? Yeah, Uli um just uh it overrides her wishes and orders lingenberry for her. And you know, and she of course, whereas you know, Bunny's body is like a a a site of um pleasure and joy, uh a man's uh does she have a name in that film? I don't think she maybe she doesn't have another name. Her body's a big girlfriend. Yes. Yeah, the nihilist girlfriend, she's not she's mutilated, she's lost her body, she's lost her voice. She looks like you know, uh, you know, some kind of addict. She's all wit uh skinny and uh unhealthy looking. Um she's the contrasting thing. Now Maud, Maud's doing, you know, she's living the life of a rich person, but she's clearly so pretentious and she's caught up in her um, you know, her image and going to the biennale and hanging out with, you know, uh artists. And there's a sense in which, you know, you're thinking like this girl is you know really just opposer, I think. And she's resentful of Bunny. She um, you know, she's she she criticizes her as you know, being this kind of nymphomaniac who doesn't have any joy and she's preposterous and all these kinds of things. But I think she's I mean, Bunny's happier than Maud, I think. I don't know. Um, and Maud, I mean, she doesn't have a partner. I think that's a really weird thing, by the way, to like trick somebody into getting you pregnant, you know, like without their consent. That's a very entitled, privileged kind of like way of being. She's a very privileged, you know, person. And uh anyway, I think the the other the women don't contrast well with Bunny. I mean, you can all think you can say about Bunny, I suppose, is that she's entirely selfish and hedonistic, which is uh, I think a valid criticism. But um anyway, she's the centering pole of the film and she seems to be one of the happiest persons. Is she happier than the dude? I don't know if there's a clear answer to that. I mean, the dude seems to be really happy at first. He's like just, you know, bouncing along, jaunting down the street, you know. But then, you know, this crisis hits him, and we it it is a kind of you know struggle he has to go through. But at the end, he's restored to his dudely happiness. He's lift lifting Miller High Life beer. It's a weird thing, by the way. Earlier, the beer they used as a fake beer is called Mike Dree. It's it appears in films a lot, but at the end, it's Miller High Life, which I thought is signaling he's returned to the High Life. So I just think that uh there goes the symbolism in the High Life bit there at the end. So he seems to be restored to a kind of happiness at the end after the um struggle you know that ensues when his rug is taken. Um yeah, is he happier than Bunny? I think he's deeper than Bunny. That's seems likely. She does seem pretty shallow, but um, yeah, I don't know. What do you think?
SPEAKER_00What do you think, Troy? Is uh the dude happier than Bunny?
SPEAKER_05Oh, I don't know how to compare the two. I I we don't see enough of Bunny to really know, so I feel like I one thing I feel pretty confident about with the dude, because we get evidence of this through the film, is that he's got a certain resilience, you know. He can go through difficult things. Yeah, he's upset at the time for a little while, but he shakes it off. And like you say, he comes out at the end, you know, the same way he was going in, which in this case is good because he was started off happy. Does Bunny have that kind of resilience? I don't know, because we don't see her tested, so we don't see her enough to know. But I agree with you, it's entirely possible, and I agree with you that on the basis of what we see of her, she seems like a happy person who's really got it together in a lot of ways. She's got a sense of humor. I mean, you know, she's funny when you first meets her, she's making jokes and stuff. And I mean, Brandt is clearly uncomfortable and embarrassed of her or whatever. But who wants to be Brandt, right? Who's gonna trust his judgments? I uh she she seems to be doing all right, and she's she's you know in a bad position, at least in terms of who she's married to and stuff, but she's clearly making the best of it. And if she wants to get up and go away for a weekend and have some fun, she just does it. So uh I I I think there's a lot to that's positive to to admire about Bunny. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think one question might be would Aristotle think that Bunny is happier than the dude? And and uh how about Jeremy Bentham? Would he think that Bentham might, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Bentham might.
SPEAKER_00I don't think Aristotle would would jump on that on that train.
