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128-397: The Big Lebowski ( / l ə ˈ b aʊ s k i / ) is a 1998 crime comedy film written, directed, produced and co-edited by Joel and Ethan Coen . It follows the life of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski ( Jeff Bridges ), a Los Angeles slacker and avid bowler . He is assaulted as a result of mistaken identity then learns that a millionaire, also named Jeffrey Lebowski ( David Huddleston ),

256-587: A cult classic . Ardent fans of the film call themselves "achievers". Steve Palopoli wrote about the film's emerging cult status in July 2002. He first realized that the film had a cult following when he attended a midnight screening in 2000 at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles and witnessed people quoting dialogue from the film to each other. Soon after the article appeared, the programmer for

384-416: A Hollywood feature went from $ 20,000 in 1914 to $ 300,000 in 1924. Silver and Ursini stated that the earliest crime features were by Austrian émigré director Josef von Sternberg whose films like Underworld (1927) eliminated most of the causes for criminal behavior and focused on the criminal perpetrators themselves which would anticipate the popular gangster films of the 1930s. The groundwork for

512-478: A broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" explaining that these categories are additive rather than exclusionary. Chinatown would be an example of a film that is a drama (film type) crime film (super-genre) that is also a noir (pathway) mystery (macro-genre). The definition of what constitutes a crime film is not straightforward. Criminologist Nicole Hahn Rafter in her book Shots in

640-505: A change signaled by films like Chinatown (1974) and The Wild Bunch (1969) noting that older genres were being transformed through cultivation of nostalgia and a critique of the myths cultivated by their respective genres. Todd found that this found its way into crime films of the 1980s with films that could be labeled as post-modern , in which he felt that "genres blur, pastiche prevails, and once-fixed ideals, such as time and meaning, are subverted and destabilized". This would apply to

768-575: A conservative era. For crime films, this led to various reactions, including political films that critiqued official policies and citizen's political apathy. These included films like Missing (1982), Silkwood (1983), and No Way Out (1987). Prison films and courtroom dramas would also be politically charged with films like Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Cry Freedom (1987). While films about serial killers existed in earlier films such as M (1931) and Peeping Tom (1960),

896-642: A crime novel that revolves around mistaken identity plot devices. Peter Howell, in his review for the Toronto Star , wrote: "It's hard to believe that this is the work of a team that won an Oscar last year for the original screenplay of Fargo . There's a large amount of profanity in the movie, which seems a weak attempt to paper over dialogue gaps." Howell revised his opinion in a later review, and in 2011 stated that "it may just be my favourite Coen Bros. film." Todd McCarthy in Variety magazine wrote: "One of

1024-454: A crooked shell" and portrayed gangsters who showcased the "romantic mystique of the doomed criminal." The 1940s formed an ambivalence toward the criminal heroes. Leitch suggested that this shift was from the decline in high-profile organized crime, partly because of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and partly because of the well-publicized success of the FBI. Unlike the crime films of the 1930s,

1152-484: A film described as "crime/ action " or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir stated that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews and rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Leitch, stated that

1280-488: A friend of the Coen brothers, Peter Exline (now a member of the faculty at USC 's School of Cinematic Arts), a Vietnam War veteran who reportedly lived in a dump of an apartment and was proud of a little rug that "tied the room together". Exline knew Barry Sonnenfeld from New York University and Sonnenfeld introduced Exline to the Coen brothers while they were trying to raise money for Blood Simple . Exline became friends with

1408-414: A greater depth and it made camera movements more dynamic. To achieve the point-of-view of a rolling bowling ball the Coen brothers mounted a camera "on something like a barbecue spit", according to Ethan, and then dollied it along the lane. The challenge for them was figuring out the relative speeds of the forward motion and the rotating motion. CGI was used to create the vantage point of the thumb hole in

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1536-552: A local midnight film series in Santa Cruz decided to screen The Big Lebowski and on the first weekend they had to turn away several hundred people. The theater held the film over for six weeks, which had never happened before. An annual festival, Lebowski Fest , began in Louisville, Kentucky , United States, in 2002 with 150 fans showing up, and has since expanded to several other cities. The festival's main event each year

1664-491: A locker of the Hollywood Athletic Club. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) consolidated a tendency to define criminal subculture as a mirror of American culture. The cycle of caper films were foreshadowed by films like The Killers (1946) and Criss Cross (1949) to later examples like The Killing (1956) and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Leitch wrote that these films used the planning and action of

1792-684: A mobster known as The Snapper Kid. Regeneration (1915) was an early feature-length film about a gangster who saved from a life of crime by a social worker. These two early films and films like Tod Browning 's Outside the Law (1920) that deal with the world of criminal activity were described by Silver and Ursini as being gangsters "constrained by a strong moral code". Stuart Kaminsky in American Film Genres (1974) stated that prior to Little Caesar (1931), gangster characters were in films were essentially romances . European films of

1920-576: A modern Raymond Chandler story, and that's why it had to be set in Los Angeles ... We wanted to have a narrative flow, a story that moves like a Chandler book through different parts of town and different social classes." The use of the Stranger's voice-over also came from Chandler as Joel remarked, "He is a little bit of an audience substitute. In the movie adaptation of Chandler it's the main character that speaks off-screen, but we didn't want to reproduce that though it obviously has echoes. It's as if someone

2048-516: A narrative on mass communication and US militarism and other issues. Universal Studios Home Entertainment released a "Collector's Edition" DVD on October 18, 2005, with extra features that included an "introduction by Mortimer Young", "Jeff Bridges' Photography", "Making of The Big Lebowski ", and "Production Notes". In addition, a limited-edition "Achiever's Edition Gift Set" also included The Big Lebowski Bowling Shammy Towel, four Collectible Coasters that included photographs and quotable lines from

