Preparing the IV - Seattle Seven

[Michael Bailey]

> [v.o Sam Elliot]: Ah guess that's the difference between the Dude 'n you.
>
>> --
>> "My God, I am fully in favor of a little leeway or the damnable jig is
>> up! " - Seymour Glass
>
>        self-criticism's an amazing technique,
>        it shouldn't work but it does ....
>        GR
>

 I was hoping for some refutation, but I'm dissatisfied
enough that I've concocted the majority of one on my own...

(something on the lines of comparative cultures between
that of the Big Lebowski and the Dude, the pseudo-proletarian
solidarity of the bowling league, the inherent vices
of the American right and left wing, their co-dependence, the
potentially strengthening wild card of the Goodman character's
adoptive Judaism, its irony juxtaposed with his support of National
Socialism against the threat - and the comic relief - of the German nihilists...
the breezy tone successfully mitigating the potential for pathos, o-or even
bathos, the involuntary involvement of the Dude in the Big Lebowski's
tangled affairs
a very compelling analogue to how the moneyed classes drag the rest
of the citizenry into their wars...
the corruption and folly of the Big Lebowski's affairs and the naive
boosterism of the Smithers-like assistant running in parallel to how
the Republican Party co-opts the naivete of the religious and those who
believe in free enterprise...
the weird scene with the Dude's daughter (at least, I think she's his daughter?)
his lassitude and his ironic adoption of Bush 41's phraseology
all the many really nice touches in the movie of which I've named only a few...)


(but that's the point, the movie, funny as it is, is quite tragic and
the characters
rather heartrending...its greatness is the bearable lightness of its
catharsis, eh wot?)


-- 
"My God, I am fully in favor of a little leeway or the damnable jig is
up! " - Seymour Glass