It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Catched up on The Detective and Vampire's Kiss.
The Detective really took me by surprise with very challenging themes for its time and stellar performances from Sinatra and Bisset.
Vampire's Kiss was funny at times and Cage goes completely bonkers. Also really liked the Rachel character. Nevertheless, towards the end it got a bit too much for me.
So far I've four of them and my ranking would be:
1. L'avventura
2. The Detective
3. Memento
4. Vampire's Kiss
Right, how many films am I still behind?
That's on for tonight than ;)
Hey, dude, come on in!
We're open at 11 a.m.!
Exactly!
The use of the sound of the "chimes" struck me as so modern for 1983. The kind of thing they wouldn't have done even ten years before.
Yes, that phrase was key for me. It's all about behavior being determined by one's surroundings. The weight of history, of time and place, of one's parents. It's very difficult to "escape" from yourself, if not impossible.
Indeed. The relationship between the father and the sons is interesting in that they are friendly and get along well, but ultimately the father just doesn't come across as one. Rusty James' real father figure is The Motorcycle Boy.
- The film's plot is this web of intrigue and deception that's built around an event (the kidnapping) which never actually happened. It's this elaborate thing that's, at its bottom, it's based on a piece of nothing. I see some sort of parallel between that and The Stranger's narration at the beginning. He is about to make some sort of point about the story he is telling, about a "man for his time and place," but he "loses his train of thought here." So you wind up getting a bunch of meaningless narration that leads nowhere and means nothing. That's intriguing, but most of all, it's hilarious.
- "Shut the f*** up, Donny." A fantastic running joke. My favorite delivery of the line is when Walter shouts it in the theater where the Dude's landlord is performing.
Nevertheless, I thank you Sir, whoever it was that recommanded it. It is one of the best films I have ever seen.
I love this sort of movies, 100% artistical, a bit weird and with dialogue you'd have to listen to twice to fully understand it.
I almost got emotional when Rusty James let the fish into the river. Definitely impressive and endlessly fascinating. Great choice.
On to a rewatch of The Big Lebowski now.
Watching it again it's certainly an enjoyable ride with his Dudeness. Jeff Bridges is just wonderful in this and his scenes with John Goodman are really enjoyable. A great cast of characters (love the John Turturro cameo) and I forgot how funny it is.
A lot of the fun is in the repetition. The 3 bowling chums constantly have conversations where no one is actually listening to what the other is saying. John Goodman's character constantly reminds everyone of his 'Nam history and Steve Buscemi's gentle Donnie gets told to "Shut the f*** up!" by Walter whenever he goes to speak.
The story adds up to literally nothing but that's not the point of the film. The film is about The Dude. Ambling through life like one of those tumbleweeds in the opening scene. The Dude abides as the charming stranger, Sam Elliot tells us.
As I've stated, this was a first watch for me so I didn't really know what to expect (nor did I want to). I still have a lot of the Coen Brothers' catalogue to get through but I know enough about them to expect a few main trademarks from each of their movies: colorful dialogues, even more colorful characters and a greater focus on character interaction and development as opposed to really driving a story through to an end. The Big Lebowski certainly delivered on these core expectations quite well, especially the first two and, in some ways, unfortunately the third.
I usually start off my analyses by going into the styles of the films I watch and how they use the language of film and its many conventions or elements to bring about a unique effect so that's what I'll start with here.
Where music is concerned, I really liked how the film bounced between diegetic sound and non-diegetic sound. Sometimes the music has a clear source, like The Dude's music player, but other times the music is non-diegetically playing where it simply overlays the scene. You can see this when the song The Dude is listening to before he's knocked out on the floor continues playing while he's unconscious, giving that scene a fittingly trippy feeling. The choice to play around with music and its sources (or lack thereof) really drove home the drink addled mind of The Dude and the winding and directionless bizarro path that he treks throughout the film. I also like how there's two examples of the movie playing the music of a specific artist's catalogue both through an original track of theirs and through a cover another artist did of their work. We get to hear a Spanish version of The Eagles' "Hotel California" before we hear a genuine Eagles song later on as The Dude rides in a cab, just as we hear the original track of Elvis' "Viva Las Vegas" as Bunny sings it in her car while hearing it on the radio and a cover version of the song by Shawn Colvin to close out the film's credits. Just found those to be interesting little touches.