2176-502: 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." In order to liven up a scene that they thought was too heavy on exposition , they added an "effete art-world hanger-on", known as Knox Harrington, late in the screenwriting process. In the original script, the Dude's car was a Chrysler LeBaron , as Dowd had once owned, but that car

2304-535: A psychopathic personality." Drew Todd in Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society described the character as different than films featuring rebellious characters from the 1940s and 1950s, with a character whose anger is directed against the state, mixed with fantasies of vigilante justice. Films like Dirty Harry , The French Connection and Straw Dogs (1971) that presented a violent vigilante as

2432-470: A remake of The Defiant Ones (1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s. Prison films closely followed the formulas of films of the past while having an increased level of profanity, violence and sex. Cool Hand Luke (1967) inaugurated the revival and was followed into the 1970s with films like Papillon (1973), Midnight Express (1978) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979). When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he ushered in

2560-413: A robbery todramatize the "irreducible unreasonableness of life." The themes of existential despair made the these film popular with European filmmakers, who would make their own heist films like Rififi (1955) and Il bidone (1955). Filmmakers of the coming French New Wave movement would expand on these crime films into complex mixtures of nostalgia and critique with later pictures like Elevator to

2688-481: A role so right for him that he seems never to have been anywhere else. Watch this performance to see shambling executed with nonchalant grace and a seemingly out-to-lunch character played with fine comic flair." Andrew Sarris , in his review for the New York Observer , wrote: "The result is a lot of laughs and a feeling of awe toward the craftsmanship involved. I doubt that there'll be anything else like it

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2816-506: A saloon proprietor, Mickey Finn was known as a pickpocket and thief who often preyed on drunken bar patrons. The act of serving a Mickey Finn Special was a coordinated robbery orchestrated by Finn. First, Finn or one of his employees (including "house girls") would slip chloral hydrate into the unsuspecting patron's drink. The incapacitated patron would be escorted or carried into a back room by one of Finn's associates, who would then rob him and dump him in an alley. The victim would wake up

2944-420: A savior. By the mid-1970s, a traditional lead with good looks, brawn and bravery was replaced with characters who Todd described as a "pathological outcast, embittered and impulsively violent." Hollywood productions began courting films produced and marketed by white Americans for the purpose of trying to attract a new audience with blaxploitation film. These films were almost exclusively crime films following

3072-402: A sentimental attachment to it. Convinced the kidnap was a ruse by Bunny, Walter fakes the ransom drop. He and the Dude return to the bowling alley, leaving the briefcase of money in the car trunk. While they are bowling, their car is stolen. The Dude is confronted by Lebowski, who has an envelope from the kidnappers containing a severed toe, supposedly Bunny's. Maude asks the Dude to help recover

3200-507: A sequel to The Big Lebowski . Nevertheless, John Turturro expressed interest in reprising his role as Jesus Quintana, and in 2014, he announced that he had requested permission to use the character. In August 2016, it was reported that Turturro would reprise his role as Jesus Quintana in The Jesus Rolls , a spin-off of The Big Lebowski , based on the 1974 French film Going Places , with Turturro starring, writing, and directing. It

3328-431: A sports car in front of Larry's house was purchased with the ransom and smashes it. The car actually belongs to a neighbor, who smashes the Dude's car in return. Jackie Treehorn's thugs abduct the Dude and bring him to the porn kingpin, who demands to know where Bunny is and what happened to his money. The Dude says Bunny faked her kidnapping and Larry has the money then passes out from a spiked drink Treehorn gave him. He

3456-508: A tough time securing the rights to Townes Van Zandt 's cover of the Rolling Stones ' "Dead Flowers" , which plays over the film's closing credits. Former Stones manager Allen Klein owned the rights to the song and wanted $ 150,000 for it. Burnett convinced Klein to watch an early cut of the film and remembers, "It got to the part where the Dude says, 'I hate the fuckin' Eagles , man!' Klein stands up and says, 'That's it, you can have

3584-653: Is shomer Shabbos . In a tirade, Quintana implies he does not believe Walter's excuse for not bowling on Saturday, threatens Walter and the Dude and storms out. Outside the bowling alley, the nihilists set fire to the Dude's car and demand the ransom money. Walter fights them off but Donny dies from a heart attack . On a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean , Walter eulogizes Donny’s passing, but ultimately ruins it by unrelatedly referring to his fallen comrades in Vietnam. As he scatters Donny's ashes, they are blown back onto

3712-409: Is a night of unlimited bowling with various contests including costume, trivia, hardest- and farthest-traveled contests. Held over a weekend, events typically include a pre-fest party with bands the night before the bowling event as well as a day-long outdoor party with bands, vendor booths and games. Various celebrities from the film have attended some of the events, including Jeff Bridges who attended

3840-493: Is a parody of the Kraftwerk album cover for The Man-Machine and the group name Autobahn shares the name of a Kraftwerk song and album . In the lyrics the phrase "We believe in nothing" is repeated with electronic distortion. This is a reference to Autobahn's nihilism in the film. The Big Lebowski received its world premiere at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 1998, at the 1,300-capacity Eccles Theater. It

3968-402: Is a style of crime film that originated from two cinematic precursors: the gangster film and the gentleman thief film. The essential element in these films is the plot concentration on the commission of a single crime of great monetary significance, at least on the surface level. The narratives in these films focus on the heist being wrapped up in the execution of the crime more or at as much as

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4096-607: Is arrested while wandering deliriously in Malibu and evicted by the police chief. On his way home Bunny (whose toes are intact) drives by, unnoticed by the Dude. Maude is waiting for the Dude at his home and has sex with him, wishing to become pregnant by a father with whom she will not have to interact. She tells the Dude that her father has no money of his own, his wealth came from her late mother. The Dude and Walter confront Lebowski and find Bunny has returned, having gone out of town without telling anyone. Bunny's nihilist friends took

