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LEBOWSKI FEST
Speed of Sound tour rolls on Shabbos
By DANIEL LUCAS
del.ico.us
reddit!
By any account, The Big Lebowksi is a film that has endured a cultural legacy that no one would have expected—not the Coen brothers, not the actors and most certainly not The Dude.
"The Coen brothers crank their characters up to, like, 12," says 'Founding Dude' Scott Shuffitt, who began his Lebowski festival in 2002 in Louisville, Ky. "But in The Big Lebowski, they turn the characters up to, like, eight. They're very believable. It takes a couple of times watching it to really get the comedy, and the actors nailed the characters, John Goodman and especially John Turturro."
While subtlety is not a word one might apply to Lebowski, in the world of the Coen brothers, it is in fact a relatively subtle character film, especially when compared to Raising Arizona's over-the-top white trash or Fargo's manic Minnesotans. Coming off that seven-time Oscar-nominated tale of murder in the Northern Plains, it seemed that the Coens (Joel, writer/director and Ethan, writer) could get away with anything—and that is exactly what they did. Lebowski's tale of mistaken identity, nihilists and a rug that tied the room together has created an army of people that quote the film in conversation, hate the Eagles and prefer to drink "caucasians."
These thousands of people have turned Lebowski Fest into a traveling trivia, bowling, costumed spectacle and an international phenomenon that has taken hold in cities as far away as Edinburgh, Scotland—with the somewhat begrudging approval of the Coen brothers themselves. "We contacted them through a friend of ours, and they consider us both a blessing and a curse," Shuffitt says in a considerable Kentucky accent. "They've loaned us props before ... for the third annual festival, they gave us a marmot on a stick."
For this tour, Shuffitt called on one of his favorite Louisville bands, the Black Diamond Heavies. "We do Kenny Rogers' 'Condition,' Bob Dylan, Creedence," says singer/guitarist John Wesley as they drive through Estes Park, Colo., on the way to playing a show in Lead, S.D. "We do a lot of little dates between the Lebowski dates," he says. "I've watched the movie a thousand times, literally, so when the crowd is throwing lines at us, we can go toe-to-toe with them." Of course, he's talking about lines like "You are entering a world of pain," "Careful, man, there's a beverage here!" and "Nobody fucks with the Jesus."
"The beauty of Coen films," says Wesley, "is that the writing is always so good ... and the subtleties."
Among the subtleties include Larry's homework. "When we were researching our book," says Shuffitt, "we heard there was some truth about the kid having the homework in The Dude's car when it gets stolen." So, much like in the film, Shuffitt and his fellow founding dude Will Russell "found the kid who supposedly had his homework in The Dude's car. We talked to him, and he didn't know that that segment of the film was about him. That was really far out. He said he had loaned it to a friend of his, and his friend had stolen the car ... likely story."
Was it his social studies textbook?
"I think it was a math book."
LEBOWSKI FEST
WITH BLACK DIAMOND HEAVIES
SATURDAY 9.19.09
HOUSE OF BLUES
15 LANSDOWNE ST., BOSTON. 888.693.2583
7:30PM/ALL AGES/$20 adv, $23 dos
HOB.COM/BOSTON
SUNDAY 9.20.09
KINGS LANES
50 DALTON ST., BOSTON
617.266.2695
6PM/21+/$25 ADV, $30 DOS
LEBOWSKIFEST.COM
