The Dude is the Dude as Big Lebowski is the Dude of All Dudes

It's 10 years since the release of The Big Lebowski, a film that split cinema audiences down the middle but created a strange cult. Is The Dude a slacker prince for our times?

Not everybody likes The Big Lebowski.

The Big Lebowski is a cult film. That is to say, not everybody likes it but those who do, in the main, have a special relationship with it.

One of the dream sequences (photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

When it was released, as the follow-up to the Coen brothers' well-regarded and academy-impressing Fargo, many critics found themselves underwhelmed. Fargo was a film that hung together well - tightly paced and plotted, full of dark humour and moments of pathos.

The Big Lebowski, on the other hand, could be viewed as two hours of wild self-indulgence, packed to the gills with bowling, White Russian cocktails, and swearing.

Variety said it "doesn't seem to be about anything other than its own cleverness", while the LA Times moaned that the "story line is in truth disjointed, incoherent and even irritating".

Even its staunchest fan would have to say the plot, a pastiche of a Chandler or Hammett mystery, takes a little decoding.

The central character is Jeff Lebowski, aka The Dude, who has his rug urinated on by thugs, setting off a complicated chain of events.

Power of quotability

In 1998 the film failed, initially at least, to set the box office on fire.

QUOTABLE LINES The Dude: Nice marmot Careful man, there's a beverage here This aggression will not stand, man That rug really tied the room together Walter Sobchak: This is not Nam, this is bowling, there are rules You're entering a world of pain I did not watch my buddies die face down in the mud... Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature You want a toe? I can get you a toe... hell, I can get you a toe by three o'clock this afternoon, with nail polish

The flicks were then being bestrode by Titanic, a big sentimental monster of a replica-ship melodrama. The ordinary cinemagoer preferred Celine Dion's heart going on, and Kate Winslet threatening to jump to a watery grave, to the antics of a bearded slacker in Los Angeles.

But while The Big Lebowski did not initially put bums on seats, it was not a total turkey and proved something of a very slow-burn hit, particularly on DVD.

It became a popular choice for midnight screenings. Fans liked to go along and quote the dialogue. It was perhaps not surprising when four years after its release, it spawned Lebowski Fest, a chain of conventions, centred on Louisville, Kentucky, celebrating the film. There have even been Lebowski celebrations in the UK.

"The first night we watch the movie, the second night we become the movie," says Will Russell, who describes himself as "co-founding dude" of the Lebowski Fest.

At the annual events, fans dress up as the Dude himself, or as crazed Vietnam veteran Walter Sobchak, German nihilists, purple-clad Jesus Quintana, bowling pins, Valkyries and even as the dancing landlord. Then they read quotations to each other, much as might be seen at a Monty Python convention.

Will Russell (right) with another co-founder, Bill Green