4224-505: Is attacked in his Los Angeles home by two enforcers for porn kingpin Jackie Treehorn, to whom a different Jeffrey Lebowski's wife owes money. One enforcer urinates on the Dude's rug before the two realize they have the wrong man and leave. Consulting his bowling partners, Vietnam veteran Walter Sobchak and Donny Kerabatsos, the Dude visits wealthy philanthropist Jeffrey Lebowski ("the big Lebowski"), requesting compensation for

4352-423: Is different just as crime are different than horror, science fiction and period drama films. Rafter also suggested that Westerns could be considered crime films, but that this perception would only be "muddying conceptual waters." The history of the crime film before 1940 follows reflected the changing social attitudes toward crime and criminals. In the first twenty years of the 20th Century, American society

4480-425: Is loosely inspired by the work of Raymond Chandler . Joel Coen stated, "We wanted to do a Chandler kind of story – how it moves episodically and deals with the characters trying to unravel a mystery, as well as having a hopelessly complex plot that's ultimately unimportant." The original score was composed by Carter Burwell , a longtime collaborator of the Coen brothers. The Big Lebowski received mixed reviews at

4608-585: The British Board of Film Censors or conveyed mostly through narration. Box-office receipts began to grow stronger towards the late 1960s. Hollywood's demise of the Hays Code standards would allow for further violent, risqué and gory films. As college students at the University of Berkeley and University of Columbia demonstrated against racial injustice and the Vietnam, Hollywood generally ignored

4736-503: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935), promoted bigger budgets and wider press for his organization and himself through a well-publicized crusade against such real world gangsters as Machine Gun Kelly , Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger . Hoover's fictionalized exploits were glorified in future films such as G Men (1935). Through the 1930s, American films view of criminals were predominantly glamorized, but as

4864-1045: The Western film as they lack both the instantly recognizable or the unique intent of other genres such as parody films. Leitch and Rafter both write that it would be impractical to call every film in which a crime produces the central dramatic situation a crime film. Leitch gave an example that most Westerns from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to Unforgiven (1992) often have narratives about crime and punishment, but are not generally described as crime films. Films with crime-and-punishment themes like Winchester 73 (1950) and Rancho Notorious (1952) are classified as Westerns rather than crime films because their setting takes precedence over their story. Alain Silver and James Ursini argued in A Companion to Crime Fiction (2020) that "unquestionably most Western films are crime films" but that that their overriding generic identification

4992-495: The gangster film as both a genre on its own terms and a subgenre of the crime film. In these films, the gangster and their values have been imbedded through decades of reiteration and revision, generally with a masculine style where an elaboration on a codes of behavior by acts of decisive violence are central concerns. The archetypal gangster film was the Hollywood production Little Caesar (1931). A moral panic followed

5120-612: The 1940s films were based more on fictional tales with gangsters played by Paul Muni in Angel on My Shoulder (1946) and Cagney in White Heat (1949) were self-consciously anachronistic. Filmmakers from this period were fleeing Europe due to the rise of Nazism. These directors such as Fritz Lang , Robert Siodmak , and Billy Wilder would make crime films in the late 1930s and 1940s that were later described as film noir by French critics. Several films from 1944 like The Woman in

5248-689: The 1980s had an emphasis on the serial nature of their crimes with a larger number of films focusing on the repetitive nature of some murders. While many of these films were teen-oriented pictures, they also included films like Dressed to Kill (1980) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and continued into the 2000s with films like Seven (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997), and American Psycho (2000). In an article by John G. Cawelti titled " Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films" (1979), Cawleti noticed

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5376-652: The 1990s with films like Wild at Heart (1990). Quentin Tarantino would continue this trend in the 1990s with films where violence and crime is treated lightly such as Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Natural Born Killers (1994) while Lynch and the Coens would continue with Fargo (1996) and Lost Highway (1997). Other directors such as Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet would continue to more traditional crime films Goodfellas , Prince of

5504-498: The American crime film which began rejecting linear storytelling and distinctions between right and wrong with works from directors like Brian de Palma with Dressed to Kill and Scarface and works from The Coen Brothers and David Lynch whose had Todd described as having "stylized yet gritty and dryly humorous pictures evoking dream states" with films like Blood Simple (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986) and would continue into

5632-522: The City (1980), Q & A (1990), and Casino (1995). Other trends of the 1990s extended boundaries of crime films, ranging from main characters who were female or minorities with films like Thelma and Louise (1991), Swoon (1991), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Bound (1996) and Dolores Claiborne (1996). Every genre is a subgenre of a wider genre from whose contexts its own conventions take their meaning, it makes sense to think of

5760-475: The Coen Brothers to one of his best friends, Jim Ganzer, who also served as a source for creating Jeff Bridges' character. Also known as the Dude, Ganzer and his gang, typical Malibu surfers, served as inspiration as well for Milius's film Big Wednesday . Before David Huddleston was cast as "Big" Jeffrey Lebowski, the Coens considered Robert Duvall (who did not like the script), Anthony Hopkins (who

5888-400: The Coens and "their inspired, absurdist taste for weird, peculiar Americana – but a sort of neo-Americana that is entirely invented – the Coens have defined and mastered their own bizarre subgenre. No one does it like them and, it almost goes without saying, no one does it better." Janet Maslin praised Bridges' performance in her review for The New York Times : "Mr. Bridges finds

6016-515: The Coens and in 1989, told them many stories from his own life, including some about his actor-writer friend Lewis Abernathy (one of the inspirations for Walter), a fellow Vietnam vet who later became a private investigator and helped him track down and confront a high school kid who stole his car. As in the film, Exline's car was impounded by the Los Angeles Police Department and Abernathy found an 8th grader's homework under

6144-550: The Coens during pre-production. They told him that they wanted some parts of the film to have a real and contemporary feeling and other parts, like the dream sequences, to have a very stylized look. Bill and Jacqui Landrum did all of the choreography for the film. For his dance sequence, Jack Kehler went through three three-hour rehearsals. The Coen brothers offered him three to four choices of classical music for him to pick from and he chose Modest Mussorgsky 's Pictures at an Exhibition . At each rehearsal, he went through each phase of

