The Big Lebowski and our present moment

I’ve been thinking about The Big Lebowski a lot recently, specifically this line from Walter Sobchak, the gun-toting, conspiracy-loving, live-wire, converted-Jew Vietnam vet. “Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it’s an ethos.”

Walter, in the moment, is complaining about the German nihilists who have been bedeviling his friend The Dude, but the line gets me thinking about Jeffrey Lebowski, the “Big” Lebowski of the title. Jeffrey Lebowski is a local plutocrat who sets the mystery plot of The Big Lebowski by hiring The Dude to help recover his kidnapped wife Bunny. In the tradition of American noirs, things are not as they appear. Specifically, (spoiler alert) Jeffrey Lebowski is a fraud. He’s not wealthy, he’s a desperate embezzler who is using his wife’s disappearance to steal a ton of money from his family’s foundation.

Does that sound like anyone we know?

Jeffrey Lebowski likes to lord his wealth over people and pretend to be a big shot. “Your revolution is over, the bums lost!” he bellows at The Dude, advising him to “get a job.” Lebowski, of course, has no job of his own, he’s been living on his family’s wealth all his life.

Which brings me back to our President. Donald Trump could have been a Jeffrey Lebowski, whiling away his time in his mansion, living off the interest of his inherited wealth, but he had to be a big shot. He just had to be, he couldn’t live otherwise. He had to put his name on a thousand buildings, in letters as big as structurally possible, and put his face in front of every camera in sight. Unfortunately for all of us, he’s a bona-fide mouth-breathing idiot, a devastatingly stupid businessman who has never had a success in his life.

As a liar, con-man and thief, Donald Trump lives in constant desperation, terrified that, at any moment, he will be unmasked, that people will learn that, like the big Lebowski, he’s a tiny man in a big house, a blustering fool who blames his threadbare soul on everything but his own actions, actions he made while possessing every possible advantage available in his society.

And so he’s destroyed the foundations of an entire country, turned an entire government into a criminal enterprise, replaced a generation of civil servants with toadies and sycophants, not out of any ideology whatever, but simply to cover up his crimes, which escalate exponentially with every passing hour. Our nation is being demolished not from a fiendish plot toward fascism but to distract from the crimes of a single man.

Say what you want about the tenets of national socialism, at least it has an ethos. Or, as Rick and Morty put it, “You’re like Hitler, but even Hitler cared about Germany, or something.”

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Thank you to my faithful followers who have been waiting patiently for my analysis of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. You’ll have to wait a little longer, but, for those who want a short, sharp, incisive overview, this video is an excellent place to start.

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

Coen Bros: Five Films

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now available at Amazon, for your reading pleasure, my analysis of No Country For Old MenA Serious ManTrue GritInside Llewyn Davis and Hail, Caesar! Certainly five of the greatest movies released in the past decade. Endlessly watchable, endlessly rewarding of examination. Analytical readings of analytical screenplays from analytical writers. I especially recommend this volume for people who don’t “get” A Serious ManInside Llewyn Davis and Hail, Caesar!.



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Hail, Caesar! part 8

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As Hail, Caesar! hurtles toward its climax, perhaps it’s worth taking a pause to note that this movie, which informs us that Hollywood lies, itself lies about the historical Hollywood.

Eddie Mannix, the reader may be surprised to learn, was a real person, who was the general manager of MGM under the real-life Nicholas Schenck. Mannix did “fix” a lot of MGM’s problems, from getting Clark Gable out of a hit-and-run accident to down-playing Garbo’s lesbianism. The real-life Mannix was also considerably older than Hail, Caesar!‘s, and was dead by 1963. While he was Catholic, there is no indication whatsoever that he was the quiet, soul-searching family man presented here.

While I’ve been saying that Hail, Caesar! takes place in 1951, there isn’t a date presented anywhere in the movie. The official plot description says it takes place in “the early 1950s.” I landed on 1951 primarily because that’s the latest date it’s conceivable to me that a group of communist writers would think up a plot as cockamamie as “kidnapping a movie star.” Baird Whitlock, meanwhile, is starring in a movie clearly modeled on Ben-Hur, which was not released until 1959. 1949’s Samson and Delilah started the “Technicolor Biblical Epic” craze of the 1950s, and Hail, Caesar! ATOTC seems to be a mashup of Ben-Hur and 1951’s Quo Vadis.

