One more cup of coffee in Mulholland Drive | Little White Lies

In Heaven Everything Is Fine

One more cup of cof­fee in Mul­hol­land Drive

01 Feb 2025

Words by Adam Woodward

Colourful pencil drawing depicting two women's faces, with floral motifs in the background.
Colourful pencil drawing depicting two women's faces, with floral motifs in the background.
Adam Wood­ward reflects on the impor­tance of a cup of cof­fee in David Lynch’s Hol­ly­wood neo-noir.

Mul­hol­land Dri­ve is often cit­ed as David Lynch’s most ambigu­ous fea­ture film. But there is a scene in it that has always stood out to me for how clear­ly it illus­trates the writer/director’s long-stand­ing obses­sions with con­trol, pow­er and the creep­ing dread that lurks beneath seem­ing­ly ordi­nary sit­u­a­tions. I’m talk­ing, of course, about the espres­so scene, which for my mon­ey ranks as one of the finest – and most reveal­ing – in Lynch’s entire filmography.

A quick recap: The scene takes place in a drab, mahogany-pan­elled board­room some­where in Los Ange­les. Direc­tor Adam Kesh­er (Justin Ther­oux) has been per­suad­ed by his man­ag­er to meet with two twitchy Hol­ly­wood exec­u­tives and a pair of enig­mat­ic mob­ster sib­lings named Lui­gi and Vin­cen­zo Cas­tigliane (played by Lynch’s long-time col­lab­o­ra­tor Ange­lo Badala­men­ti, who also com­posed the music for the film, and Dan Hedaya, respec­tive­ly), who wield con­sid­er­able influ­ence over the film Kesh­er is hop­ing to make. As the scene unfolds, Lynch ratch­ets up the ten­sion, switch­ing focus from a terse dis­cus­sion about the cast­ing of the lead actress to the more seri­ous mat­ter of a man drink­ing coffee.

Need­less to say, this is not your aver­age joe – in fact, in the con­text of the scene, it’s equiv­a­lent to a tick­ing bomb in the trunk of a car or a wine bot­tle filled with ura­ni­um. A decep­tive­ly sim­ple, mas­ter­ful­ly deployed nar­ra­tive device that cre­ates an atmos­phere of sus­pense thick enough to make even Alfred Hitch­cock break into a cold sweat. The audi­ence is made implic­it­ly aware of the loom­ing threat of the espres­so from the moment a wait­er enters the room and presents the execs with a menu; their hubris pal­pa­ble as they fool them­selves into think­ing that their lat­est choice will meet Luigi’s exact­ing standards.

After a brief, frosty exchange in which every­one in the room might as well be speak­ing a dif­fer­ent lan­guage, the wait­er re-enters, cau­tious­ly set­ting down a cup and saucer – and, not before being prompt­ed, a nap­kin – next to Lui­gi. The cam­era clos­es in on Vin­cen­zo and then Kesh­er as they begin star­ing each oth­er down like they’re in a Mex­i­can stand-off. Sud­den­ly, the faint clink of chi­na draws Kesher’s atten­tion back to Lui­gi. Every­one holds their breath. Lui­gi gen­tly places the nap­kin in the palm of his left hand, picks up the cup with his right – extend­ing his lit­tle fin­ger as he does so to com­plete the well-rehearsed rit­u­al – and takes a short, deci­sive sip.

It’s not that the cof­fee isn’t to Luigi’s taste – he is phys­i­cal­ly repulsed by it, spit­ting it back out into the nap­kin in com­i­cal­ly exag­ger­at­ed fash­ion. He treats the serv­ing of such an unsat­is­fac­to­ry brew as a per­son­al affront, dis­card­ing the soiled nap­kin and scrunch­ing his face in dis­gust. Off-cam­era, one of the exec­u­tives, his voice strained with pan­ic, mut­ters shit”. Then, as Lui­gi ris­es to his feet, Kesh­er breaks his stunned silence to ask (not unrea­son­ably) what on earth is going on. At the same time, Vin­cen­zo vio­lent­ly blows his nose, then blows his top. The cam­era tight­ens once again on Vin­cen­zo as he glares at Kesh­er, mad-eyed, before inform­ing him in no uncer­tain terms, It’s no longer your film”.

There is so much packed into these six min­utes, so many small yet cru­cial details that nev­er fail to make me smile, no mat­ter how many times I watch the film: from Badalamenti’s omi­nous pinkie raise to Theroux’s baf­fled expres­sion when the offend­ing drink is vis­cer­al­ly regur­gi­tat­ed in front of him. Per­haps more than any oth­er scene in Mul­hol­land Dri­ve, the espres­so scene is the per­fect dis­til­la­tion of Lynch’s unique abil­i­ty to blend the mun­dane with the men­ac­ing. It is also deeply fun­ny. Com­ing from some­one who report­ed­ly con­sumed up to 20 cups of cof­fee a day, it epit­o­mis­es the self-aware­ness and wry sense of humour that made Lynch such a beloved figure.

In light of his untime­ly pass­ing, how­ev­er, the scene takes on a more poignant note. After all, here was a film­mak­er who, in his own imp­ish, inim­itable way, delight­ed in hold­ing a cracked mir­ror to Hol­ly­wood, reflect­ing its lop­sided pow­er dynam­ics and the arbi­trary judge­ments that can make or break a person’s career. Telling­ly, he would also direct just one more fea­ture film, 2006’s Inland Empire, post-Mul­hol­land Dri­ve. In a film billed by Lynch him­self as a love sto­ry in the city of dreams,’ the espres­so scene ulti­mate­ly serves as a sober­ing reminder of the stark dis­par­i­ty that per­sists between those who cre­ate art and those who con­trol it.

There was always the sense with Lynch that he nev­er quite fig­ured out his place in the Amer­i­can film indus­try (such as it is), but also that this suit­ed him just fine. Because, against all the odds, the shy kid from Mis­soula, Mon­tana still man­aged to craft a won­der­ful­ly rich, var­ied and, let’s face it, weird body of work – one that con­sis­tent­ly defied expec­ta­tions and pushed cre­ative bound­aries. David Lynch did things his way to the very end. That’s some­thing we can all raise a cup of java to.

To com­mem­o­rate the life and cre­ative lega­cy of the peer­less film­mak­er David Lynch, Lit­tle White Lies has brought togeth­er writ­ers and artists who loved him to cre­ate In Heav­en Every­thing Is Fine‘: a series cel­e­brat­ing his work. We asked par­tic­i­pants to respond to a Lynch project how­ev­er they saw fit – the results were haunt­ing, pro­found, and illuminating. 

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