There's some cool visual tricks and a sense of style to the film as well, which is expected when Roger Deakins is behind the camera. I noticed a few interesting camera choices made in the film that really drove home its unique sense of style in a very engaging way. First off, it seems that each time The Dude meets a new character in the film we always share his POV as the characters take their first looks at each other. This effect caught me off guard at first in a good way and is another aspect of the film that is fittingly trippy at times. Additionally, The Dude's unconscious, sort of dream-like experiences after he's knocked out are also wonderfully nuts and cleverly filmed with great effects and camera tricks (like the camera in the bowling ball) that give the film a style all its own and make you feel like you're getting a secondary high just by watching the movie. Lastly, I also love how The Dude's car is a sort of symbol for the character's own safety in the film itself because of how it degrades in value over time (taking on minor bumps and dents at the start before being full on lit on fire), perfectly reflecting its owner's increasing misfortunes.
The real strength of The Big Lebowski is in its characters, however, and that's the big reason to watch it as the story leaves much to be desired and isn't really the point of the experience. The Dude in particular was a fascination and I enjoyed the unexpected nature of the trials put his way. He's a guy who constantly finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and is lost in problems that are out of his control despite his best efforts to escape the concerns placed upon him. He's built up mythically by "The Stranger" before we actually meet him and that monologue does a brilliant job of manipulatively deflating our impressions of him when we see him in the flesh for the slob and bum he is, a shell of who he's partially sold to us as (though The Stranger is honest about The Dude's laziness). But The Dude unquestionably has his own charm and dudeishness that rubs off on you and his lingo and personality makes him an inimitable and surefire individual. One of the lines that really spoke to The Dude's character to me was when he called nihilism "exhausting." He's a guy who just goes with the flow and doesn't let things get him too stressed out, and there's a certain enviability in that. Whatever comes his way, The Dude just...abides.
I liked every character in the film in their own way but I think the most interesting character was John Goodman's Walter simply because I love how quirky they made him while also giving him some reality. He's a guy who's quick to outbursts and is also lost in the past with constant Vietnam flashbacks that make every conversation with him carry the risk of a possible segue into a gun fight or verbal slaughtering. I took special note of what Walter says to a friend of his when they are in a dangerous situation that requires immediate aid. When Walter is transported into a situation that feels like war, he says, "We got help chopperin' in." Just from that line it's easy to see that, although he's physically back in the United States, his mind is still in Vietnam. Although the movie largely makes Walter into a comical character, this part of his personality felt very profound to me and is also in touch with how soldiers can sometimes feel when shipped back home from conflict. The character perfectly represents that sort of lost ex-soldier trying to reintegrate into a society that no longer makes sense to them after doing and seeing things that would warp most people's minds which I certainly found fascinating.
I think that part of why Walter is so focused on keeping a regimen and anally sticking to certain rules is because he's trying to find structure and absolutes in his life again after 'Nam, certain things that just are and can't change (or so he hopes). That sort of accepted permanence and tradition through repetition is his mind's way of dealing with the unrepentant chaos of the war where all rules were thrown out the window between the US and the North Vietnamese throughout the conflict. For example, just look at how serious he treats the practice of a Jewish religious day and how upset he gets when he must risk sacrilege in helping The Dude on the sabbath day or how earnestly he treats one of his fellow bowlers taking their toe over the line; the tradition and rules he's created for himself through bowling (basically his home "army") are risking a turn to the chaotic and it reminds him of the war, bringing on PTSD.
These stressors bring him at odds with his team, men he treats like fellow soldiers as only he can in the competitive sports war he's perhaps unconsciously manufactured for himself back home. We can see in the diner scene just how seriously Walter takes his past war experiences and how much he appreciates his freedoms because of them, knowing what the cost is of retaining them for his fellow countrymen and women. So when a fellow American tells him to get the hell out of a diner he instantly takes it to heart because he is faced with someone who isn't aware of the sacrifices he's made and the people he's seen lost, actions taken in the service of that person's right to speak against him. It makes you rethink a lot of how you interact with people in your daily life and how hidden vets may see our actions in a different light in consideration of their experiences.
