"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi.
The Big Lebowski & A Serious Man, directed by Joel & Ethan Coen, oppose each other in their protagonists' decisions and views on life.
The Big Lebowski's Jeffery "The Dude" Lebowski lives gracefully, taking all that happens to him simply and impersonally. No matter how bad his day gets, he is able to move forward, even in the face of outright hatred. He seeks no answers as to why the world treats him as it does.
His bewilderment is moment to moment, his anger never constant. He is at peace with the people around him, treating them as equals, proving a positive force. His energy is relaxed, secure, and honest.
He takes the world as it is, in direct opposition to the people around him, such as Walter, who scapegoats everything on Vietnam, so self-involved and wrathful that he can't see anything outside of himself, and Uli the Nihilist, who bemoans the "unfairness" of later situations.
A Serious Man's Lawrence "Larry" Gopnik lives tensely, refusing to accept that terrible things happen to people for no reason, that no real structure or narrative can be found in the chaos of human existence. With everything that happens to him, his own energy grows increasingly more anxious and emotionally draining.
His relationship with the people in the society around him is as hostile as the Dude's, with people constantly disregarding him. However, where as The Dude has healthy boundaries with others, Larry has none, exacerbating his own interactions with people until they become whiny and toxic.
This extends to almost the characters, who are ultimately cowards and children, facing nothing for themselves, never speaking honestly, always putting negativity out into the world. Larry's daughter complains constantly, his wife is a shrew who refuses to treat him like an adult, Clive retreats to his father to deal with his problems for him.
The Dude receives with simplicity all that happens to him. Larry does not, until his own life crumbles. The Dude does not allow this to happen to him. Larry has allowed the world around him to make him as entitled and self-involved as they are. The Dude stands tall, secure in who he is, at peace with the world's chaos.
This double feature is an acute observation into the minds of the Coen Brothers and how they perceive living, ultimately pitying those who cannot take responsibility for their lives, those who allow the struggle of life to affect their own energies. It is a case study of "receiving with simplicity" and of how the energy we place out into the world can help make life easier... or make it that much more difficult.
Larry Gopnik "didn't do anything," which is exactly the problem. Without boundaries in the right places, he has been stepped on and mutated into a shambling mess of a person.
Meanwhile?
The Dude Abides.
- The Songbird
- The Songbird
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