10 Screenwriting Lessons You Can Learn From “The Big Lebowski”

"Believe it or not, I didn’t like this movie for a long time. I’m not really into the whole stoner culture and this film was basically a promotional tool for the Toke and Tug crowd. But I watched it again recently (sans the close-mindedness) and I was kind of blown away. The character work here is amazing (not that I should be surprised. It’s written by the Coens) and the dialogue is top-notch. And that’s the main reason I wanted to give it the Tuesday treatment.  I wanted to see if I could snag a few dialogue tips. You know, the more I study dialogue, the more I realize it’s less about the actual writing of the dialogue, and more about all the things you do before the dialogue. In other words, the characters, the relationships, the situation. If you get all those things right, the dialogue writes itself.  That observation is on full display here.

1) Introduce your hero in a way that tells us EXACTLY who he is – I know I put this tip in my book, but I couldn’t dissect this script without bringing up how perfectly it’s executed here. We meet “The Dude” (Jeff Bridges) at the grocery store, shopping in the middle of the night, wearing a bathrobe. I mean, how do you NOT know who this character is after this scene? And yet I continue to see writers introducing their characters in unimaginative situations that tell us little to nothing about them. Come on guys! This is a fairly simple tip to execute!

2) CONFLICT ALERT – You’ll notice that in pretty much the entire script for The Big Lebowski (almost every scene) people are in disagreement. Walter and The Dude have two completely different philosophies on life. Walter thinks Donny (Steve Buschemi) is a total moron and is always yelling at him. Walter pulls guns on bowlers who cheat. The Dude and Mr. Lebowski never agree. The Dude and the Nihilists don’t agree. The Dude and the thugs don’t agree. Since there’s zero agreement in every scene, there’s always conflict. And guess what conflict leads to? That’s right, good dialogue."

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