Somewhere between Nixon’s liver and the bloated corps of postmodern America lives a film that’s not so much a film as it is an opera. Opening to a tumbleweed then a supermarket where a man in tattered clothes and a robe sticks his snout in the milk cartons The Dude who is every mother’s worst nightmare, a man of leisure and a man who lacks a job. The Big Lebowski is not a story Dear reader. No it’s more of a vision, a projection or hallucination through White Russians, Refer and L.A skies. Jeff Bridges acts as our half baked Buddha floating through a world slick with absurdism accompanied by nihilists in terrible leather outfits. 

The Dude is a metaphor for every soul battered into apathy by the 20th century, he’s Lao Tzu with sunglasses, Jesus with a joint, the divine slacker whose religion is vinyl and bowling alleys. He’s not quite alive but also not dead, no, the Dude is pickled by post Vietnam trauma and L.A. decay.

In the dudes temple (the bowling alley) each frame is a chance at redemption or more damnation. Wlater is his psychotic sidekick, a man who holds deep scares, the Dudes apostle screaming about rules in a world that has long set fire to their rulebook. Along with Donny, the true underdog soft spoken and pure just pleased to be included, never asks for anything but still serves as Walters emotional punching bag.

And what of the rug? A seemingly sacred textile that “ties the room together” stolen, befouled by capitalist goons pleading for money in the guise of German nihilist and impotent “Film makers”.

It’s not a rug it’s the kite that holds the narrative aloft, the rug is the American dream pissed on by men with sunglasses and too much money. 

What the Choen brothers gave us is a stoner odyssey, a madman’s zen, a sledgehammer on the skull of traditional storytelling, it’s “Waiting on Godot” with bowling shoes and acid. Nothing matters yet everything does while conflicted nihilists chant their empty gospel, and like everything capitalist like donnie you pay for being soft spoken, pure and innocent you don’t just pay you die. And yet, The Dude floats like plankton in a sea of senselessness. 

Because we’re all just balls rolling on the oily lane of existence toward pins we hope are real or may never knock down. But the Dude he abides he rolls on not toward victory or meaning or even closure, but because that’s what you do, MAN…. you roll.  could be a bowling alley. 

And that goddamn rug really did tie it all together.