Where to watch The Big Lebowski (1998)
It can also be rented or bought from AppleTV and Amazon.
A laid-back Los Angeles bowler is mistaken for a wealthy man with the same surname after thugs damage his rug. Seeking compensation, he becomes entangled in a kidnapping scheme, eccentric criminals, a suspicious family, and a chaotic trail of money, all while trying to return to his quiet routine.
Cast: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, Philip Moon, Mark Pellegrino, Peter Stormare, Flea, Torsten Voges
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Trivia & production notes
- The Dude character was inspired by Jeff Dowd, a political activist and film producer who was known for drinking white Russians and was himself called 'The Dude' before the film existed.
- The rug that 'ties the room together' in the film came from Peter Exline, a Coen brothers friend and Vietnam vet who was proud of his own small rug in his sparsely furnished apartment.
- The Coens changed the source character's amateur softball league to bowling because bowling allowed characters to sit around, drink, and smoke while having inane conversations.
- Walter was partly inspired by filmmaker John Milius and his friend Jim Ganzer, with the Coens incorporating Milius's love of guns and military into the character.
- The role of the Big Lebowski was extraordinarily difficult to cast, with the Coens contacting Robert Duvall, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, and Jack Nicholson before settling on David Huddleston just a month before filming began.
- The character of Jesus Quintana was inspired by a 1988 Public Theater performance by John Turturro in a play called Mi Puta Vida, after which the Coens decided to write him as a pederast character.
- Jeff Bridges was initially hesitant to take the Dude role because he worried it would set a bad example for his daughters, but his daughter Jessica convinced him to accept it after a meeting.
- Bridges selected his own clothes for the Dude from his personal wardrobe closet with the film's wardrobe person and wore the costume pieces home because most were genuinely his own possessions.
- The star motif that appears throughout the film, including in dream sequences, originated from production designer Richard Heinrichs laying free-form neon stars on the bowling alley set design.
- For his dance sequence in the film, Jack Kehler selected Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition from several classical music options provided by the Coens and rehearsed it through three three-hour sessions.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Big Lebowski, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.
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