Growing up with a passion for cinema, I was awed by The Elephant Man, dazzled by Blue Velvet and, in 1990, overwhelmed by what would become the definitive masterwork of filmmaker David Lynch: Twin Peaks.
Knowing I was such a fan of Lynch’s work, the Australian actor Eamon Farren – who Lynch had cast as the unstable Richard Horne in his Twin Peaks reboot in 2017 – gifted me the bag of Lynch’s own-brand coffee that the legendary director had given him.
To understand David Lynch, you have to go past the film and TV, the painting and composing, and the meditation – you have to understand his relationship with damned fine coffee.
In Mulholland Drive there are enduring images of the diner, Winkie’s. In Twin Peaks it was coffee and cherry pie for Agent Cooper at the Double R. Behind the clouds of cigarette smoke, or the wisps of morning mist, there was always coffee.
In person, Lynch was nothing like the fantastical worlds he created. He was an easygoing man, grounded in things as earthly as libertarian politics, meditation and that coffee: Organic David Lynch House Blend.
In conversation he was good-humoured and engaging. I interviewed him when Twin Peaks premiered. And we met again, 27 years later, to discuss the reboot. Those encounters were formal – journalist and director meeting for an interview.
Coffee, anyone? The Double R Diner in Twin Peaks.Credit: CBS Studios
Still, Lynch always took the time to engage, before and after. He always asked what I was watching on TV, or what movies I had seen. It was small talk, but he paid attention to the answers. He sought discussion, on everything from politics to pop culture.
He had the easy manner of a man who was, to some extent, unaware of who was who in the room, or where everyone sat on the Hollywood pecking order. Which made all of us – journalist, publicist, assistant and waiter – equally fascinating to him.
When I explained my theory that Twin Peaks and Picnic at Hanging Rock contained many story parallels, he listened attentively and assured me I was on to something. Was he humouring me? Perhaps. He insisted the question would preoccupy him for the rest of the day, which may or may not have been true.
But the glimpse into the character of the man is that he met my fanboy enthusiasm with the same charm and patience he had for anyone who wanted to discuss the complexities of the worlds he had created.
Lynch painted lurid cinematic images, but in truth he assembled these mosaics out of the most ordinary things; a sort of nostalgic Americana, but one he twisted into an exquisite grotesque.
Jake Wardle, James Marshall and David Lynch on the set of Twin Peaks.Credit: Showtime
In many respects, Twin Peaks – a television show – seems an unlikely touchstone for a film director, yet it stands as the ubiquitous representation of his work because it somehow encapsulated every aspect of his personality.
The opening titles moved with the slow sweep of a paintbrush, the story moved with a meditative speed, the composition of its music was as important as the dialogue, and the characters lived in the sort of alternative universe that endured in Lynch’s storytelling.
Twin Peaks was a strange place, populated by eccentric personalities: the Log Lady; the Giant; the One-Armed Man; Bob; and the Man from Another Place. It was also populated by the very ordinary: the lovely, melancholic Norma (Peggy Lipton) and homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). It was the living, breathing representation of the biblical phrase, “through a glass darkly”.
What he leaves behind is extraordinary. A body of work that pushed the boundaries of the form, and gifted us with more questions about ourselves than it gave answers.
And on my bookshelf, that unopened bag of House Blend, a talisman to Lynch’s work and his indulgence of time and kindness to a boy whose life is deep-diving the trenches of pop culture.
It may finally be time to open it. And to share with him one last cup of damned fine coffee.