Calligraphic Modernism

Scraps of paper are very important to the plot of Piccadilly. In particular, the camera rests on the signature of Shosho, whose contractual relationship to the Piccadilly Club is never quite clarified, as if the matter of monetary loss and gain, ostensibly the engine of the story, can be established in writing but never disclosed with precision. The film's interest in scenes of writing establishes a special link between the written word and the cinematic. We see more action in Wilmot's office than onstage, and we see comparatively lengthy scenes of writing and blotting. Wilmot's blotting might have struck you as odd: it gestures to an archaic technology, the fountain pen, and a temporality of writing that generally escapes observation. When writing with a fountain pen, one either waited for the ink to dry or else blotted the page on a special kind of paper, blotting paper, which was often used as the "desktop" of a writing surface, as it is here. I'll have more to say about writing and in particular the use of calligraphy in Piccadilly. If you haven't yet watched the film, stay tuned for the scene where Shosho signs her contract with both a European signature and a series of characters.

Meanwhile, here's an autographed photograph of Anna May Wong, which she has likewise signed with both her European name and its rendition in characters. Wong's contemporary celebrity can be gauged from the archive of ephemera associated with her career: cigarette cards, celebrity portraits, and posters of Wong are hot properties in the cinephile world.