The Dude Abides: The Cult of The Big Lebowski

Do you guys have favorite scenes?

Russell: All of them.

Shuffitt: One of my favorite parts is when the Dude has just left his check up at the doctor's office and he's cruising around and he's upbeat, smoking a jay and drinking and he sees that the Volkswagen is following him and that whole scene, he flicks the roach and it bounces off the window and drops in his lap and he's pouring the beer on his lap and drives into the dumpster. That whole thing, the way that Jeff was screaming.

Russell: It's funny, that's one of the very few moments in the movie where The Dude has this moment of joy where everything is alright, listening to the Credence and seems happy after all of this bad stuff has happened to him and then immediately, bam, into the dumpster.

And another scene that I really like is when he's in the bubble bath and he hears the message that his car has been recovered and he's happy for three seconds and then, bam, the Nihilists bust in. And then the marmot gets dropped in the tub and I love the way he screams. I remember we were able to borrow that marmot prop for an event and I was checking the scene to see if I could see this tube that was supposedly spinning the thing. I kept pausing it and just watching Jeff and hearing that scream and it was just killing me.

What's your favorite memory from Lebowski Fest?

Shuffitt: My favorite was the third annual event in Louisville. I see this dude dressed up as Moses and I'm like why the hell is there a dude dressed up as Moses? And then his buddy came up and he was dressed in a baseball uniform and it said Koufax on the back so they were a team and I thought this is so ridiculous. That's one of my favorites. And of course the top of the heap is when Jeff Bridges came to the event in L.A. with his band, not much can trump that.

Russell: That third annual fest when 3,000 years of beautiful tradition from Moses to Sandy Koufax showed up was the first year we had live music and we got our favorite band to play, My Morning Jacket. The whole band dressed in costume. The lead singer was The Dude and the drummer was Walter and the bass player was The Jesus and the guitar player was Karl Hungus. And in the middle of their set, all of a sudden in back of them all these fireworks started going off and it turned out it was the baseball game down the street doing it but everyone was like "Wow, these Lebowski Fest guys, they really know what they are doing," so of course we took full credit for it. We've told people no pyrotechnics since that year.

Did you ever ask Bridges what he makes of this obsession that people have for the film and The Dude?

Russell: Yeah, he had a great line about it. After he played with his band, the guy who was filming a documentary called An Achiever's Story (which will be a bonus feature on the 10th anniversary DVD), asked Jeff, "What do you think about all this?" And Jeff was holding a drink and looked right into the camera and smiled in a very Dude like way and said, "It all seems like some kind of strange dream that I'm having." He loves it.

Because of all the F-bombs in the film, when it plays on TV most of the best lines are grossly overdubbed. What's your favorite line that's been altered for television?

Russell: My favorite overdub of all time is the "Do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?" which was dubbed to "Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the alps?" [laughs] Very creative. John Goodman said he thought the Coens wrote those overdubs.

Shuffitt: That would be mine, too. No other comes close to that one. [laughs] That was the work of a true genius.

When you interviewed John Turturro for your book he mentioned a spin-off film idea he has for The Jesus character.

Russell: Yeah. It's hard to tell if he was joking or not, but its titled The Second Coming and it follows The Jesus when he gets out of prison. He's mentioned it in other interviews but we have no idea if he's for real.

As far as I know the Coens have never spoken about the cult following the film has gotten. Have you guys been successful to speak to them?

Russell: No, not really. [laughs] I think they are probably afraid of the fandom. But when we wrote the book we got in touch with their people and asked if it was okay if we write this book and they had a one line response which was "You have neither our blessing nor our curse." So that's it. That's the official word from the Coens.

Shuffitt: I'll take that as an endorsement. But I've been told that when the Coens are done with a film they are really done with it.

Moved on.

Russell: We have not moved on.

Jason Guerrasio is the managing editor of Filmmaker Magazine and is known to make a helluva Caucasian.