THE GREATEST AMERICOEN HERO

THE GREATEST AMERICOEN HERO

Dedicated to Joel and Ethan Coen, and all who enter their universe.

Hero: In mythology and legend, a man, often born of one mortal and one divine parent, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits and favoured by the gods. (Universal Dictionary)

“Sometimes there's a man...I won't say hero, because what's a hero?...Sometimes there's a man for his time and his place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude, there in Los Angeles.”

The Stranger (Sam Elliot) in The Big Lebowski

The Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, claimed in his posthumously published work Philosophical Investigations (1953), that language was only a conventional “game” in which meaning is affected more by context than by formal relationships to reality. In short, philosophy is simply about language.

Ethan Coen, the son of professors -( mother, art historian; father, economist)- wrote his senior thesis on philosophy, at Princeton, on Wittgenstein's later views, in 1979.

At the same time, his brother, Joel, studied film at New York University, fine tuning the inimitable Coen film making brand.

Thirty years on, the Coen brothers have become a cinematic genre of their own, writing and directing movies that place Wittgenstein's “language in context” notion smack dab in the middle of whichever part of the USA they wish to portray. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)  set Homer's Odyssey in 1930's Depression-era Mississippi. The soundtrack CD was an even greater success than the movie, sparking an American folk music revival.

Joel's wife, Frances McDormand, won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in the noir thriller Fargo, set in the Coen brothers' home state of Minnesota. A perusal of the Coen brothers' filmography show depictions of New York; Arizona; Mississippi;Texas; LA; North Dakota and Washington DC alongside references to American history- the launch of the world's first satellite, Sputnik; Reaganomics; World War II; drug wars; and the first Gulf War.

Introducing the concept of the Americoen Hero, I refer to characters who simply drift along, like the tumbling tumble weed of the song that opens The Big Lebowski; who, like The Dude, end up just “fitting right in there.”

One such Americoen hero might be Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) in the much acclaimed Coen production “No Country for Old Men”(2007), which won four Academy Awards. Bell, a fourth-generation Texan sheriff who has never had to carry a gun, finds himself caught up in a horrific drug war on the one hand and the theft of two million dollars in drug money, with a chilling serial killer in hot pursuit of the thief, on the other hand. 

How did the mayhem start? When little courtesies like “Sir” and “Ma'am” went? When teenagers dyed their hair and pierced their noses?

The verdict: “It's a tide. It's the dismal tide. It's not the one thing.” When Wittgenstein wrote that “resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep”, he could have been describing the terrain in West Texas,where Bell pursues crime with zen-like resignation.

Like the Tintin story The Castifiore Emerald nothing happens in The Big Lebowski, but a lot is going on. When Tintin stays home, an emerald goes missing. Has it been stolen? Maybe yes, maybe no. The Big Lebowski is about a kidnapping that didn't; a ransom that wasn't; people who weren't.  

Thugs looking for a Pasadena millionaire called Jeff Lebowski, raid the run-down Venice apartment of the other Jeff Lebowski- an unemployed stoner who calls himself "The Dude" (Jeff Bridges). When a thug urinates on the Persian rug that “ties the room together”, The Dude takes issue with the other Lebowski. The Dude ends up being dragged to Malibu mansions, visiting avant garde art studios, fighting with a psychotic synth band from the 1980's, while bowling -and figuring out what all the above means- with his buddies Walter and Donny.

The Stranger who narrates appears in person at the bowling alley, with a moustache just like Mark Twain's , and a cowboy hat to remind the viewer that the Wild West hasn't changed much.

“Take it easy”, the Stranger tells The Dude.

“The Dude abides”.

The Coen brothers have intentionally skewed the concept of heroism in The Big Lebowski, which was not lost on Desson Howe from The Washington Post. Howe wrote that the Coens have created a “neo-Americana” by mining a landscape of the USA that is equally inspired and absurd.

Taking the Americoen hero a step further, Jeff Bridges as The Dude is, in my view, the apex of a triangular concept of heroism that includes Arnold Schwarzenegger and Clint Eastwood.

Janet Maslin, of The New York Times said that The Dude is “a role so right for Jeff Bridges that he seems never to have been anywhere else”. 

In 1976, Jeff Bridges played a commercial real estate dealer in Stay Hungry, for which Arnold Schwarzenegger won a Golden Globe for Best Male Acting Debut.

Portraying an Austrian body builder aiming to win the Mr Universe title, Arnie steers Bridges away from the purchase of the gym where he is training, and introduces Bridges to mountain folk music, violin playing, and Sally Field, the love interest for both men. It was a pleasant film, set on the rural outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama, where Arnold's message is “ stay hungry”. Like never resting on the laurels Wittgenstein warned of, the key to success is never becoming comfortable and always discovering new horizons.

Twelve years later, Arnold teamed up with Danny De Vito to make a film about a genetic experiment to create the prefect male specimen- Twins. When the embryo splits, Arnold's character, Julius, emerges as the twin who is physically, mentally and spiritually advanced while Danny De Vito, playing Julius' brother Vincent, becomes a philandering car-thief.

But, as in Stay Hungry, Schwarzenegger, as De Vito's twin, reveals a side that veers closer to the Dude when it comes to being in the moment. Flawless though he may be, Julius knows all about music but struggles to sing Yakety Yak. Julius may know all about the history of beer, but he has never drank. Vincent teaches Julius about these things in life, with De Vito's comic timing teasing out an Arnold Schwarzenegger that is less American Hero than American Go Slow -less of a personality and more of a person, to paraphrase the late Michael Jackson.

Arnold's role model for the Terminator appears to have been “Dirty Harry” Callahan, the detective that rocketed Clint Eastwood to super stardom. Like the Dude who will not let aggression against his Persian rug stand, Dirty Harry protects San Francisco with his own style that frustrates liberals and conservatives alike. 

Dirty Harry follows the timeless precepts of natural justice, seeing past the fleeting politics of whatever bureaucratic challenges he faces.

For Eastwood, who had previously made his name as the iconic star of Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns, Dirty Harry is a natural progression from those earlier cowboy movies.  Through Clint Eastwood, we see the Wild West transforming into the urban showdown, through which the lone wanderer must navigate his moral compass to find some sense of community in the concrete prairie.

The tumble weed drifts by a neon lit building, as we come back to the opening sequence of The Big Lebowski, and our greatest Americoen hero, The Dude.

The Coen brothers abide.

-ADAM GREENWELL

The Dude/Jeff Bridges

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92EChuYNV-M

Julius Benedict/Arnold Schwarzenegger (my favorite Arnie scene)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi5s2G61yEY