The bansuri is a side-blown bamboo flute from the Indian subcontinent, usually cut from a single hollow stem with a few finger holes. Traditional versions have no mechanical keys, so the player changes the note by covering and uncovering holes while controlling the airflow with the lips. Six holes can produce the seven basic swaras of Indian music, and the instrument covers about two and a half octaves. Its length and bore set its key, so a player chooses a flute tuned to the music they want to play, and longer flutes sound deeper. It is closely tied to the god Krishna, who is often shown playing it, and appears in temple art from ancient times. Flutes like it are found in Indian, Sri Lankan and Nepali folk music as well as classical performance.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.