Pattachitra is a cloth scroll painting tradition from Odisha, with related forms in West Bengal and Bangladesh. The name combines the Sanskrit words patta, cloth, and chitra, picture. Most works depict Hindu stories, especially Lord Jagannath of the Puri temple, Krishna and scenes from the Gita Govinda, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Artists coat cotton with a paste of chalk and gum from tamarind or guar seed, then rub it smooth to a leathery finish. They draw directly with a brush, without pencil or charcoal, and fill in natural colours made from stones, earth and conch shell. The finished painting is warmed over a fire and lacquered to protect it.

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.