6272-637: The Coens on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis ) to pick songs for the soundtrack of the film. They knew that they wanted different genres of music from different times but, as Joel remembers, "T Bone even came up with some far-out Henry Mancini and Yma Sumac ." Burnett was able to secure songs by Kenny Rogers and the Gipsy Kings and also added tracks by Captain Beefheart , Moondog and Bob Dylan 's " The Man in Me ". However, he had

6400-461: The Dude and Walter", which sprang from the scenes between Barton Fink and Charlie Meadows in Barton Fink . They also came up with the idea of setting the film in contemporary L.A., because the people who inspired the story lived in the area. When Pete Exline told them about the homework in a baggie incident, the Coens thought that that was very Raymond Chandler and decided to integrate elements of

6528-481: The Dude and that Maude is pregnant with a "little Lebowski on the way." The Dude is mostly inspired by Jeff Dowd , an American film producer and political activist the Coen brothers met while they were trying to find distribution for their first feature, Blood Simple . Dowd had been a member of the Seattle Seven , liked to drink white Russians , and was known as "The Dude". The Dude was also partly based on

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6656-472: The Dude burned one on the way over?' I'd reply 'Yes' usually, so Jeff would go over in the corner and start rubbing his eyes to get them bloodshot." Julianne Moore was sent the script while working on The Lost World: Jurassic Park . She worked only two weeks on the film, early and late during the production that went from January to April 1997, while Sam Elliott was only on set for two days and did many takes of his final speech. Joel Coen said that Jeff Bridges

6784-428: The Dude by an ill-timed updraft. As Walter tries to brush off the ashes, the Dude finally loses his temper and yells at him for everything that has happened. After apologizing and consoling the Dude, the two go bowling. At the bowling alley, the Dude encounters the Stranger, the movie's narrator, who sums up everything that happened in the film and states that while he "didn't like seeing Donny go", he remains inspired by

6912-620: The Dude", "Interactive Map", "Jeff Bridges Photo Book", and a "Photo Gallery". There are both a standard release and a Limited Edition which features "Bowling Ball Packaging" and is individually numbered. Crime comedy Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in his Screenwriters Taxonomy , claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres.  The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western. Williams identifies drama in

7040-436: The Dude's apartment, Deakins said, "it's kind of seedy and the light's pretty nasty" with a grittier look. The visual bridge between these two different looks was how he photographed the night scenes. Instead of adopting the usual blue moonlight or blue street lamp look, he used an orange sodium-light effect. The Coen brothers shot much of the film with wide-angle lens because, according to Joel, it made it easier to hold focus for

7168-794: The Gallows (1958), Breathless (1960) and Shoot the Piano Player (1960). Following the classical noir period of 1940 to 1958, a return to the violence of the two previous decades. By 1960, film was losing popularity to television as the mass form of media entertainment. Despite To The crime film countered this by providing material no acceptable for television, first with a higher level of onscreen violence. Films like Psycho (1960) and Black Sunday (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Prior to these films, violence and gorier scenes were cut in Hammer film productions by

7296-516: The Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden Restaurant, which operated on South State Street in the Loop neighborhood of Chicago from 1896 to 1903. In December 1903, several Chicago newspapers documented that a Michael "Mickey" Finn managed the Lone Star Saloon and was accused of using knockout drops to incapacitate and rob some of his customers. Moreover, the first known written example of

7424-565: The Los Angeles event. The British equivalent, inspired by Lebowski Fest, is known as The Dude Abides and is held in London. Dudeism , a religion devoted largely to spreading the philosophy and lifestyle of the film's main character, was founded in 2005. Also known as The Church of the Latter-Day Dude (a name parody of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ), the organization has ordained over 220,000 "Dudeist Priests" all over

7552-660: The Mirror: Crime Films and Society (2006) found that film scholars had a traditional reluctance to examine the topic of crime films in their entirety due to complex nature of the topic. Carlos Clarens in his book Crime Movies (1980), described the crime film as a symbolic representation of criminals, law, and society. Clarens continued that they describe what is culturally and morally abnormal and differ from thriller films which he wrote as being more concerned with psychological and private situations. Thomas Schatz in Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and

7680-630: The Past 25 Years list. The film was also ranked No. 34 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films" and ranked No. 15 on the magazine's "The Cult 25: The Essential Left-Field Movie Hits Since '83" list. In addition, the magazine also ranked The Dude No. 14 in their "The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years" poll. The film was also nominated for the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association . The Big Lebowski

7808-463: The Public Theater in a play called Mi Puta Vida in which he played a pederast -type character, "so we thought, let's make Turturro a pederast. It'll be something he can really run with," Joel said in an interview. The film's overall structure was influenced by the detective fiction of Raymond Chandler . Ethan said, "We wanted something that would generate a certain narrative feeling – like

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7936-460: The Sixties and Seventies. I lived in a little place like that and did drugs, although I think I was a little more creative than the Dude." The actor went into his own closet with the film's wardrobe person and picked out clothes that he had thought the Dude might wear. He wore his character's clothes home because most of them were his own. The actor also adopted the same physicality as Dowd, including

8064-516: The Studio System (1981) does not refer to the concept of crime film as a genre, and says that "such seemingly similar "urban crime" formulas" such as the gangster film and detective film were their own unique forms. Thomas Leitch, author of Crime Films (2004) stated that the crime film presents their defining subject as a crime culture that normalizes a place where crime is both shockingly disruptive and completely normal. Rafter suggested

8192-517: The United Kingdom) bringing its worldwide gross to $ 46.7 million. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes , the film holds an approval rating of 80% based on 191 reviews, with an average score of 7.40/10. The website's critics consensus reads, " The Big Lebowski ' s shaggy dog story won't satisfy everybody, but those who abide will be treated to a rambling succession of comic delights, with Jeff Bridges' laconic performance really tying

