#Rolling tumbleweed animated gif movie
#Rolling tumbleweed animated gif tv

The seeds fall out, embed themselves in the ground, and they grow new plants. As they roll along their seed pods break open when they come to a place with sufficient moisture. The tumbling is how these plants reproduce. But the tumbling is not merely incidental to it's existence. But what's that got to do with repeating dialogue?Ī tumbleweed is the aboveground part of a plant that dies and breaks off from it's underground roots and is pushed away by the wind. Even as he talks about his life with Maude, it's clear he's never had a career or goals or any real direction - he's just going wherever life takes him. This is obvious throughout the film as he's carried from one objective to another mystery to a new character. Elliot says of The Dude, 'He's the man for his time and place.

#Rolling tumbleweed animated gif movie

The movie opens with a shot of a tumbleweed blowing in the wind as the song Tumbling Tumbleweeds by Sons of the Pioneers is playing in the background while Sam Elliot narrates The Dude's introduction. The thing I kept coming back to while trying to make sense of it is the opening scene of the movie where it all finally clicked. There are too many examples of repeating dialogue in the movie to list, but they all feel very deliberate. He's also clearly hung up on his ex-wife Cynthia, for whom he converted to Judaism and still babysits her dog while she's away on vacation with her current boyfriend. He always shrugs off any external insistence that he should calm down. He routinely insists that his participation in the Vietnam War puts him above reproach, often referencing his 'buddies who died face down in the muck,' and he tells one of his bowling tournament opponent as well as the teen car thief Larry Sellers that they're 'entering a world of pain' while threatening extreme violence in retaliation for minor transgressions. The Dude's best friend Walter also does this many times in the movie, but instead of repeating what others say he just repeats himself, and usually in ways that are hilariously inappropriate for the situation. The Dude refers to the Big Lebowski's wife as a trophy, qualifying the statement with the phrase 'in the parlance of our times,' a phrase said to him moments before by Maude Lebowski, the Big Lebowski's estranged eccentric radical feminist daughter.

And tomorrow we'll come back and we'll cut off your Johnson.' A little later, when Walter tracks down a kid named Larry Sellers who steals The Dude's car, they visit him at his home to find out what he did with the briefcase that was inside the car and The Dude threatens, 'We're gonna cut your dick off, Larry.' This aggression will not stand, man.'īunny Lebowski's fake kidnappers, who are actually washed up German techno pop artists, break into The Dude's apartment and tell him, 'We believe in nothing, Lebowski. A few minutes later in the movie, when The Dude meets the Big Lebowski, with whom he shares his namesake, he is denied compensation for a rug that was pissed on by someone who got their identities mixed up, and he repeats President Bush's statement: 'I do mind.

#Rolling tumbleweed animated gif tv

As The Dude is writing a check for a carton of milk, there's a TV in the supermarket on which George Bush utters the phrase: 'This will not stand, this will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.' He is of course referencing the Iraq conflict that was happening in the Persian Gulf during his time as US president. The first instance is right at the beginning. There are several lines of dialogue that are repeated just moments after they're first spoken and it happens so many times in the movie in such a specific way that I know it's a deliberate writing choice, and I spent some time trying to figure out why the Cohen brothers did it. There's a thing that happens throughout this movie that I didn't notice until my second or third viewing (out of dozens) that I think is really interesting. If you haven't seen the movie, I suggest you go watch it immediately because it's great. The Big Lebowski, written and directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen, starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, and Julianne Moore, is basically a detective story wherein a case of mistaken identity leads to the unraveling of a mystery within a mystery involving pissed on and stolen rugs, a missing woman, gangster pornographers, and embezzled charity funds.