Fountain Pens in Movies and TV

[catbert]

The fifth episode of Stranger Things season 4, set in 1986, features a fountain pen with a distinctive sloping end to the barrel and a Waterman-like cutout in the clip.

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Later in the episode, the same pen won’t write (understandably) and the barrel reveals important information.

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[FredRydr]

I started watching Gattaca, a 1997 film on Netflix starring Uma Thurman, Jude Law and Ethan Hawke. It's a future dystopia film and features art-deco locations and props, like Frank Lloyd Wright's Marin County Government Center, a Studebaker Avanti and appropriately enough, a Wahl Eversharp Skyline!







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Snaps by iPhone of corner of TV screen.

[catbert]

Carl Jung and Sabina Spielrein's fountain pens (the former a safety, perhaps?) and Sigmund Freud's dip pen in A Dangerous Method. The cigar, of course, is just a cigar.

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[Yazeh]

The cigar, of course, is just a cigar.

Are you sure?
A cigar might is not the same thing depending if it's Freudian or Jungian analysis

[catbert]

The cigar, of course, is just a cigar.

Are you sure?
A cigar might is not the same thing depending if it's Freudian or Jungian analysis

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[catbert]

A dragon (voiced by Jane Fonda) with a fountain pen in Luck.

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[Yazeh]

@catbert, that looks like a Jinhao 450

[catbert]

@catbert, that looks like a Jinhao 450

I think the animators were going for an archetypal cigar-shaped pen and so was Jinhao. To my eye, the fictional pen has a more traditional vintage-Duofold-like section than the X450.

[catbert]

In Spencer, set at Sandringham from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day 1991, a fictional equerry, formerly a military officer, uses a Montblanc with a hooded nib and a gold cap. (Maybe a 72 or 74? The ink window isn't visible and the nib seems more exposed.) Perhaps the choice of a German pen was related to the German filming locations.

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The actor Timothy Spall caps the pen very gingerly, releasing it into the cap then giving a slight twist to the piston knob as if to suggest a screw cap.

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[FredRydr]

Metal cap?

[catbert]

Metal cap?

Looks gold to me.

[catbert]

In King Charles III, the new king’s refusal to sign something …

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… sets off events which force him to sign something else.

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The pen gets flung aside in disgust, then used by several others. Maybe that influenced the choice of a relatively robust Waterman Hémisphère (looks like).

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Note artful framing in the final shot. Pen geek cinematographer?

[Chip]

Wings of Desire, the classic film by Wim Wenders, opens on a poem being written with a fountain pen:

When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.

When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.

When the child was a child,
it had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.

Since the pen point is moving, it's hard to get a close look. I assumed, given the film's German origin, it must be a Pelikan with a two-tone nib, but after considerable searching, I couldn't find a match.



But I knew I'd seen the like, so I tried other makes, finally looking at Montblanc. I think that fits.



It's a lovely film, if you enjoy artsy spooky stuff.

[Chip]

In Paul Schrader's film, The Card Counter, Oscar Isaac writes in a notebook using a fountain pen, likely one of these two. (It's an effort for me to get a screenshot, alas.)

[catbert]

In Look Who’s Back, Hitler arrives in 2014 Berlin and writes a book with the same title about his experiences, the filming of which becomes part of the film.

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