Day 12
Film 13
This post is going to be brief. I am not sure about what to think about this film because it is a very good film. The Big Lebowski would be a masterpiece almost any other director made it. I cannot shake the feeling that for as good as it is it just is not good enough. It tries so very hard to be spectacular and falls short.
Why? The Big Lebowski is trying to compete with films like Casablanca or The Graduate, and if we are allowed to argue something to the effect of "Transformers is not a bad movie because it is meant to be a mindless soulless popcorn flick and succeeded at every step." Then we should be able to argue the opposite: "The Big Lebowski is a bad movie because it is meant to be a classic and fails in that regard." This argument is false though, because The Big Lebowski is not a bad movie. It is far from a bad movie. It is a very good movie that just fails at reaching for that final step.'
I cannot help but be moved by flawed works of art like The Big Lebowski. They are just more interesting than perfect pieces. Asking why a movie failed is more important than why it succeeded. This generally is due to the usual pitfalls of mass media blockbusters. With a film like The Big Lebowski this is not the case, they took a chance and tried new things. These lessons are things that film makers can learn from for years to come. A break from formula can be a great thing.
I am going to be writing a more complete analysis of The Big Lebowski for this blog, asking why The Big Lebowski is not a classic and where it fails as a film. I am hoping for it to be a 2K word affair, so it might be a week or so before i get to it.
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