Up@dawn 2.0

Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Big Lebowski and Philosophy (14-1 midterm post)

Yesterday, marked the 15th anniversary of the release of the now cult classic  The Big Lebowski. For those of you reading this that have not yet watched The Big Lebowski, please for your own good sign off of here immediately and take what ever measures necessary to catch up with the rest of the world and watch this Coen brothers film and then report back to here and continue reading! For the rest of us who have already enjoyed the experience of this wonderful movie please sit back and follow me into this rabbit hole about the story of three guy's and their attempt to save a rug. On this trip I will also show you how our three main characters, Jeffery " The Dude" Lebowski, Walter Sobchak and Donny Kerabatsos all have some characteristics similar to a few of the philosophers we have studied thus far.


Our main focus here will be on " The Dude" of course since you know it is a movie about him. So I will step aside here and let Sam Elliott introduce our main character. (all clips from the actual move and all clips contain curse words).

 

Well there you have it " Sometimes there is a man". See there is something you need to understand about The Dude. The Dude is the man. I don't mean this in the sense that he has the biological make up of a male, but in the sense that well...he is the man. Stay with me there is a point in all of this. The Dude one might compare to our old friend Epictetus, who as we learned in class just sort of rolled with the punches, he understood some things could not be controlled, so why worry about them. See The Dude is what some might call a philosophical being. All through this movie The Dude is faced with unfortunate circumstantial problems. For instance ..........                                                               

Notice in this clip, The Dude is the victim of circumstance. He does not have a wife nor does he owe these mad gentleman any money, yet he never loses his cool or sense of humor. He remains philosophical through the entire event. Once again another comparison to Epictetus. So is The Dude a stoic? One can definitely see that there is some stoicism in The Dude's philosophy. Let us dig deeper into the philosophy of The Dude, specifically his stoicism.

So the movie progresses from this scene and eventually The Dude is hired by the "real" Lebowski who actually owes the pissed off gentleman from the above clip money. The Dude is hired to drop off a large sum of money in exchange for the rich Lebowski's wife who is believed to have been kidnapped. The Dude thanks to his side kick Walter( who we will cover later), does not successfully drop the money off and it is now widely believed that the rich Lebwoski's wife is dead due to the actions of The Dude...watch this.

So here again The Dude falls to circumstance. Though he could partly be to blame. Even though through this entire scene he never loses his philosophical way of thinking and life. The Dude understands yet again when no else does that somethings ( like him not dropping the money off to the alleged kidnappers) can't be avoided or changed so you must roll with it. The Dude here shows off his ability to talk, which I believe is a major characteristic amongst philosophers. ( including a Philosophy professor  we are currently taking). So with this provided information I believe it is clear to see how The Dude could be and should be considered a modern day Stoic, one could take this theory deeper with more time, but as for now this will have to do. Next we will move onto the next main character of focus and his relations to philosophy and a certain philosopher. Well there is one thing The Dude did get a bit angry about in this clip and that was due to his White Russian being spilled, but then again I doubt anyone would remain calm after a spilled drink.

Character two or Walter as we know him. Is what I would consider a type of modern day Machiavellian sort of cat. The Dude's friend Walter is a large, violent, Vietnam vet, who believes things are accomplished through force. Walter if asked would probably agree with Machiavelli that " you can improve your odds of success by acting bravely and swiftly (Warburton 53). This following scene is a perfect example of this. Walter along with The Dude and Donny are bowling and Walter feels as if he is being cheated, notice how he acts in a violent, brave and swift manner to achieve success. (* you can fast forward to about 6 seconds )

See here what happened people? Walter bravely pulled out a gun in a very quick manner because he felt he had been cheated. Anyone else doubt whether or not Machiavelli would not have done the same thing? I think he would have, but that may just be me. Now there is more proof of Walters inner Machiavellian coming out.

In this scene Walter and The Dude are looking for who stole The Dude's car earlier in the movie ( which also had the now missing money needed to buy back the rich Lebowski's wife). When The Dude gets his car back the only evidence he finds is part of some student's homework. The duo tracks the boy down and pay him a visit. Upon arriving they see a new sports car out front and assume the young thief bought it with the stolen money from The Dude's car. Here again watch how The Dude again plays in to is stoically calm behaivor and Walter goes into full blown Machiavelli mode.

So one could surely see here that Walter is taking a "better to be feared than loved" approach. I mean surely he did not think smashing this car in was going to trigger emotions that were based in love. So to sum it up we have yet another philosophical character presented in this movie, Walter.

Now the last character we shall study will be that of Donny, though he is mainly a supporting character to Walter and The Dude, he sure does come across strong in his few scenes as an annoying, clever, question asking pest. Wait, doesn't that sound familiar? SOCRATES! that is it! Donny shares some characteristics with our old friend Socrates. I recall the book even describes Socrates as weird and strange. Donny not only asks the questions, he also fits some of the physically characteristics we believe that belonged to Socrates.

Now once you stop laughing feel free to continue reading my blog, here I will allow some laugh time..........Okay really now stop. Anyway as you see Donny, is that horse fly buzzing around your head asking seemingly ignorant questions in the attempt to seek a further understanding about what is going on. So as this comparison is not as clear cut and bold as the other two, I feel certain you can make the connection between the two.

So one must ask themselves, was this done on purpose? Were we meant to see the hidden Philosophy that is imbedded in The Big Lebowski? Maybe , Maybe no, but regardless I feel like it is very blatant. I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I have writing it. Again if you have not seen this movie you must watch it as soon as possible.

Now I leave you with one final scene of The Dude and a little philosophy from Sam Elliott................., " Take 'er easy dudes!




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