Joel Coen, with the help of his brother Ethan, creates a unique aesthetic and narrative world with The Big Lebowski. The tone of the film is a combination of noir, caper, stoner buddy comedy, mystery, and philosophical allegory all rolled into one and has become one of the most legendary cult films of all time.
The idea for the character of the Dude came from Jeff Dowd, a film producer and activist, who was a former member of the Seattle Seven, drank almost exclusively White Russians, and was referred to by associates as "the Dude." Several other characters from the Coen Brothers' past contributed to the construction of the character. The tone of the film and its structure were based on the work of Raymond Chandler, a novelist best known for authoring The Big Sleep. Filming took place over an 11 week period in Los Angeles.
At the time of its release, the film received mixed reviews. Daphne Merkin wrote for The New Yorker, "The Coens can’t be bothered—or perhaps they don’t know how—to make a connection between what’s inside their smart-aleck heads and the plodding, sometimes painful world in which the rest of us live when we’re not at the movies.” Still, many critics loved it, praising its inventiveness, its dark sense of the absurd, and its nods to other filmmaking styles.
