The Coen brothers dreamed of playing the lead role of Marlon Brando.
Candidates for the role of Dude included Robert Duvall, who turned down the movie because he didn’t like the script, Briton Anthony Hopkins, who turned it down because he didn’t want to play an American, and Gene Hackman, who was shot at the time. take a break in your career.
But most of all, the Coen brothers dreamed of getting Marlon Brando for the lead role. They even imitated the acting style of the Godfather star by speaking Lebowski’s lines while the script was being written. But in the end, Jeff Bridges got the lead role.
One of the roles in the movie can also play Charlize Theron.
The actress was considered for the role of Bunny Lebowski, the young wife of Big Lebowski, with whom the hero Jeff Bridges is confused in the story. In the film, she is played by then-rising Tara Reid, who reached the height of her fame a year later with the teen hit American Pie.
History is silent about why Charlize Theron still did not get into the project. Either it was difficult to coordinate work schedules, or the actress was embarrassed by the profession of Bunny, who worked in the porn industry.
Julianne Moore’s character is inspired by the provocative artist and Yoko Ono.
Maude Lebowski, played by Julianne Moore, is inspired by avant-garde artist and experimenter Karoly Schneemann, who works naked while swinging.
Schneemann is known for her multimedia work on the body, sexuality and gender. The artist was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2017 for his contribution to the development of art. Also among the prototypes of Moore’s character is Yoko Ono.
The word “dude” is used 161 times in the movie.
The morgue scene, in which Bridges’ character introduces himself as Jeffrey Lebowski instead of The Dude, is the only scene in the movie where he left his nickname.
At the same time, the curse on the letter f is voiced 292 times in the movie. This is not a Hollywood record, and less than, for example, Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” (300 times), but more than Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs” (265 and 269 times, respectively).
The phrase “my friend stays” has biblical motifs
This is a reference to Ecclesiastes 1:4 with the message: “One generation passes, another generation comes, but the world remains forever.”
According to the Coen brothers, the authors of the tape, this is a reference to the fact that Dude can change and create chaos around himself like the Earth, but stay the same at the same time.
In honor of the hero Jeff Bridges, a whole religious and philosophical movement arose.
In short, it is called “Dudeism” (from the American word Dude – dude), and its full name is “Dude Church of the Last Days”. Dudeism emerged in 2005 and has around 400,000 followers. The founder of Dudeism, journalist Oliver Benjamin from Los Angeles, categorically rejects the playful nature of his religion and emphasizes that he and his followers are not trying to make fun of anyone or anything.
Basically Dudeism is dedicated to Lebowski’s philosophy and lifestyle. Since the end of 2008, the Church of the Last Day Dude has been publishing its own newspaper, The Dudespaper. And in July 2009, the so-called Gospel of Dudeism, “The Tao Dude Ching” was published (renamed “The Dude De Ching” since December of the same year). In fact, it is a movie script rewritten in the style of “Tao Te Ching”.
The Big Lebowski and the September 11 attacks
When the dude writes a check for sixty-nine cents, he watches a televised press conference by George W. Bush on August 5, 1990, 3 days after the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait.
However, Lebowski dates the check to September 11, 1991, exactly 10 years before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York.
The Big Lebowski’s Impact on Popular Culture
The impact of the film on popular culture is difficult to overstate. Although its creators, the Coen brothers, admitted that the audience liked the picture more than they did.
Dude’s favorite drink is White Russian. In Reykjavik, Iceland, there is a bar named Lebowski after the movie. On the bar menu, it offers a variety of Belarusian varieties and other drinks named after characters and expressions from the movie. The bar owners’ love for tape continues with the interior of the establishment being decorated in the style of a bowling club and carpeted as in Dude’s apartment.
Fans of the movie hold special private screenings
In San Francisco, there was (and probably still is) late-night screenings of The Big Lebowski at a local movie theater. The Coen brothers learned about these screenings in 2013 when they accidentally saw a sign in front of the cinema with an announcement.
According to the rules, all spectators had to come strictly in accordance with the dress code – in the clothes of one of the heroines of the film. By the way, Dude’s outfits in the frame are mostly taken from Jeff Bridges’ personal wardrobe, including the flip-flops he’s been in for nearly the entire movie.
Tape moved from rejection to cultural heritage status
In December 2014, The Big Lebowski was named one of 700 culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films preserved for posterity in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. The painting has been described as a unique movie story about kidnapping, mistaken identity and bowling. It was also noted how he explored the issue of class inequality.
Such an appreciation is especially valuable given how the tape was received by early audiences during its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. To many, including professional critics, the film seemed too weak and incomprehensible. For example, Toronto Star columnist Peter Howell wrote, “I can’t believe the team that won the Oscar for writing Fargo last year was responsible for this. There is so much profanity in the movie that it seems like a pathetic attempt to somehow bridge the gaps in the characters’ dialogue.