SPEAKER_01She's got lots of utils, that one.
SPEAKER_00She's got lots of utils. Yeah, she's opt what's optimific.
SPEAKER_01She's optimific.
SPEAKER_05That that girl is optimistic.
SPEAKER_01I love the dancing around the fountain pit match.
SPEAKER_05That's insane. There may be a depth there that we don't get to see. You know, it it's hard to know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's there is a certain just abandon, just she's just so joyful.
SPEAKER_05She may be reading Aristotle in in her off hours. We we don't see that.
SPEAKER_00But what do you got? Any more uh plot character?
SPEAKER_01That'll be that'll be well, there's so many other films, but I don't I mean I was going to say Chinatown is something um, you know, like because there is this and it appears in the big sleep. There's this old trope out of Noor things that things Asian are decadent, you know, salacious and uh dangerous. You know, there's in the in the big sleep, you know, there's Asian tropes all around the site of pornography and murder, and there's um in Chinatown too. I mean, it's it's a sort of racist, uh, you know, jingoistic trope that gets used a lot in American cinema like this. And it's uh, you know, remember at the end of the film, it's like it's just Chinatown, right? It's Jake, it's what Chinatown. He says something like Chinatown. Jake, it's Chinatown. That's the kind of shit that happens in Chinatown. And of course, the porn star that appears in uh log uh jam and is Asia Carrera. It's like, are you kidding me? So, because Carrera is like from the Porsche, it's a German card, and then she's like fucking Asia. So they're combining two of them there. Um, you know, what's it Saddam Hussein appears, you know, as the bowling guy, um handing out the shoes, and uh then there's of course there's the doctor, there's the guy spraying the shoes in the beginning, there's you know um Asian, oh there's the there's Wu, there's the Korean War, another war in the film, by the way.
SPEAKER_00And then um so I think there's the use of the term Chinaman a few times.
SPEAKER_01Chinaman, right? And so I think they're you know, they're we're we're really going after that element from Chinatown because Chinatown was so definitive. I mean, it's a later film, it's not you know uh 30s and 40s kind of film, but it's um you know it it really I think locked into the American mind this idea of like the Asian um corruption um in the in the war stuff, even in like Blade Runner, right? I mean like Blade Runner is all this like Asian tropes, you know, in there that they're very uncomfortable to watch today, but um it they they were just picking up on a common theme. So that was a lot of and this is I don't know if this is my idea, or I just wrote it down in my notes somewhere. It was like so dude, it's kind of like older Luke Skywalker when you see him and you meet him, he's on that little island, he's chilling out, he's drinking some kind of milky drink, he's just hanging. That's the future of the dude. I thought anyway, I don't know where I'm not I'm not gonna take credit for that, but those are there's some of my film um observations, and I'm not gonna take him more time. Yeah, so let's hear what you got.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what do you you have, Troy?
