EDDIE CHUNG: After a long day at work in the spring of 2004,
I met up with a friend at the bar.
Pissed, tired and just uptight, I was in need for a beer.
Three in, I discovered he and a couple of buddies were heading to Las Vegas
for a far-out convention called the Lebowski Festival.
I had seen The Big Lebowski when it first came out,
but like many, I did not get the grandeur of the movie.
Curious, I packed up my camera gear and set off to Lost Wages,
expecting nothing, but hoping for everything.
Take it easy with the camera, man. Just take it easy, man.
You name me one movie that has so many touches of life in it.
Nothing is lost in this movie.
You know, we're the only four people in the world
who really have a big following for this movie.
A guy went overseas... I know the story.
And the guy, he was sitting in a bar in the UK,
and he was kind of venting to the bartender, as people do.
And he turned to the bartender, and he goes, "Friends like these men."
And then the bartender kind of looked up, and his eyes kind of sprouted,
and they're like, "Friends like these."
And they began to quote Lebowski quotes all night.
CHUNG: Now, the story unfolded when Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt
decided to riff fines from the movie The Big Lebowski
and noticed people were riffing back.
So goes the idea of a fest.
In the most unlikely of places, a Baptist-run bowling alley,
Will and Scott opened the doors to the very first Lebowski Fest.
My name is Scott Shuffitt, I am co-producer
of the first annual Big Lebowski What Have You Fest
being held in the Fellowship Lanes, Louisville, Kentucky.
Will Russell, official Louisvillian.
Scott and I, about three months ago, we were vending a convention
for the Mothership Connection.
They knew those Lebowski lines,
and we began to realize that there was a community out there,
a very, very 'large community of people with feeling towards a fantastic movie
that was created by the Coen Brothers.
Someone said we should have a Big Lebowski convention.
It happened.
And then it was just like... I was, like...
The next thing you know, we were taking notes.
The bowling alley that we picked was the Fellowship Lanes,
which was a Baptist-run bowling alley.
They had a big sigh at the door when we walked in that said,
"No Cussing. “
They also allowed no drinking,
but they smoked lots of cigarettes, and they sold all the hot dogs,
so those Baptists were very happy.
Fellowship Lanes. We should have a dress-as-your-favorite-character contest.
Highest bowling score. Highest bowling score.
It really just... It wrote itself. We put up a website,
and it was just unbelievable the response we got.
Fantastic.
Yesterday, we had, like, 160 unique visitors to the site.
Everybody is just in love with this idea.
The media.
The bowling guy.
So, I'm Mike Walsh. I am driving around the country, bowling in all 50 states,
and I came here, kind of out of my way. I was scheduled to be bowling
with some funeral directors in South Jersey tonight,
but I heard about the party through my website.
Someone e-mailed me about this one, so I checked out
the Big Lebowski website, and I couldn't miss it.
Anyone who's bothering to throw a party
on the shady side of Louisville has got my vote.
I understand this is the First Annual, and with a lot of things,
they never happen again the second time, but I can feel there is a vibe here,
and you know that this thing is going to last for 50 years,
and I'll be damned if I miss one.
CHUNG: So it began.
(PEOPLE CHEERING)
Two guys from Louisville, Kentucky, planted the seed for a social phenomenon.
The concept is simple. Gather fans, bowl, drink like Russians, and just be Dude.
You see what happens? This is what happens.
And, eventually, the media caught on to spread the Lebowski lexicon.
We were driving to her parents' house when I found out
that we were in Spin magazine, which was probably the biggest moment
in Lebowski Fest history so far.
We were mentioned as one of the 19 events you can't miss
with, like, Lollapalooza, and Bonnaroo, and fucking Warped Tour and Ozzfest.
It was unbelievable.
This is what The Big Lebowski does, is it brings people together
from the far corners of the world.
Even if those corners are just North Carolina and Kentucky, it brings them together
in the spirit of goodwill and friendship.