So, if 1951 is our benchmark, then Burt Gurney, who is clearly inspired by Gene Kelly, is making a service comedy-musical closely modeled on On the Town (1949). Kelly’s 1951 picture was An American in Paris. DeeAnna Moran, meanwhile, is obviously modeled on Esther Williams, who, like DeeAnna, had a complicated romantic life and made an “aquatic picture” titled Neptune’s Daughter in 1949 and Million Dollar Mermaid in 1952, not to mention Jupiter’s Daughter in 1955 and Athena in 1954.

But, as noted earlier, a 20-something singing cowboy would be seem very old-hat to 1951 audiences, so Hobie Doyle is a puzzling anachronism. Even more so, his date at the Lazy Ol’ Moon premiere, Carlotta Valdez, is clearly modeled on Carmen Miranda, who was 41 years old in 1951, long past her peak and four years away from her untimely death. It seems that Hobie and Carlotta belong to a decade of movies set at least a decade earlier than Whitlock and Gurney. It’s as though Eddie Mannix’s entire career is being packed into one night.

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Hail, Caesar! part 7

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Eddie heads back to the Chinese restaurant to meet, for a second time, with Cuddahy, the man from Lockheed. What has changed in Eddie’s life in the past six hours? He’s had to deal with a director throwing a hissy fit, he’s had to pay ransom for a kidnapped movie star, figure out a solution to a pregnant mermaid problem, fend off fights from two gossip columnists, and save the life of an editor who was almost killed by her own Moviola. That has involved a lot of running around but nothing that Eddie would call “physical culture.” Cuddahy offers Eddie a contract of ten years, with stock options. He’s essentially offering Eddie a chance to be “set for life,” a sense of permanence in a world full of craziness. He also offers Eddie a set of airplane gifts for his children — he knows that Eddie’s 27-hour days leave him no time to be a husband and father, and that wracks him with guilt.

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Hail, Caesar! part 6

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At the half-way point of the narrative, Hail, Caesar! introduces a new major character, Burt Gurney, seen on the set of a service-comedy-musical, performing a long, complex tap routine with a group of sailors, to a song called “No Dames.” In the context of the number, Burt and his crew are going to sea for eight months and will be without women and with little to do. Gay joke aside, the number is nevertheless a piece of foreshadowing for Burt’s eventual fate, a sunny Hollywood version of a story that hasn’t happened yet. There is no biblical subtext to the number that I can divine, but Hail, Caesar! doesn’t seem to be that adamant about laying on the Christian symbolism too heavily. Hobie Doyle’s movie, for instance, has no biblical subtext either, beyond a kind of Manichean good-guy-bad-guy reading of human interactions. Like Hobie’s movie, and DeeAnna’s mermaid picture, the “No Dames” sequence relishes the pure visual joy of bodies in motion, shifting patterns and colors.

(Also like the other movie-within-a-movie scenes, “No Dames” is presented as though being shot in sequence, live on a soundstage. In this way, Hail, Caesar! becomes a movie about itself, a movie that lies to us about how movies are made while on the way to telling us about how movies lie to us.)

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Hail, Caesar! part 5

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After Eddie collects the $100,000 in ransom, before he can make it back to his office he runs into Thora Thacker’s identical twin sister Thessaly, who, like her sister, intends to run a story on Baird Whitlock, this one about his current disappearance. Eddie asks both sisters “What kind of a name is _____?” Well, “Thora” is, of course, a Scandinavian name, the female version of Thor. “Thessaly,”  on the other hand, is a city in Greece. Both civilizations, and names, predate Christianity. Perhaps the Thacker sisters (“Thacker” being a corruption of “Thatcher,” or “the guy who builds roofs” in Old English, also derived from the Norman) are meant to be reactionaries, students of “the old ways,” predating even Caesar’s Rome, who are resistant to both Mr. Schenck’s Capitol and to the message of Jesus.