SPEAKER_05I I'll make a couple. Yeah, since you mentioned Chinatown, another common point, I think, between the two films is again this idea of a the powerful person who can't be touched, even if it turns out that he did the wrong and you can say so and you've got evidence and stuff, it doesn't matter, right? And we get a very similar sort of bleak view. Uh Chinatown isn't as funny as the Big Lebaski, but you know, but I do think there's some definitely and it's that noir thing again we've been talking about. Um I wanted to mention uh the cones interest, it and I think this grows sort sort of around this point. It comes in and it starts to really grow. They're wonderful mimics, they're they're wonderful at uh mimicking certain artistic genres, obviously, but also artistic uh media, even like physical media. And I'm I'm thinking about a couple examples in this film of first of all, uh the the porn video logjam and that we see a little bit of, which uh you just mentioned. Um the look of it is so perfect. Every, you know. They so kind. The aesthetics of that cheap video porn of the time and and the way the the characters talk, right? The whole thing. It's just it they nail it. And you can tell how much pleasure I think they they take in doing something like this, the little film within a film type thing. You know, probably was the same in Fargo when they did the little fake soap opera and stuff, right? Like they just love doing these little hot sucker, that little you're right, right, yeah. Like they do this all over the place. And and of course, when we get to Hail Caesar much later on, there it's a whole movie that's almost you know made of such things of little film sections from different genres, you know, that they just get to recreate. They have so much fun. But you can feel the fun. Of course, the German, the cable guy's German and Uli's driver. Yeah, I love that. And then similarly, also involving Peter Snormer, you mentioned the band Autobahn. It's just so quick. But when when he's flipping through the albums and he finds their album, that album cover is so perfect, right? Whoever did the job on that, the production design, you know. I love that. They take such care with those things. I just hats off to the Cone Brothers and their whole you know team for when they do something like that. They want it to look good and they want it to look real, and they also get it to be funny at the same time. I just love those details that really make a film. Um, I wanted to mention uh Donnie's remains. Uh, this could have actually come under Cone Brothers themes because I think we've mentioned before, again, especially Blood Simple. But they're often concerned with the human body, and for instance, when the body becomes a corpse, you know, what happens then, right? What do you do with it? It seems like in so and Robert and I've certainly talked about this in so many films. You kill somebody, you don't worry, you know. Well, now there's a body lying there, right? Now just walk away, whatever, it'll take care of itself. And they're like, no, this is the real world. Like, if you killed somebody, you'd have a body to deal with, and that's not easy. And so we see that in Blood Simple. Um, we see it in Fargo, of course, with the wood chipper and so on. And we get a little comedic version of that here, with with again the same actor in this case, Steve Buscemi, playing, you know, the guy who becomes a corpse and now you have to deal with it. And we get the whole sequence at the end, first of all, at the funeral home, and what's the receptacle gonna be, and then the attempt to get rid of the ashes and throw them into the ocean, which of course goes awry. Uh I find this just a recurring theme in in the Cone Brothers, and it it does relate, I think, to just their broader approach of thinking, well, if this were really to happen in the real world, what would actually, what would it be like? What would you really have to contend with? What are the kinds of things, not movie logic, but you know, real world logic. And so many other plots are kind of generated by that. If a person really tried to pull off this kind of plot, here's how it would really work out, right? Here's the thing that would really go wrong. So they think about things like the human body, and it amused me that Steve Buscemi again was playing this. Yet again, they have Steve Buscemi's body to deal with in some way. It's a problem. Um, it also amused me. Uh, connections with Fargo again, the little scene where he's with the uh the prostitute watching uh Jose uh Feliciano. Um when he makes his lame joke, his pathetic uh, you know, I I was just in and out. I'm a businessman, you know, I'm here for a little of the in and out, ha ha ha ha. It amused me that in Big Lebowski, of course, Steve Buscemi talks about the in-and-out burger. I felt like that was a little uh nod back to the previous line from Fargo. Um the uh oh what was the other one? I thought I had one. Oh, I guess one more, yeah, one last one about the scene at the mortuary at the end. Um the the guy, first of all, we've seen him a couple times now, I forget the actor's name, who plays the person at the funeral home. Um Warren Keith. Thank you. He's so good. I love this little performance. He he's so condescending.
SPEAKER_01He has some Louisville connection, by the way.