8320-461: The Window , Laura , Murder, My Sweet and Double Indemnity ushered in this film cycle. These works continued into the mid-1950s. A reaction to film noir came with films with a more semi-documentary approach pioneered by the thriller The House on 92nd Street (1945). This led to crime films taking a more realistic approach like Kiss of Death (1947) and The Naked City (1948). By

8448-420: The author's fiction into their script. Joel Coen cites Robert Altman 's The Long Goodbye as a primary influence on their film, in the sense that The Big Lebowski "is just kind of informed by Chandler around the edges". When they started writing the script, the Coens wrote only 40 pages and then let it sit for a while before finishing it. This is a normal writing process for them, because they often "encounter

8576-486: The best way to skirt complexities of various films that may be defined as crime films as works that focus primarily on crime and its consequences, and that they should be viewed as a category that encompasses a number genres, ranging from caper films , detective films, gangster films, cop and prison films and courtroom dramas. She said that like drama and romance film, they are umbrella terms that cover several smaller more coherent groups. The criminal acts in every film in

8704-542: The bowling ball. The original score was composed by Carter Burwell , a veteran of all the Coen Brothers ' films. While the Coens were writing the screenplay they had Kenny Rogers ' " Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) ", the Gipsy Kings ' cover of " Hotel California ", and several Creedence Clearwater Revival songs in mind. They asked T Bone Burnett (who would later work with

8832-601: The box office. The success of the film and its sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) reinforced the stature of the gangster film genre, which continued into the 1990s with films Scarface (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Untouchables (1987), Goodfellas (1990) and Donnie Brasco (1997). Dirty Harry (1971) create a new form of police film, where Clint Eastwood 's performance as Inspector Callahan which critic Pauline Kael described as an "emotionless hero, who lives and kills as affectlessly as

8960-431: The character of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle who Leitch described as a "tireless, brutal, vicious and indifferent" in terms of constraints of the law and his commanding officers. The film won several Academy Awards and was successful in the box office. This was followed in critical and commercial success of The Godfather (1972) which also won a Best Picture Academy Award and performed even better than The French Connection in

9088-429: The continual breakdown and re-establishment of borders among criminals, crime solvers and victims, concluding that "this paradox is at the heart of all crime films." Rafter echoed these statements, saying crime films should be defined on the basis of their relationship with society. Leitch writes that crime films reinforce popular social beliefs of their audience, such as the road to hell is paved with good intentions ,

9216-412: The crime film was following changing attitudes towards the law and the social order that criminals metaphorically reflect while most film were also no more explicitly violent or explicitly sexual than those of 1934. White Heat (1949) inaugurated a cycle of crime films that would deal with the omnipresent danger of the nuclear bomb with its theme of when being threatened with technological nightmares,

9344-554: The criminal psychology and are characterized by and emphasis on the crime unfolding often though montage and extended sequences. The genre is sometimes used interchangeable with the term "caper". The term was used for the more dramatic films of the 1950s, while in the 1960s, it had stronger elements of romantic comedy with more playful elements as seen in films like The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Topkapi (1964). Leitch described combining genres as problematic. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing

9472-680: The decade ended, the attitudes Hollywood productions had towards fictional criminals grew less straightforward and more conflicted. In 1935, Humphrey Bogart played Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role Leitch described as the "first of Hollywood's overtly metaphorical gangsters." Bogart would appear in films in the later thirties: Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939). Unlike actor James Cagney , whose appeal as described by Leitch "direct, physical, and extroverted", Bogart characters and acting suggested "depths of worldly disillusionment beneath

9600-401: The end of the decade, American critics such as Parker Tyler and Robert Warshow regarded Hollywood itself as a stage for repressed American cultural anxieties following World War II. This can be seen in films such as Brute Force , a prison film where the prison is an existential social metaphor for a what Leitch described as a "meaningless, tragically unjust round of activities." By 1950,

9728-497: The feminist consequences of sexual fetishism . In That Rug Really Tied the Room Together, first published in 2001, Joseph Natoli argues that The Dude represents a counter narrative to the post- Reaganomic entrepreneurial rush for "return on investment" on display in such films as Jerry Maguire and Forrest Gump . The movie has been used as a carnivalesque critique of society, as an analysis on war and ethics, as

9856-424: The film and main character: Anelosimus biglebowski and Anelosimus dude , both described in 2006. Additionally, an extinct Permian conifer genus is named after the film in honor of its creators. The first species described within this genus in 2007 is based on 270-million-year-old plant fossils from Texas, and is called Lebowskia grandifolia . Entertainment Weekly ranked it 8th on their Funniest Movies of

9984-489: The film to his "Great Movies" canon. However, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote in the Chicago Reader : "To be sure, The Big Lebowski is packed with show-offy filmmaking and as a result is pretty entertaining. But insofar as it represents a moral position—and the Coens' relative styling of their figures invariably does—it's an elitist one, elevating salt-of-the-earth types like Bridges and Goodman ... over everyone else in

10112-461: The film's indisputable triumphs is its soundtrack, which mixes Carter Burwell's original score with classic pop tunes and some fabulous covers." USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and felt that the Dude was "too passive a hero to sustain interest," but that there was "enough startling brilliance here to suggest that, just like the Dude, those smarty-pants Coens will abide." In his review for The Washington Post , Desson Howe praised

10240-474: The film's references to then President George H. W. Bush and the first Gulf War . The article says Sobchak's aggressive and impulsive attitude, which always results in catastrophe, is an allegory of neoconservative foreign policy and its supposed consequences. A journal article by Brian Wall, published in the feminist journal Camera Obscura , uses the film to explain Karl Marx 's commodity fetishism and

