The Big Lebowski - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Big Lebowski or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Big Lebowski

[ethel]

After having been cast in the film, Jeff Bridges, no stranger to working on films that would have constant script re-writes, called John Goodman to ask when they'd get the re-writes. Goodman, a longtime collaborator of the Coens, told Bridges that this film was Coen territory, and they didn't re-write their own material.

[carla]

The fictional German techno-pop band in the movie, Autobahn, is a parody of (or homage to) the legendary electronic band Kraftwerk. The Autobahn album cover is stylistically similar to the cover of the Kraftwerk album "The Man-Machine", and the group name Autobahn is the name of a Kraftwerk song. The title of Autobahn's album "Nagelbett" is German for "nail bed". In Swedish, Peter Stormare's native tongue, it means "nail bite".

[chris]

A lot of the Dude's clothes in the movie were Jeff Bridges's own clothes, including his Jellies sandals, which he still owns and uses to this day.

[jesse]

The watch that John Goodman's character wears, is a Casio G-Shock DW-5900 series originally launched in 1992, also known as the "Three-Eye" and the "Walter". It was the first G-Shock with the three-eye LCD design that would make its way onto the iconic and long running DW-6900.

[lynn]

When The Dude picks Walter up, just before the money drop, we learn that Walter works at his own company: Sobchak Security.

[albert]

When they started writing the script, the Coens wrote only forty pages and then let it sit for a while before finishing it. This is a normal writing process for them, because they often "encounter a problem at a certain stage, we pass to another project, then we come back to the first script. That way we've already accumulated pieces for several future movies."

[oscar]

To develop the lazy, out of shape character of The Dude, Jeff Bridges let himself go physically.

[norma]

Nearly all of the visible symbols in The Dude's second dream sequence are taken from earlier scenes: The initial scene of The Dude's exaggerated walking while casting a big shadow is similar to his landlord's interpretive dance to "Pictures at an Exhibition"; the black and white tiled floor is seen earlier in the Big Lebowski's entry way when The Dude walks with Brandt, and again at the end; the tool belt and workman outfit The Dude is seen wearing is identical to the one worn by Karl Hungus (Peter Stormare) in Logjammin'; Saddam Hussein, who is standing behind the counter, is mentioned briefly by Walter in the car outside the bowling alley, we hear President George H.W. Bush comment on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and in the opening credits, we see a man looking a bit similar to Saddam spraying the bowling shoes at the alley; Maude's gold bowling ball bra cups are taken from bowling balls seen on the rack behind Walter in an earlier scene at the bowling alley; Maude Lebowski's trident is from a statue at The Big Lebowski's house; the red-on-black bowling ball is the same as the one in the earlier dream sequence and is also visible on the rack behind Walter and The Dude at the bowling alley; the topless girl falling through a black frame is almost the same shot that opened the scene in which The Dude shows up at Jackie Treehorn's party; the scissors wielded by the red-clad nihilists are seen in a painting with a red background on Maude's wall.

[wesley]

The character of Uli originated on the set of Fargo (1996) between Ethan Coen and Peter Stormare, who often spoke in a mock German accent.

[phyllis]

With the exception of The Dude helping Maude bowl in a fantasy, The Dude is never seen bowling.

[phyllis]

Jeff Bridges claimed The Dude was pretty much who he'd been in the 1970s. But unlike the character of Walter for John Goodman, the Coens did not have anyone particular in mind for The Dude while they were writing the script. Once Bridges's name came up, the casting seemed unavoidable. But the actor often takes a lot of time before committing to a project - "He danced around it a while," Joel Coen claimed in a 2001 interview - and the brothers tackled Fargo (1996) after The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) primarily because they were waiting for Bridges's schedule to clear.

[lynn]

T Bone Burnett acted as music consultant for the movie, and helped Joel Coen and Ethan Coen establish the Dude's taste in music. Burnett selected many of the existing songs in the movie, and also suggested the Dude's hatred towards The Eagles (Burnett himself is not a fan either). One of the band's members, Glenn Frey, was reportedly so dismayed about this that he once even angrily confronted Jeff Bridges when they met at a party.

[nicholas]

The first of two movies in which Peter Stormare plays a character who loses an ear in the climactic fight. The other is The Last Stand (2013)

[jessie]

The check that The Dude writes in the beginning of the movie, for only sixty-nine cents, is post-dated. He clearly writes the date as 9/11/91 and when he speaks to his landlord later in the movie, the landlord reminds him that "tomorrow is the tenth."

[sophie]

All the shopping is done at Ralph's - when the Dude buys his half and half, when the sheriff finds his Ralph's card, and where they buy the can of coffee.

[lynn]

The significance of the bowling culture was, according to Joel Coen, "important in reflecting that period at the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties. That suited the retro side of the movie, slightly anachronistic, which sent us back to a not-so-far-away era, but one that was well and truly gone nevertheless."

[ivan]

The Dude meets a lot of new people throughout the story, outside his "tribe". But only four, Brandt, Jackie Treehorn, the bartender in the bowling alley, and The Stranger (Sam Elliott) show enough "respect" for him to call him "Dude".

[oscar]

The only time Donny doesn't get a strike is before they fight the nihilists at the end of the movie.

[victoria]

The last time Donny bowls before he dies, he rolls his only spare in the film, leaving the 8-pin standing. When he returns to his seat, the clock shows 7:52 - eight minutes until 8:00. This being the Coen's seventh film, these unreached eights might simply signify their next yet-to-be-attempted project. It must be noted the digit itself is essentially identical to the sign for infinity (if set vertical), sometimes also a symbol for eternity (in this case, for Donny).