An Achiever is the self-applied title
of someone who is a fan of The Big Lebowski.
It doesn't matter what you're into as far as your job,
or what kind of music you're into.
You could walk up to pretty much any Achiever
and just start up a conversation.
They are a very diverse group of folks.
I mean, you'll have from a layabout to judges, professionals.
CHUNG: What do you guys do for a living?
I'm actually a district attorney, but I don't want to say where 'cause...
And I have a white-collar job in Atlanta as well.
I work in advertising. I'm a whore.
(ALL LAUGH)
Well, to me, Achiever has kind of taken on a new air about it
since I've started my first real job this past fall,
and I have the forum to get me through the day,
and these people are really funny. They're great folks.
I can't wait to go to Louisville. I haven't been to Louisville yet,
and I'm looking forward to going.
CHUNG: In the summer of that same year, I went to Louisville for the first time.
Dios mio, man.
What I found there was every bit as stupefying as 5 had ever seen before.
What started as a one-day event took on a carnival atmosphere.
Over 4,000 people attended, not exactly a lightweight.
Some of the local Achievers took me across the river to
their private residence in Indiana
and their friendliness was overwhelming.
My name's Andy Cheney.
I post to the forum with all the other fellow Achievers here.
At my house in Indiana, it's the cookout, the forum cookout, before the movie.
And there's plenty of burgers, there's plenty of beer,
and thanks to our other fellow Achievers, there's plenty of White Russians to have.
It's a good time, and there's dogs to play with.
The best way I've always been able to put Lebowski Fest
is imagine the best party you've ever gone to, and then double it,
and I think last night is a perfect example of that,
just a group of people getting together,
things getting pretty, what could be considered out of hand,
but it's still just, like, a good time.
Everyone's really friendly with each other.
Our troubles are fucking over, and then we're going to the movie.
It's a way of life.
CHUNG: A year later, the festival came to my hometown,
Los Angeles, the City of Angels.
Jeff “the Dude" Dowd, who was the inspiration for the character, the Dude,
made an appearance, along with some of the other actors from the movie.
If you ask me, this whole thing is about friendship, new friends
and forever-going-on friendship.
My name's Jerry Haleva. I'm in the dream sequence,
and so I'm trying to convey Saddam as if he's working at this bowling alley.
They said, "How about coming to the Lebowski Fest down in Los Angeles?"
And I said, "Great!"
I had not been familiar with the Lebowski Fest,
and then I was invited to come down to the one in Lakewood a year or so ago.
I'm sort of driving along, and I see all these people.
I've described it to people as, clearly, the only place I've ever gone
where I felt like a rock star.
And it dawned on me, 'cause I could see these guys with bathrobes on and flip-flops.
And it wasn't about, again, that I play Saddam in the movies,
it was that I was Saddam in The Big Lebowski.
So, I thought, "They're going to jump on my car, they're going to swamp me."
That group of people, everybody knew who I was.
Well, everybody was just the opposite of what I thought.
My friend, he lives in Portland, and he was like,
"I tell people I'm from Kentucky,
“and they're, like, 'That's where Lebowski Fest is from."'
And I'm like, "Fucking A. That is what I'm talking about,
“putting Louisville on the map as the home of Lebowski Fest
"instead of some backwoods kind of hick thing, you know."
We're ready to throw some rocks, knock some pins.
Maybe harass a few 8-year-olds. Let's see what happens.
MAN 1: Saddam! Let's see what happens.
MAN 1: Saddam!
MAN 2: Bring the Seattle Seven, too.
Hey, Seattle Seven, come over.
Tim!
There he is. We found our party.
MAN 3: This is our spot, man.
Apparently, I am standing in the line you can see behind me,
waiting to get into the Lebowski Fest bowling extravaganza.
The line is currently very long,
indicating that it is obviously the most popular part of the festival.
I'm apparently dressed as Saddam Hussein, which has a very small part in the movie
and hands out the bowling shoes during a dream sequence to the Dude.
