FOREWORD

SAYING WHAT CAN’T BE SAID

People often ask me if I’m surprised at the amount of attention The Big Lebowski has received over the past few years. They usually seem to expect me to say “yes,” but my answer is always “no.” What surprises me is that it didn’t do as well as I thought it would when it first came out. It was so damn funny, and the Coen brothers had just won the Academy Award for Fargo—I thought people would flock to this thing. To tell you the truth, I was sort of disappointed. But now … well … I’m glad people are digging it … that it found its audience.

Diehard fans will sometimes ask me, “What is it about this movie? I can’t figure it out—how come people like it so much?” Well, that one’s a little tougher to answer. I usually point them toward the script, to what the Stranger says at the end of the movie. I think the Stranger’s enjoyment of the story sums up what most people like about it:

THE STRANGER

… I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that. It’s good knowin’ he’s out there, the Dude, takin’ her easy for all us sinners. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes the Finals. Welp, that about does her, wraps her all up. Things seem to’ve worked out pretty good for the Dude’n Walter, and it was a purty good story, dontcha think? Made me laugh to beat the band. Parts, anyway. Course—I didn’t like seein’ Donny go. But then, I happen to know that there’s a little Lebowski on the way. I guess that’s the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin’ itself, down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands a time until—aw, look at me, I’m ramblin’ again. Wal, uh hope you folks enjoyed yourselves.

What’s great about that is how it says it all without really saying anything. Maybe that’s one reason people dig the movie and are able to watch it over and over again. It’s like picking up a kaleidoscope. You see something new each time.

Then there’s this perspective. A few years ago I met a guy named Bernie Glassman. Bernie started an organization called the Zen Peacemakers and has founded a number of Zen centers in the United States. He calls his brand of Zen Farkatke Zen. He’s a Jewish fella … a wonderful cat.

Anyway, we got to talking, and he said, “You know, a lot of folks consider the Dude a Zen Master.” I said, “What are you talking about … Zen?” He said quite a few people had approached him wanting to chat about the Dude’s Zen wisdom. I’d never heard of that.

I never thought of the Coen Brothers as Zen guys. They never talked about it. I don’t think the word Zen was ever mentioned … or Buddhism … or Judaism, for that matter. I don’t think of the Dude as a fancy spiritualist or anything like that. But I can see what these folks are talking about. There’s enough room in the movie that a lot can be read into it.

I often take these little walks in the evening at sunset and listen to different things. Recently I played some Alan Watts, and it reminded me of my conversation with Bernie and how Zen relates to Lebowski. Watts says, “The whole art of poetry is to say what can’t be said.” I suppose that’s true for any art, including filmmaking. He goes on to say that “Every poet, every artist feels when he gets to the end of his work, that there is something absolutely essential that was left out, so Zen has always described itself as a finger pointing at the moon.” The Big Lebowski is a bit like that.

The guys who wrote this book say the Coens have kept clear of them entirely, and that tickles me. Like all of you reading this, I’d be interested to know what the Coen brothers think, but it’s kind of beautiful that they don’t want to say anything definitive. Let ’em be the pointing fingers.

For me, the Dude has a certain type of wisdom. I like to call it the “Wisdom of Fingernails”: the wisdom that gives you the ability to make your hair and fingernails grow, your heart beat, your bowels move. These are things that we know how to do, but we don’t necessarily know how we know how to do them, yet still we do them very well. And that to me is very Dude. It’s not like he’s a know-it-all, the Dude. He’s not a guy who has figured out the way to be or anything like that, but he is comfortable with what he’s got, and, as the Stranger says, things turn out pretty well for him. I guess we can all take comfort in that because … who knows? … things may turn out pretty well for us, too.

Recently someone asked me, “How would you feel at the end of your career if the role you were most famous for was the Dude?” “I’d be fucking delighted,” I told him.

   

Abidingly,
Jeff Bridges