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Hail, Caesar! part 4

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Eddie Mannix meets with the producer of Hail, Caesar! ATOTC to discuss the crisis of Baird Whitlock’s disappearance. The producer is, if anything, even more passionate about the project than Eddie. He’s not prepared to “shoot around” Baird, the “heart of the movie” depends on Baird’s face, his star power. And so a ticking clock is installed in Hail, Caesar!: Eddie must find and recover Baird Whitlock by tomorrow morning or else his tale of the Christ is forfeit. (I find it hard to believe that a project the size and scope of Hail, Caesar! ATOTC hasn’t already been beset by massive delays and cost overruns, but apparently Eddie Mannix runs a pretty tight ship.)

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Hail, Caesar! part 3

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Eighteen minutes into Hail, Caesar! we are treated to a water ballet number from another one of Capitol Pictures’ production slate, Jonah’s Daughter. The sequence is quite long and involved, with dozens of synchronized swimmers, a mechanical whale and Scarlett Johansson in a mermaid outfit. Hail, Caesar! takes care, when presenting its movies-within-the-movie, to present the finished product, as though complex sequences like the one shown here or the shootout in the Hobie Doyle movie are shot live by multiple camera. The Coens are careful to save their “cutting to reality” jokes for key moments; they otherwise give these Technicolor spectacles their due, letting us luxuriate in the tactile thrills of their sumptuous production values. Which makes me think that the title, Hail, Caesar!, isn’t meant ironically; the Coens really intend their movie to be a heartfelt salute to “capital” and the colorful fantasies it provides for the people.

And although the title of the mermaid picture is only fleetingly mentioned in an earlier scene, the whale is very much present, and we are reminded that the tale of Jonah and the whale is, like Hail, Caesar! ATOTC, also from the Bible, although from the Old Testament, the one with the “angry God” mentioned in the scene with the religious leaders. So an examination of the story of Jonah is in order.

From Wikipedia:

Jonah is the central character in the Book of Jonah. Commanded by God to go to the city of Nineveh to prophesy against it “for their great wickedness is come up before me,” Jonah instead seeks to flee from “the presence of the Lord” by sailing to Tarshish. A huge storm arises and the sailors, realizing that it is no ordinary storm, cast lots and discover that Jonah is to blame. Jonah admits this and states that if he is thrown overboard, the storm will cease. The sailors try to dump as much cargo as possible before giving up, but feel forced to throw him overboard, at which point the sea calms. The sailors then offer sacrifices to God. Jonah is miraculously saved by being swallowed by a large whale-like fish in whose belly he spends three days and three nights.[3] While in the great fish, Jonah prays to God in his affliction and commits to thanksgiving and to paying what he has vowed. God commands the fish to spew Jonah out.

How extraordinary that Eddie Mannix is producing a movie inspired by this story. Jonah is told by God to go preach to Ninevah, but doesn’t think he’s up to the task and flees from God’s command. God answers his reluctance with a storm, but then offers him salvation with a whale. In Eddie’s world, we see no indication of his fleeing from his God’s (Mr. Schenck) command, but we do see him terribly worried about disappointing Jesus (even though he doesn’t know a lot about Jesus). I think Eddie is a man who feels that he should be devoting more attention to God, but instead spends his time in activities of desperately earthly nature, even though he himself has only one vice, cigarettes.

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Hail, Caesar! part 2

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If Nick Schenck is the “capital” of Hail, Caesar!, I think Hobie Doyle, the singing cowboy western star is it’s “little guy.” Hobie is naturally gifted: he can ride a horse and rope a steer, and he has effortless charm and slinky good looks. Hollywood has made him a star, but he has no affect whatsoever — what you see onscreen is exactly who he is. That’s an important distinction, because, alone among the actors presented in Hail, Caesar!, Hobie doesn’t put on airs, doesn’t wear a disguise, isn’t manufactured. He’s the genuine article. He feels lucky to be where he is, lucky to be in pictures, lucky to be famous, and lucky that he’s got people like Eddie Mannix looking out for him.

Hobie is unique among Coen Bros “little guys,” because later in the movie we’ll meet a group of people who believe themselves to be little guys but are not. In many ways, Hail, Caesar! is like a sequel to Barton Fink but told from the other side of the studio executive’s desk. That may, perhaps, signal a change in the Coens’ perspective; once critical of capital as Hollywood outsiders, now they have a more nuanced approach as Hollywood titans — capital, they seem to think now, is just as human as the little guy. (It’s worth noting that True Grit, the Coens’ first and, so far, only blockbuster hit, was also their first screenplay where “capital” is also the narrative’s protagonist.)

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