SPEAKER_05It's a oh yeah, that's right. You mentioned that when we talked about him. I was supposed to meet up with him for lunch, but it fell through. Oh, I'm sorry. I hope you get to. I want to hear about he's so good in these little roles. I I love the fact. So we're at the you know, funeral home. Uh this stuff is written on the wall, right? I mentioned it before. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth, for the wind passeth over it and it is gone. And so I noticed first time that you know the theme of repetition again of them picking up stuff they hear or whatever, that when Walter is eulogizing Donnie about to scatter the ashes, he uses the word flowering uh from this flower of the field. He said, uh, you took him as you took so many bright and flowering young men. And then uh it struck me this time watching it. Uh, the guy Donnelly is his name, right? He's so offended by the Walter's question, could we rent a receptacle rather than buying when you're trying to rip us off, right? And he says, of course, the famous line, you know, this is not a rental house. It really struck me as odd this time when I heard it because uh it this guy, this stuff on the wall, these words from the psalm and stuff, right? This it's all about the ephemerality of life, right? It's all about like nothing is permanent. Like this is a rental house, right? This whole world is a rental house. That's the business that he's in. Nothing is permanent. We don't get to keep anything forever. So, in a way, it's a completely appropriate question. And I felt like I love that line. It's always struck me as funny, but I felt like, you know, well, no, there's something deeper under it too. Like this guy's got an anxiety or something because deep down he sort of knows that. And it's like the dude and Walter are pushing him on it, you know, they're confronting him with it. And so he has this reaction. It's not just about him wanting to make money off of them, although obviously that's part of it. But I think there's something deeper going on. And then so I was really watching the scene and the sequence carefully this time and thinking about it. And I just feel like it so makes the film, you know, it it's so it it's it really brings home this theme of this idea that it is part of the dude's approach to life. You accept that it doesn't last forever, nothing is permanent, nothing is stable, you drift through, you don't hang on too tightly. And if you do that, you know, if you're the tr the tree that bends in the wind, you'll be okay. And I really think that brings home at the end that he can survive pretty much anything because even this will come and go, you know, just as he himself will. So uh anyway, that that I think is what I have as far as that stuff goes.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_05Nice.
SPEAKER_00There's so much uh let's direct listeners to Peter Fossil's uh once again, his article for It's so great, it's so comprehensive. Cinematic plot character observations, it's it's um unparalleled. It's uh you have to just read it. So I just had a couple things to say. One was thinking about cinematic aspects. The Cohen Brothers and this could be a Cohen brothers theme, but I was thinking about the use of the beach and and Barton Fink, it ends when he's on the beach and he has this, of course, moment of confusion, but also maybe some clarity. We're not really sure. I don't know why it strikes me, but when uh Walter and the dude are up on the cliff and they're getting they're dispersing Donnie's ashes, I feel like that beach down on the beach could be Barton Fink sitting there. It's uh it's the same kind of feel, it's very bright and sunny and windy, and it's you're on the west coast, and it's interesting because when the Cohn brothers their interpretations or their uh characterizations uh of LA, you know, most think about like you know, um surf films in the 50s and 60s, and you know, uh David Hasselhoff and those guys. And the Cohen brothers don't go there, but when they do go there, when they do get to the beach, there's something profound. It's not you don't get uh Frankie Avalon and that Funichello, you get something profound. So I I thought cinematically, cinematographically, that um the way that the Cohen's use the beach is really the the West Coast beach is really interesting.
SPEAKER_05You know, I I think that's a really good observation, and I I hadn't thought of it in in connection with uh Bart and Fink, but you're right, because of course in Barton Fink the beach sort of plays the role of reality in a way. When he finally comes to the beach at the end, it's like he's confronted, he's emerged from this set of dreams and this nightmare. And he and and he's and and he's so much of the film indoors, and and now he's out in reality, and it's like somebody emerging from uh from Plato's cave, right? Out into the open. And and in a way, there's a little something like that here too. They're mostly the indoors, they're they're in the city, and then at the end of the film, it's like they emerge into reality and then they're facing the reality of their friend's death.
SPEAKER_01Nice, that's really nice, yeah.
