JEFF BRIDGES/ The actor’s album, between hell and heaven

Jeff Bridges is The Dude. Since he acted in that extraordinary masterpiece of cult cinema “The Big Lebowski” (that was released in Blu-ray  a few days ago, in the course of a Hollywood party and reunion of the fantastic stars of the film), he himself is convinced of it. He has never again cut his goatee and hair and he looks more and more like that formidable ruffian that gave up the world to live among bowling alley, White Russians and songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Actually, Jeff Bridges is now Bad Blake as well, the protagonist of the great—though not as great as the book on which it was based—“Crazy Heart”, the film that won him an Oscar two years ago. In that film, he played the part of a middle-aged country singer, alcoholic, with his career in shambles.

It was as if that character, a bit of The Dude and a bit of Bad Blake, now truly exists, in flesh and blood. Jeff Bridges obviously is not only The Dude and Bad Blake. In the course of his long career, he acted in dozens of cinematographic masterpieces (for example, “The Last Picture Show” and “The Fisher King”), and has always been connected to an ethic of honesty and integrity far from the foolish bandwagon of Hollywood.  He is an actor from another era. An American from another era, one could say. This is not his debut album. He recorded a cd about ten years ago, and if his voice as a singer is not the greatest—but is as honest as his acting skills—musically, the album bearing his name is a great one. In his free time, Bridges has always loved to make music: “People usually put themselves in one category and close the door, saying that they cannot be capable of doing two things at the same time”, he said in an interview. “But since the film Crazy Heart was the story of a musician, I thought that maybe I could do that too and people would maybe accept me as a musician. It was the right moment to try it.” On the other hand, with genius producer T Bone Burnett, the greatest living American producer, it was not possible to make a bad recording. The foundation is in country, but it is a desert-like, painful country, sometimes veering into blues, many times melancholic.