Category: Big Lebowski

How to be a Zen like the Big Lebowski?

More than twenty years after its premiere, The Big Lebowski has not only transcended for its black humor and hilarious situations. Also, because of this film Jeff Bridges, the actor who played the Dude, has dedicated himself to teaching the world to avoid anxiety and seek a Zen lifestyle.

It was in 1998. That year, The Big Lebowski, the Coen brothers’ film about the life of a beloved (ex) unemployed hippie – the Dude – was released, who ends up in a series of strange situations in Los Angeles, California.

And all from the moment someone enters your house and urinates on your carpet.

Today, more than two decades after its release, it is clear that The Big Lebowski is more than a cult film; By now, in fact, it’s already a whole cult. Here’s the proof: the Lebowski Festival, which has been running since 2002, goes from city to city within the United States (it also has a version in England), gathering hundreds of fans who dress up, play bowling and sing the songs of the soundtrack, like “Hotel California” by the Gipsy Kings, or that hedonistic anthem by Bob Dylan: “The man in me.”

And books. All those books. From cultural studies, bowling guides, and even philosophical, religious, and many books on Dudeism, that religion created from the Coen film.

However, there is another current that has emerged from The Big Lebowski.

Lebowski-style Buddhism.

Yes, Buddhism.

This because many and many see the Dude as someone who can put up with a lot (starting, of course, that someone urinates his favorite carpet) and who still takes everything in stride.

Actor Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman, one of the first to bring Buddhist teachings to America, have long talked about that. Both are authors of The Dude and the Zen Master (2013), a book of conversations in which they explain the Dude as the most relaxed being on the face of this earth.

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6 Facts You (Probably) Didn’t Know About The Big Lebowski

We collected, without haste, some curiosities about the Note on the 15th anniversary of the premiere of the Coen brothers film.

If you were doing, you know, a little of this and a little of that, we recommend that you get up from the sofa for a moment, prepare a white Russian, and lie down in a preferably horizontal position to read what we have to tell you. We celebrate fifteen years since the premiere of The Big Lebowski, and we want to celebrate it as the occasion deserves, without haste.

Bush, Saddam and September 11

We can find conspiracy signals everywhere; we just have to be open to interpreting everything as a signal. For example, in the first scene of The Big Lebowski, Note buys milk at Ralph’s supermarket by signing a check for $ 0.69. The date on that check is September 11, 1991, just ten years before the Twin Towers attack. While paying, the cashier television shows to George Bush father talking about the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. Chance? Obviously yes, since the film was released three years before the attacks. [minute 2:40 of the video]

Where does the note get the money from?

When the Note is asked about his occupation, his answer makes it very clear: A little of that … Come on, the poor Lebowski’s source of income is a mystery throughout the entire film. However, in the first version of the script, the Note was heir to some type of intellectual property on the Rubik’s Cube, which guaranteed him humble but continuous sustenance. Joel Coen preferred to discard this turn and chose never to reveal the true occupation of the protagonist.

In the repetition is the fun

Certain expressions are repeated throughout The Big Lebowski ad nauseam. For example, the name Nota ( Dude in the original version) is pronounced 160 times, and our protagonist uses the catchphrase uncle ( man in English) 147 times, more than once a minute. Although if we have to stay with an expression, this is fuck ( fuck in English) and all its variants, since it is repeated 292 times. Judging from this video, it seems like there are still many more.

Alternative actors? For what?

Other times we present in our things that you did not know about … some alternative actors who were taken into account to star in the films that we gutted. For The Big Lebowski, however, we will not give you that pleasure, since the script was written from the first moment thinking about the main trio ( Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, and Steve Buscemi ), and the Coen brothers tend to trust in a very similar cast for many of his films. The only character who had a different candidate -candidate in this case- was Maude, played by Julianne Moore and for whom she sounded Charlize Theron.

Lebowski Fest

Like any self-respecting cult movie, The Big Lebowski has its annual gathering of fans, the Lebowski Fest. Since 2002, this event has brought together devotees of Nota in different cities in the United States and Europe. They congregate to drink white Russians, play bowling, and dress up as their favorite characters. The organizers of the event themselves report on their website that while the Coen brothers continue to maintain a certain distance of safety with the madness they have created, the party was blessed by the Note in person, Jeff Bridges. The latter attended the edition of Los Angels and even performed some songs. Stay tuned in case they pass through your city!

Preach the word!

In the same vein as Lebowski Fest, we can find the church of Dudeism (this would be … Notism? ), Which has as many priests as there are fans on Facebook (around 150,000). The requirements to become a minister of this religion are not, as you can imagine, especially rigorous.

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