Berlin, 1998. John Goodman and filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen sat down for a press conference to promote The Big Lebowski. Good lord is it awkward.
It’s often difficult to work out who benefits from movie press conferences. Actors and filmmakers sit at a long table and try to look engaged in the barrage of inane questions that will inevitably come at them. Journalists fumble over their words, hold the microphone too close to their mouths and burble indecipherably. At best, they’re awkward.
The press conference for The Big Lebowski, held at the Berlin Film Festival in 1998, meanwhile, is so flat and awkward that it’s actually fascinating. Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen shuffle in front of the cameras with star John Goodman to promote what was then their latest movie – a Raymond Chandler-inspired stoner bowling comedy that would quickly become a cult favourite. Not that you’d necessarily know it from the questions posed by a platoon of international journalists, many of whom seem a bit nonplussed by what they’ve just seen.
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The Coens – who can be a bit terse and uncomfortable in interview situations at the best of times – are often bemused by the questions thrown at them, but their short, dry responses only serve to make the whole thing even funnier. Even John Goodman, who seems rather hot and possibly jet-lagged, struggles to take the whole thing seriously.
By all means watch the whole thing if you have time. If you don’t, here are some select highlights, with timestamps:
- A journalist asks the Coens about bowling – a pastime the filmmakers clearly have little interest in
- Another journalist suggests that The Big Lebowski is the first Coen brothers movie with emotion in it [14:45]
- John Goodman on fearing that he’d wake up an entire neighbourhood as he swore and smashed up a Corvette [15:45]
- “Why is Jodie Foster smiling at me?” [18:03]
- John Goodman’s face when Joel Coen talks about a script they’ve been working on [19:07]
- A journalist suggests that The Big Lebowski could have been set anywhere, which is evidently news to the Coens. Also, Joel Coen explains John Turturro’s er, unique role in the film [19:28]
- A deeply weird journalist asks the Coens whether they’d consider making a movie about ‘women losers’. Joel Coen: “You want us to do a parody about women??” [22:28]
- To John Goodman: “What character would you like to play instead of a big boy who doesn’t know [what’s going on?]” [29:50]
- Joel Coen’s response to the question: “Some filmmakers want to make movies about deep feelings, deep emotions. But except from making fun of Nazis and making fun of American bowling freaks, what was your objective for this movie?” [32:44]
- That deeply weird journalist from earlier asks the Coens about making a movie about ‘women losers’. Again. [33:14]
The Big Lebowski is, of course, a one-of-a-kind classic. Its press conference isn’t bad, either.