I certainly laughed at how expertly Goodman got into the role of Walter and how amazingly entertaining his antics were, but beneath his character is a very real and tragic sensibility that mixes interestingly with the humor that his actions can create. He is still scarred from his war experiences and what he witnessed there, events that have changed how he's dealt with everything since he returned home. Post-war, Walter clings to a sense of the structure in life but you can always see his mind forgetting that he's not at war anymore and we can see this confusion override his brain many times in the film. When Walter faces The Dude's enemies, for example, his mind plans a counter-attack like a soldier on the battlefield (showing that his past can't leave him), and every conflict he gets into-whether it's against mad Germans or with a waitress in a cafe-sees him treating those interactions like he's back in the war again. Most obvious, and perhaps most poignant, is how the loss of a friend makes him treat that friend like he's lost a comrade in a battle.
The mix of the past and present in Walter's life and how he attempts to manage the tug of war between who he was and who he needs to be gave the character a deeper core than I ever expected to see out of a character who is so comedically structured. I ultimately respected Walter's choice to cling to principles and loyalty, figuring that standing up for something is better than not believing in anything at all like the nihilists he crosses paths with during the film. In light of his sacrifices, life has to mean something to him because those actions can't have been taken in vain.
I'll finish my initial analysis by touching on what I found to be the most interesting aspect of The Big Lebowski that seemed designed from the start to be the theme of it all: communication. I noticed throughout the film that language and culture and the communication between the people of those different languages and cultures was heavily stressed in a very stylistic way that often showed how little we can actually share our thoughts with each other with clarity and efficiency.
From the very beginning of the film that kicks off with The Stranger's rambling, nowhere monologue about the Dude I knew the film would be using character dialogues and interactions to give the feature a very unique style. The aimless and unending nature of The Stranger's speech pattern speaks to how the other characters beyond him have been written with their own little quirks of communication. Usually a character in the film either speaks too much (The Stranger), too little (Donny) or simply gets interrupted as they try to express themselves (Lebowski's servant, Donny and The Dude at times). Other characters, like Maude's lover, simply laugh instead of speaking which represents their own individual sense of communication.
There's a definite point to how each interaction between these crazy characters plays out where, more often than not, nothing is actually said or realized in their dialogues at the end of them. The discussions have a funny habit of simply going nowhere, all because the characters involved have poor communication and don't mesh with one another while they are speaking. That's why Donny thinks Walter is talking about John Lennon when he brings up the Russian Lenin to The Dude or why The Dude thinks the private eye Brother Seamus is an Irish Monk; their reference points for the names they are hearing are scarce and their minds have no purchase in the discourse, easily getting them lost while they are trying to keep up with what's really being expressed.
The communication issues and confusion of these character dialogues are the biggest and most obvious part of The Big Lebowski for me where it seems like the Coens assembled most scenes to purposefully burn themselves out through the failed interactions of the characters. Walter's relationship with Donny is a running joke from the beginning as the war vet continually refuses to let his friend speak his mind on anything, the initial talk with The Dude and Mr. Lebowski's servant results in the latter constantly being interrupted by the random spur of the moment observations of the former, and in many of his interactions with the other characters The Dude is either cut off, misunderstood while speaking or is simply ignored in a series of amusing circumstances. These communication issues between the characters are only driven further home when you realize how many cultures and languages are represented in the film, from Mexicans to the Chinese and Germans. There's so many different characters from different nations in the film that cross The Dude's path and that continues to create a sense of there being a language barrier between these people all the more. They literally and figuratively don't understand each other's languages.
