DVD of the Week: “The Big Lebowski”

Joel and Ethan Coen’s iconic creation, the picaresque adventure of the Dude, keeps turning up. It’s particularly apt to talk about “The Big Lebowski” this week, since les frères Coen are back at Cannes with “Inside Llewyn Davis,” a movie about the Greenwich Village folk-music scene during the early sixties (based loosely on Dave Van Ronk’s memoir, “The Mayor of MacDougal Street”). It stars Oscar Isaac in the title role and co-stars Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake as members of a trio along the lines of Peter, Paul, and Mary. The actors are interviewed in Le Nouvel Observateur about the experience. Asked to pick their favorite Coen brothers film, Mulligan offered “Fargo,” while Timberlake said, “Difficult to choose. I adore ‘Barton Fink,’ ‘Fargo,’ ‘No Country For Old Men.’ And I adore the Dude. Man, the Dude, that’s me! You can even call me El Duderino.” I’m a great admirer of Timberlake as an actor; the underlying import of an identification with Jeff Bridges’s accidental hero—or, rather, a hero before his time—and its connection with the new film are the subject of this clip.