In Fight Club, the characters are literally drowning in coffee, and not just any coffee, but from the Starbucks chain. Attentive viewers, of course, noticed this recurring element, but few were able to decipher it: without coming up with a clear explanation for the mysterious artistic decision, the audience most often blames product placement.
But director David Fincher assures that these cups contain a hidden message - partly a mockery of consumer society, partly a hint that there are too many Starbucks.
"When I moved to Los Angeles in 1984, good coffee was a rarity there," the director explained in one of his interviews.
"A lot of people suffered from this. And then Starbucks appeared, and things got better, because they have great coffee. But when they became successful and there were two or three of their coffee shops on every block, it became too much of a good thing… I decided to let them read the script for Fight Club – and found out that they were ready to make fun of themselves a little. We were not allowed to use their symbols only in the scene where the guys destroy the coffee shop, but we got the “green light” for everything else. We had a lot of fun then! We stuffed coffee cups everywhere we could, in every frame! I personally am not against “Starbucks” – in my opinion, they are trying to do a good thing. It’s just that there are too many of these coffee shops.”
Well, the trick worked: you can love or not love coffee, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that searching for coffee cups in every scene is great entertainment for connoisseurs of “Easter eggs”.
