Interesting note on "The Big Sleep" - I would say that the big lebowski references the film version a great deal more than the novel (and I would say that there is a substantial enough difference between the two that it bears pointing out the distinction.)

 

The ending of the Big Lebowski, which while strictly speaking has nothing to do with the ending of either the film or written version of the big sleep, nonetheless is much closer to the meandering Faulkner penned closing of the film version.  In fact, the Chandler novel has a fairly tidy denouement chapter that wraps up a lot of lose ends that are just left hanging in the film.  Also, Lauren Bacall's character in the novel is minor and completely unsympathetic, but after test audiences responded so well to her (and due to pressure her agent managed to put on one of the producers) the final film version of The Big Sleep contains a couple of extra Bacall/Bogey scenes that were shot a full year after the initial production wrapped. i'm not sure to what extent this influenced Julianne Moore's character in Lebowski, but it seems relevant.

 

What does any of that have to do with the Coen's?  well, maybe more than it seems.  It's a fairly important distinction to realize that because of the tyranny of the studio system in the 30's and 40's, the original noir filmmakers - even giants like Lang, Hawkes, etc - had to compromise fairly regularly to keep making pictures.

 

The Coen Bro's on the other hand are distinctly Auteurish - their fierce independence is much more akin to the freedom of the 70's neo-noir filmmakers like Coppola and De Palma.  Oddly enough, no filmmaker alive could probably ever make a movie like Bullitt again, but the Coen bro's have had a pretty successful run doing their strange fractured take on the Noir and screwball comendies that their studio hack predecessors were forced to churn out according to established formula.

 

. . . Thematically there's probably room for a little Jim Thompson in there (A Swell Looking Babe) or some David Goodis (Black Friday) but only in tone, and the central themes of misunderstanding compounded by greed and avarice leading to inevitable bloodshed and the destruction of the lives of all involved.”