10368-523: The film, and eight Exclusive Photo Cards from Jeff Bridges' personal collection. A "10th Anniversary Edition" was released on September 9, 2008, and features all of the extras from the "Collector's Edition" and "The Dude's Life: Strikes and Gutters ... Ups and Downs ... The Dude Abides" theatrical trailer (from the first DVD release), "The Lebowski Fest: An Achiever's Story", "Flying Carpets and Bowling Pin Dreams: The Dream Sequences of

10496-536: The gangster films of the early 1930s were influenced by the early 1920s when cheap wood-pulp paper stocks led to an explosion in mass-market publishing. Newspapers would make folk heroes of bootleggers like Al Capone , while pulp magazines like Black Mask (1920) helped support more highbrow magazines such as The Smart Set which published stories of hard-edged detetives like Carroll John Daly 's Race Williams. The early wave of gangster films borrowed liberally from stories for early Hollywood productions that defined

10624-463: The genre has been popular since the dawn of the sound era of film. Ursini and Silver said that unlike the Western, the horror film, or the war film, the popularity of crime cinema has never waned. Mickey Finn (drugs) In slang, a Mickey Finn (or simply a Mickey ) is a drink laced with an incapacitating agent , particularly chloral hydrate , given to someone without their consent with

10752-412: The genre represents a larger critique of either social or institutional order from the perspective of a character or from the film's narrative at large. The films also depend on the audience ambivalence towards crime. Master criminals are portrayed as immoral but glamourous while maverick police officers break the law to capture criminals. Leitch defined this as a critical to the film as the films are about

10880-566: The genre with films like Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932). In comparison to much earlier films of the silent era, Leitch described the 1930s cycle as turning "the bighearted crook silent films had considered ripe for redemption into a remorseless killer." Hollywood Studio heads were under such constant pressure from public-interest groups to tone down their portrayal of professional criminals that as early as 1931. Jack L. Warner announced that Warner Bros. would stop producing such films. Scarface itself

11008-526: The growing rage against the establishment spilled into portrayal police themselves with films like Bullitt (1968) about a police officer caught between mob killers and ruthless politicians while In the Heat of the Night (1967) which called for racial equality and became the first crime film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture . The French Connection (1971) dispensed Bullitt ' s noble hero for

11136-414: The intent to incapacitate them or "knock them out"; hence the colloquial name knockout drops . Serving someone a "Mickey" is most commonly referred to as "slipping someone a mickey". The "spiking" of drinks is a practice used by sexual predators at drinking establishments who lace alcoholic drinks with sedative drugs. The "Mickey Finn" is most likely named after the manager and bartender of

11264-425: The interior". This carried over to the film's dream sequences. "Both dream sequences involve star patterns and are about lines radiating to a point. In the first dream sequence, the Dude gets knocked out and you see stars and they all coalesce into the overhead nightscape of L.A. The second dream sequence is an astral environment with a backdrop of stars", remembers Heinrichs. For Jackie Treehorn's Malibu beach house, he

11392-445: The law is above individuals, and that crime does not pay. The genre also generally has endings that confirm the moral absolutes that an innocent victim, a menacing criminal, and detective and their own morals that inspire them by questioning their heroic or pathetic status, their moral authority of the justice system, or by presenting innocent characters who seem guilty and vice-versa. Crime films includes all films that focus on any of

11520-498: The main gangster Jody Jarrett fights fire with fire. These themes extended into two other major crime films by bring the issues down from global to the subcultural level: The Big Heat (1953) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) which use apocalyptical imagery to indicate danger with the first film which the film persistently links to images of catastrophically uncontrolled power and the "traumatic consequences" of nuclear holocaust and Kiss Me Deadly literally features an atom bomb waiting in

11648-566: The money her father illegally withdrew from the family's charity foundation. The police recover the Dude's car. The briefcase is missing but the Dude finds a clue: a sheet of homework signed by a teenager named Larry Sellers. Walter learns that Larry is the good-for-nothing son of Arthur Digby Sellers, a principal writer for the television show Branded , that Walter reveres. The Dude and Walter visit Larry but get no information from him, as Larry remains mute and affectless through Walter's increasingly volatile and obscene interrogation. Walter assumes

11776-404: The movie together." Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , has assigned the film a score of 71 out of 100 based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. Many critics and audiences have likened the film to a modern Western , while many others dispute this, or liken it to

11904-471: The movie." Dave Kehr, in his review for the Daily News , criticized the film's premise as a "tired idea, and it produces an episodic, unstrung film." The Guardian criticized the film as "a bunch of ideas shoveled into a bag and allowed to spill out at random. The film is infuriating, and will win no prizes. But it does have some terrific jokes." Since its original release, The Big Lebowski has become

12032-896: The next morning in a nearby alley and would remember little or nothing of what had happened. Finn's saloon was ordered to be closed on December 16, 1903. He was apparently arrested again in 1918, this time for running an illegal bar in South Chicago. On June 22, 1918, four people were arrested and over one hundred waiters taken into custody over the apparent widespread practice of poisoning by waiters in Chicago. Guests who tipped poorly were given "Mickey Finn powder" in their food or drinks. Chemical analysis showed that it contained antimony potassium tartrate , also called " emetic tartar"; which in addition to causing vomiting , headaches , dizziness and depression , can be lethal in large quantities. Two bartenders were arrested for selling

12160-405: The only or first gangster film following the fall of the production code, The Godfather (1972) was the most popular and launched a major revival of the style. The film followed the themes of the genres past while adding new emphasis on the intricate world of the mafia and its scale and seriousness that established new parameters for the genre. The heist film, also known as the "big caper" film

12288-495: The opportunity to blackmail Lebowski, who in turn, had tried to embezzle money from the family charity, blaming its disappearance on the blackmailers. The Dude believes the briefcase never contained any money. An enraged Walter suspects Lebowski is faking his paralysis and lifts him out of his wheelchair but his condition is real. Walter and the Dude are bowling when a rival bowler, Jesus Quintana, interrupts them. Walter had previously stated that he could not bowl on Saturdays since he

