The movie the Coen brothers never expected to catch on: “How do you explain that?”
Given the cult status that The Big Lebowski now has, with an international of ‘Dude’ lovers who pepper in lines from the film at any chance they can get and develop unhealthy emotional attachments to their own rugs, it’s hard to imagine it not being successful.
Directed by the Coen brothers in 1998, the film follows Jeffrey, who is plagued by a low level of unrest after being involved in a strange crime in which his favourite rug was stolen. However, the film’s release did not reflect the reverence that people now hold for it, with it doing average numbers at the box office and largely going unnoticed, with the directors not expecting it to be as successful as it became.
The film stars Jeff Bridges, John Goodman and Steve Buscemi, all playing the kind of men who never seemed to truly grow up. They spend their days playing bowling and arguing about trivial matters, not wanting to be challenged by life but simply ride the wave and live comfortably. But this way of living is all threatened when Jeffrey has to venture outside of his day-to-day routines, embarking on a trippy odyssey through Los Angeles as he tries to discover the truth behind the disappearance of his rug.
It perhaps resonated with audiences in the way it did because the characters are so well fleshed out, with an abundance of individual quirks and flaws that makes it endlessly re-watchable, noticing a new funny detail about one of their particular mannerisms each time you revisit it. Whether it’s Walter’s ugly temper or Jeffrey’s love of cocktails, there’s an infinite number of rewarding details to pick apart.
However, when asked about the initial reception of the film, co-director Joel Coen said, “It developed the afterlife on home video. When it came out in movie theatres, it didn’t do particularly outstanding business in the theatrical market, but it did in the home video market — and then it became some sort of cult thing. How do you explain that? I have no idea. It’s one of the more bizarre afterlives, too, of any of the things we’ve done”.
The director later described a bizarre story in which they first discovered the love that audiences held for the film, saying, “We were at a movie theatre together with our families a year or two ago in San Francisco, coming down from a movie, and we saw there was a little booth set up with Big Lebowski posters on it and a young woman sitting on the other side of this table, maybe 17 or 18 years old, and Ethan stopped and said, ‘What is this?’ And she said [without knowing who they were], ‘Well, we show The Big Lebowski every night, and people come dressed up in costumes. You should come, you’ll like it. It’s fun.'”
After an underwhelming cinematic release, I can’t imagine how pleasantly surprised the directors must’ve been at seeing their work being celebrated in this way, with people being passionate enough about this story to bring people together and create a community. This is perhaps the highest achievement of any film, and the work of the Coen brothers continues to unite film lovers around the world.