Now, the mustache I am wearing is made of real human hair,
which I did not realize until after I had purchased it.
It's also made in Korea, so yeah.
I just don't want to think of where this hair has come from.
And it's applied with spirit gum, so I really shouldn't smoke anything
'cause I will burn.
CHUNG: When released in 1998, The Big Lebowski did not fill many seats,
but that was then.
Years later, the movie found its audience and became a cult sensation,
to use the parlance of our time.
To my amazement, the costumes begin to take on a cerebral element,
delving into the minds of the characters from the movie.
Last year, I went as the walrus, and that is from the scene
where Donny mistakenly takes the quote by Lenin as being by John Lennon,
so he keeps saying, "I am the walrus. I am the walrus."
So I came as a walrus. It's getting hard to find a good costume.
Everything's been done, so you got to really try hard to find a good costume.
Why did you dress up like Sandy Koufax?
'Cause Walter says in the movie, "Damned right he's Jewish.
"3,000 years of beautiful tradition from Moses to Sandy Koufax."
So we had to be the span of Moses to Sandy Koufax.
And Brian's also one of his buddies who died facedown in the mud,
so we represent Walter's subconscious.
Well, I was inspired by the Lebowski Fest West.
I saw a girl dressed up as the toe,
and I thought, "Well, if you can be the toe, you can be anything in the movie."
Who's in the movie more than Jeff?
The Caucasian.
So here we are. You can't have a Lebowski Fest without the Caucasian.
Eddie! Eddie! ALL: (CHANTING) Eddie! Eddie!
CHUNG: After years of filming, I discovered the Achievers
embraced me as one of their own.
Without even realizing it, I had a character to play in this whole scene,
the Chinaman with the camera.
Excuse me, camera-American.
There's only one documentarian, and that documentarian's name is Eddie.
So many bullshit documentaries going on.
Johnny-come-lately wannabe motherfuckers.
They don't got the fucking street credit
of the one and only real Lebowski Fest documentary.
Did you guys ever hear of the Seattle Seven?
That's the Dude, and six other guys. We traveled all the way from Seattle.
Seattle Seven right there.
It started out as a fucking Vietnam protest,
but then it just turned into a fucking bowling team now.
It's bigger. It's bigger.
It's bigger. We just drink old sodas and White Russians and just get her done.
The Big Lebowski.
CHUNG: The fest went to the city where the other Jeffrey Lebowski,
the real Dude, protested the man,
marking his place in the American cultural revolution.
When I was first asked to go to what was the second
Lebowski Festival in Louisville,
I was very surprised, I mean, really surprised, by what I saw.
What you saw there, which was really great,
was all these people gathering together and making new friends.
But I met couples and people who were secretaries and doctors and students
and, you know, all kinds of different people.
The film got to them.
CHUNG: I realize now that the Fest is more than just a celebration of the movie.
It breaks down barriers and builds lifelong friendships.
Andy's wife said it best. It is a way of life.
One more festival ends.
The last I will photograph, but definitely not the last one to come as an Achiever.
These fuckers behind the camera, they're married, they have kids,
and they're trying to get some kind of shit on us.
All right? This is some wholesome stuff.
Hey, hey, Travis. Huh? How about your real name, Travis?
Travis. How do you like that?
It's on camera, isn't it? We know it is.
Travis. Yeah. You're gonna edit that out?
Some things that we call "secrets"...
What are you laughing about, Ronnie,
the sound guy? Really aren't "secrets."
Yeah? You should see these two, what they did last night. Huh?
It was dangerous.
I mean, porn stars wouldn't go that low.
Dangerous.
How about that? The truth is out now.
You got the camera all pointed on us.
Look at these guys.
Just a note, here. Just a note, this guy's totally unprepared.
He has no list of questions.
I mean, he's a total slacker, alienated, Lebowski guy.
Just a note, here. This is who comes to interview me.
All right? Nothing. Nothing.