12416-429: The passenger seat. Exline also belonged to an amateur softball league but the Coens changed it to bowling in the film, because "it's a very social sport where you can sit around and drink and smoke while engaging in inane conversation". The Coens met filmmaker John Milius when they were in Los Angeles making Barton Fink and incorporated his love of guns and the military into the character of Walter. Milius introduced

12544-496: The piece. Actual filming took place over an eleven-week period with location shooting in and around Los Angeles, including all of the bowling sequences at the Hollywood Star Lanes (for three weeks) and the Dude's Busby Berkeley dream sequences in a converted airplane hangar. According to Joel, the only time they ever directed Bridges "was when he would come over at the beginning of each scene and ask, 'Do you think

12672-402: The powder at the bar at the waiters' union headquarters, and W. Stuart Wood and his wife were arrested for manufacturing the powder. Wood sold packets of it for 20 cents and referred to it as "Mickey Finn Powder" in a letter to union bartender John Millian. A follow-up article mentions the pursuit of a man named Jean Crones, who was believed to be responsible for poisoning over 100 people at

12800-434: The release of the early gangster films following Little Caesar , which led to the 1935 Production Code Administration in 1935 ending its first major cycle. As early as 1939, the traditional gangster was already a nostalgic figure as seen in films like The Roaring Twenties (1939). American productions about career criminals became possible through the relaxation of the code in the 1950s and its abolition in 1966. While not

12928-513: The rest of this year." In a five star review for Empire , Ian Nathan wrote: "For those who delight in the Coens' divinely abstract take on reality, this is pure nirvana" and "in a perfect world all movies would be made by the Coen brothers." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, describing it as "weirdly engaging." In a 2010 review, he raised his original score to four stars out of four and added

13056-434: The rug. Lebowski refuses but the Dude tricks his assistant Brandt into letting him take a similar rug from the mansion. Outside, he meets Bunny, Lebowski's trophy wife and her German nihilist friend Uli. Soon afterward, Bunny is apparently kidnapped and Lebowski hires The Dude to deliver a ransom . That night, another group of thugs ambushes the Dude, taking his replacement rug on behalf of Lebowski's daughter Maude, who has

13184-536: The silent era differed radically from the Hollywood productions, reflecting the post-World War I continental culture. Drew Todd wrote that with this, Europeans tended to create darker stories and the audiences of these films were readier to accept these narratives. Several European silent films go much further in exploring the mystique of the criminal figures. These followed the success in France of Louis Feuillade 's film serial Fantômas (1913). The average budget for

13312-474: The slouching and his ample belly. Originally, Goodman wanted a different kind of beard for Walter but the Coen brothers insisted on the "Gladiator" or what they called the "Chin Strap" and he thought it would go well with his flattop haircut. For the film's look, the Coens wanted to avoid the usual retro 1960s clichés like lava lamps , Day-Glo posters , and Grateful Dead music and for it to be "consistent with

13440-468: The song!' That was beautiful." Burnett was going to be credited on the film as "Music Supervisor", but asked his credit to be "Music Archivist" because he "hated the notion of being a supervisor; I wouldn't want anyone to think of me as management". For Joel, "the original music, as with other elements of the movie, had to echo the retro sounds of the Sixties and early Seventies". Music defines each character. For example, Bob Nolan 's " Tumbling Tumbleweeds "

13568-410: The success of Shaft (1971) which led to studios rushing to follow it's popularity with films like Super Fly (1972), Black Caesar (1973), Coffy (1973) and The Black Godfather (1974) The films were often derivations of earlier films such as Cool Breeze (1972), a remake of The Asphalt Jungle , Hit Man (1972) a remake of Get Carter (1971), and Black Mama, White Mama (1973)

13696-632: The term, according to the Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ), is in 1915, 12 years after his trial. The first popular account of Mickey Finn was given by Herbert Asbury in his 1940 book Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld . His cited sources are Chicago newspapers and the 1903 court testimony of Lone Star prostitute "Gold Tooth" Mary Thornton. Before his days as

13824-407: The three parties to a crime: criminal, victims, and avengers and explores what one party's relation to the other two. This allows the crime film to encompass films as wide as Wall Street (1987); caper films like The Asphalt Jungle (1950); and prison films ranging from Brute Force (1947) to The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Crime films are not definable by their mise-en-scene such as

13952-628: The time of its release. Reviews have since become largely positive and the film has become a cult favorite , noted for its eccentric characters, comedic dream sequences, idiosyncratic dialogue and eclectic soundtrack. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant." In 1990 or 1991, slacker and avid bowler Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski

14080-450: The war in narratives, with exceptions of film like The Green Berets (1968). The crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) revived the gangster film genre and captured the antiestablishment tone and set new standards for onscreen violence in film with its themes of demonizing American institution to attack the moral injustice of draft. This increase of violence was reflected in other crime films such as Point Blank (1967). Leitch found

14208-409: The whole bowling thing, we wanted to keep the movie pretty bright and poppy", Joel said in an interview. For example, the star motif, featured predominantly throughout the film, started with the film's production designer Richard Heinrichs' design for the bowling alley. According to Joel, he "came up with the idea of just laying free-form neon stars on top of it and doing a similar free-form star thing on

14336-469: The world via its website. "The Big Lebowski and Philosophy: Keeping Your Mind Limber with Abiding Wisdom," published in 2012 by Wiley, is a collection of 18 essays by different writers analyzing the movie's philosophical themes of nihilism, war and politics, money and materialism, idealism and morality, and the Dude as the philosopher's hero who struggles to live the good life in spite of the challenges he endures. Two species of African spider are named after

14464-441: Was Marlon Brando . Charlize Theron was considered for the role of Bunny Lebowski. David Cross auditioned for the role of Brandt. According to Julianne Moore, the character of Maude was based on artist Carolee Schneemann , "who worked naked from a swing", and on Yoko Ono . The character of Jesus Quintana, a bowling opponent of The Dude's team, was inspired in part by a performance the Coens had seen John Turturro give in 1988 at