SPEAKER_00As far as plot observations, it was brought to my attention in reading uh, I think it was Erica Rowell's book, where she she says that uh the the dispersing of the ashes at the beach, that was taken from the Mel Brooks film, and sure enough, I looked it up. It's called Life Stinks, and there's a scene with kind of the three protagonists of the film, and they're going to not the beach. Well, they can't make it to the beach because they're poor people, so they go to the sewer and they say, Well, the sewer runs to the beach, and they have a friend of theirs in the box, in the shoe box, right? So it's the same kind of thing. And of course, they go to disperse the ashes and they blow back, just like in the big Lebowski, they blow back in their faces. However, the interesting thing is they're not really that bothered by it. They're sort of like, Oh, poor Frankie, you know, good luck out there. So, yeah, there you go. The other beach scene we see in Lebowski is when they're at Jackie Treehorns, which is the debauchery and the kind of bacchanalia. And I have been to that beach where they film that. It's up near Zuma Beach. Just a couple other things. Uh going back to Warren Keith, um, he was also the FBI agent in Raising Arizona. But I think Peter brought this up before because I remember someone on I think it was you said that in in Fargo, the the voice the guy who's trying to reach uh the guy from the bank trying to talk to Jerry.
SPEAKER_05The guy from the bank talking to the bigger, yeah, I know yeah.
SPEAKER_00The guy who's calling Jerry, that's Warren Keith. That's the same actor.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00They like him as well, that's right. But uh the last thing I want to say is we can't have a discussion of the big Lebowski without mentioning the performance of David Thuleis as Knox. I mean, that is just that just that um three minute he's on, I don't know how long he's on, he's on camera just for that one scene. Is that true?
SPEAKER_05Just the one scene. Yeah, that laughter.
SPEAKER_00Boy, that's that's an Oscar-winning performance.
SPEAKER_01He's so amazing. We haven't talked about the Jesus either.
SPEAKER_05No, that's true. We barely mentioned. I mean, Terturo. There are so many actors in this film giving, and in some cases very short, but incredible performances, including incredible physical performances. I mean, John Terturo as Jesus is that's unbelievable. Uh Philip Seymour Hoffman, also we've mentioned, but his physical performance is outstanding. One of my favorite comic moments, I laugh so hard at this, is uh it's in the great room scene when when uh they're showing the dude the ransom note and so on. I I think it is the note. He hands him the note and then he turns around and he sort of resets like a robot, like his arms go.
SPEAKER_04It's like a robot.
SPEAKER_05It is such so great. Great little move. I see that and I just laugh. And and his his little nervous laugh when he's uncomfortable about something. I mean, that's an incredible performance.
SPEAKER_00He's well, we can't leave the great David Huddleston out. His his his performance of the big Lebowski.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he is great. You're right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so yeah, those characters. But you know, Pete go, I want to ask Peter this question because you we didn't mention this, but I thought you wrote about this, Peter. Or are there any coincidences in Cohen Brothers' films? But uh Totoro's character is named Jesus. Can you s can you say something about that, Peter?
SPEAKER_01Because I don't think that's Well, I mean, first of all, it'd be Jesus, right, if it were properly spoken to why isn't it? Is like a question. Is he's he he kind of looks a little Hispanic, I don't know. So you're like, why isn't he? But I think there's this like Christian bashing, especially like you know, Catholic bashing, because like the guy at the mortuary, I forget his name, but he's uh Catholic by the name suggests it, and then uh you know, it's that confrontation between the dogmatism of the Jesus, and he's got his Irish sidekick, Liam, you know, representing a highly Catholic population too. And um, at least in the Republic. But um, yeah, I think I think it it's really the the name is pronounced that way to highlight this um send up of uh Catholic dogmatism and Catholic pretentiousness, Catholic arrogance in the case of the um the Reynolds guy. I don't know, so that's my take on that.
SPEAKER_00Well, what do you say, fellas? Any are we wrapping up? Is it wrap-up?
SPEAKER_01I think we could wrap up, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think we can wrap it up. Wow. Well, let's see. That was uh that's uh uh episode number seven, which is film number seven, and it seems if everything goes as planned. The next episode will be uh is that O Brother Where Art Thou? Is that our next episode eight? Wow, we'll have a lot. I think we'll have a lot to say in the music category in that movie. Well, Professor Peter S. Fossil and Professor Troy Jollimore, and for me, Robert Jones. Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. I hope you enjoyed it, and we will see you guys at the next No Podcast for Old Men.