For the sixth edition of STUDIODROME curators Jonas Govaerts and Kwinten Scheepers guide you to the far-out movie year of 1998, when bowling alleys were suddenly more popular than clubs, and bartenders all over couldn’t keep up with the demand for White Russians. A quarter of a century after its release, THE BIG LEBOWSKI remains one of the most quotable films of all time: get ready to loudly scream “Careful man, there’s a beverage here!” at the screen during our drinking game. With a White Russian bar before and after the screening!
You almost wouldn’t believe it, but when THE BIG LEBOWSKI was released to the public for the first time in ’98 the audience response was only moderately positive. Meanwhile, the film, with its eccentric characters, absurd plot twists and eclectic soundtrack, has grown into a true cult favorite. Jeff Bridges plays the title character Lebowski, or ‘The Dude’: an avid bowler from Los Angeles who loves nothing more than to drink White Russians. He is mistaken for a millionaire with the same name and ends up in a whirlwind of strange situations, in which porn producers, ferrets and large sums of money are involved.
The film is loosely based on the work of American-British novelist Chandler. “We wanted to do a Chandler kind of story – how it moves episodically and deals with the characters trying to unravel a mystery, as well as having a hopelessly complex plot that's ultimately unimportant,” according to the Coen brothers. A plot you couldn’t make head or tail of, but with a string of great Hollywood actors in its cast, among whom John Goodman, Sam Elliott, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore and David Thewlis.