14592-410: Was a teaser trailer for an ad during Super Bowl LIII which featured Bridges reprising the role of The Dude for a Stella Artois commercial. The film has been used as a tool for analysis on a number of issues. In September 2008, Slate published an article that interpreted The Big Lebowski as a political critique. The center piece of this viewpoint was that Walter Sobchak is "a neocon ," citing

14720-623: Was also screened at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival before opening in the United States and Canada on March 6, 1998, in 1,207 theaters. It grossed $ 5.5 million on its opening weekend, finishing up with a gross of $ 18 million in the United States and Canada, just above its US$ 15 million budget. The film's worldwide gross outside of the US and Canada was $ 28.7 million, (including $ 2.6 million in

14848-511: Was chosen for the Stranger at the time the Coens wrote the screenplay, as was Henry Mancini's " Lujon " by for Jackie Treehorn. "The German nihilists are accompanied by techno-pop and Jeff Bridges by Creedence. So there's a musical signature for each of them", remarked Ethan in an interview. The character Uli Kunkel was in the German electronic band Autobahn, an homage to the band Kraftwerk . The album cover of their record Nagelbett ( bed of nails )

14976-420: Was commenting on the plot from an all-seeing point of view. And at the same time rediscovering the old earthiness of a Mark Twain ." The significance of the bowling culture was, according to Joel, "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

15104-532: Was delayed for over a year as its director Howard Hughes talked with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America 's Production Code Office over the films violence and overtones of incest. A new wave of crime films that began in 1934 were made that had law enforcers as glamourous and as charismatic as the criminals. J. Edgar Hoover , director the Bureau of Investigation (renamed

15232-476: Was getting the Jeff Bridges role." The Coens originally considered Mel Gibson for the role of The Dude, but he did not take the pitch too seriously. Bridges was hesitant to play the role as he was worried that would be a bad example for his daughters, but his daughter Jessica convinced him to take it after a meeting. In preparation for his role, Bridges met Dowd but actually "drew on myself a lot from back in

15360-403: Was inspired by late 1950s and early 1960s bachelor pad furniture. The Coen brothers told Heinrichs that they wanted Treehorn's beach party to be Inca -themed, with a "very Hollywood-looking party in which young, oiled-down, fairly aggressive men walk around with appetizers and drinks. So there's a very sacrificial quality to it." Cinematographer Roger Deakins discussed the look of the film with

15488-468: Was not big enough to fit John Goodman so the Coens changed it to a Ford Torino . PolyGram and Working Title Films , which had funded Fargo , backed The Big Lebowski with a budget of $ 15 million. In casting the film, Joel remarked, "we tend to write both for people we know and have worked with, and some parts without knowing who's going to play the role. In The Big Lebowski we did write for John [Goodman] and Steve [Buscemi], but we didn't know who

15616-615: Was not interested in playing an American), Gene Hackman (who was taking a break from acting at the time), Jack Nicholson (who was not interested, he only wanted to portray Moses ), Tommy Lee Jones (who was considered "too young"), Ned Beatty , Michael Caine , Bruce Dern , James Coburn , Charles Durning , Jackie Cooper , Fred Ward , Richard Mulligan , Rod Steiger , Peter Boyle , Lloyd Bridges , Paul Dooley , Pat Hingle , Jonathan Winters , Norman Mailer , George C. Scott , Jerry Falwell , Gore Vidal , Andy Griffith , William F. Buckley , and Ernest Borgnine . The Coens' top choice

15744-429: Was released in 2020. The Coen brothers, although having granted Turturro the right to use the character, were not involved, and no other character from The Big Lebowski was featured in the film. On January 24, 2019, Jeff Bridges posted a 5-second clip on Twitter with the statement: "Can't be living in the past, man. Stay tuned" and showing Bridges as the Dude, walking through a room as a tumbleweed rolls by. The clip

15872-554: Was the intended victim. The millionaire Lebowski's trophy wife is supposedly kidnapped and millionaire Lebowski commissions The Dude to deliver the ransom to secure her release. The plan goes awry when the Dude's friend Walter Sobchak ( John Goodman ) schemes to keep the ransom money for the Dude and himself. Sam Elliott , Julianne Moore , Steve Buscemi , John Turturro , Philip Seymour Hoffman , Tara Reid , David Thewlis , Peter Stormare , Jimmie Dale Gilmore , Jon Polito and Ben Gazzara also appear in supporting roles. The film

16000-400: Was under intense social reform with cities rapidly expanding and leading to social unrest and street crime rising and some people forming criminal gangs. In this early silent film period, criminals were more prominent on film screens than enforcers of the law. Among these early films from the period is D.W. Griffith 's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) involving a young woman hounded by

16128-587: Was upset there was no playback monitor so Bridges made them get a playback monitor at the end of the second week of production. The scenes in Jackie Treehorn's house were shot in the Sheats-Goldstein Residence , designed by John Lautner and built in 1963 in the Hollywood Hills. Deakins described the look of the fantasy scenes as being very crisp, monochromatic, and highly lit in order to afford greater depth of focus. However, with

16256-648: Was voted as the 10th best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list." Empire magazine ranked Walter Sobchak No. 49 and the Dude No. 7 in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll. Roger Ebert added The Big Lebowski to his list of "Great Movies" in March 2010. The Coen brothers have stated that they will never make

16384-485: Was well and truly gone nevertheless." The Coen Brothers wrote The Big Lebowski around the same time as Barton Fink . When the Coen brothers wanted to make it, John Goodman was filming episodes for Roseanne and Jeff Bridges was making the Walter Hill film Wild Bill . The Coens decided to make Fargo in the meantime. According to Ethan, "the movie was conceived as pivoting around that relationship between

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