Overall, the movie really shows you how so much can get lost in context through poor communication when messages are attempting to be relayed or how a message or a perception of things can easily get warped as more people become involved in the discussion or debate, best symbolized by the missing persons case The Dude is tasked with solving. At first he's so assured of what is going on with Bunny but as the film goes on and the number of characters The Dude finds himself suffocated by in connection with the young girl's disappearance or Mr. Lebowski's money increases, he and everyone around him quickly lose sense of what's really going on and who is behind it all. This confusion leads to misperception, mistakes and general misfortune through miscommunication. The film's premise is about a man who is misidentified by criminals, Walter smashes the wrong guy's car when he thinks he's identified its proper owner, The Dude keeps changing his suspects in the case as the picture increasingly muddles itself, the Germans fall for Bunny's ruse and The Dude allows himself to be tugged and manipulated by those who are warring over his services as they plant suggestions in his head and toy with him (Mr. Lebowski's lie, Maude using him to get pregnant, etc.). What results are characters who can't ever reach an understanding or sense of clarity between each other because they never speak clearly or honestly. This leads to their misfortunes, but our entertainment.
The Big Lebowski is certainly a great example of how characters and character interactions can carry a film and how vital it is to have characters in a film that viewers enjoy following. I couldn't recite the minutia of the plot as expertly as I could discuss the characters and I think that was the general point of the film. The story is very slim and the movie's function for me wasn't to take us down a winding road of twists and plot developments. The Coens were simply taking some larger than life characters through scenarios that are very amusing to experience because of how committed the great actors are to their roles and the quirks of their characters. While I think the film's choice to go lax on the story doesn't give it as much rewatchability, I think the decision to craft the plot in such an aimless and random fashion was a conscious move on the part of the Coens to simulate for the audience The Dude's own lifestyle and personality. The story is a messy entanglement of thinly explored developments and haphazard events and circumstances much in the same way that The Dude flies by the seat of his pants, takes what comes to him and just abides, man.
It's hard to criticize a film for its story when it is so self-aware of its own quirks and appears to be actively written to convey a very specific, trippy and sporadic experience to the viewer. It just comes down to the expectations of the audience member and what they expect out of films to dictate their response to what Lebowski has to offer. Some will be able to roll with the film regardless of its style like The Dude himself, while others less loose about their film tastes will find its aimlessness pace and story off-putting and sloppy, thinking that the Coens accidentally created a haphazard story instead of purposefully designing it to compound the effect of The Dude's confusing and directionless journey. But hey, what you think is what you think, man.
A solid, enjoyable film that is very much its own beast in a satisfyingly original way. And for what it lacks, that originality makes up for a lot. To close out these initial impressions I'll share my favorite line of the ridiculously quotable script:
“Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.”
But I have just procured a copy of and found the time for Rumble Fish—a day late and a buck short. This was one I'd never seen before and was very interested in watching. By coincidence, a preview for the 2005 Special Edition DVD of The Big Lebowski played when the Rumble Fish DVD loaded.
All in all, this was a great film about a youth coming to terms with his delusions of a romanticized past and his delusions of himself. Some truly spectacular black-and-white cinematography (I do love me a richly filmed b&w film full of deep contrasts). Also really like that cool jaunty percussion-driven score that frequently mimics the ticking of a watch (time running out). A lot of clock imagery throughout too
My favorite parts of the film: that seriously awesome cinematography, all the weird little stuff like fantasizing about Diane Lane in her lingerie in various places, Matt Dillon's killer performance.
Quote of the film for me: "You know, if you're gonna lead people, you have to have somewhere to go."
This is a good one. A film worth watching.
And on a side note, this may be one of the most shocking and yet somehow truest mistypes I've read on this board:
Yes, they did, my friend. Yes, they did.
Arthur
Digby
Sellers!
- Who the f*** is that?
Oh my Lord! You had to notice didn't you?! :D
Little escapes me where go grammar and spelling ;)
Also, unlike in some other films, these sequences don't feel like they're really advancing the story in any way; they actually feel like dreams: detours for the sake of it, to vent fears, express excitement, let the imagination run wild.
Edit: and he fits in his own way into the film's motif of communication that @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 mentioned.
Another amusing touch that I read mentioned elsewhere is the idea that the Dude is supposed to be a chill-out guy, a member of the hippie generation (or deadbeat, as the other Lebowski would say), but in the movie he's frequently losing his patience, because Walter, his closest friend, is an expert at (unintentionally) pushing his buttons. A hippie whose best friend is the one that exasperates him the most and makes him act in a decidedly un-hippie way.