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  • how to map a film
    • the first maps >
      • Some Maps in Gance's Napoléon
  • Paris
    • 1890s-1909 >
      • firemen in Paris, 1896
      • La Villette c.1896-97
      • Hatot-Breteau 1897
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      • Paris 1900
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        • the real Paquerette >
          • Paquerettes
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        • Alice Guy in the brothel ...
      • a dangerous street corner
      • Capellani in Paris
      • La Fille du faux-monnayeur
    • 1910-1929 >
      • a gateway out of Paris c.1910
      • L'Enfant de Paris (narrative of an identification)
      • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 1 >
        • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 2 >
          • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 3 >
            • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 4 >
              • Fantomas Over Belgium
      • One Place, Three Films: Fantomas and the French New Wave
      • a staircase in Belleville
      • Vampires Over Paris >
        • Les Vampires 1
        • Les Vampires 2
        • Les Vampires 3
        • Les Vampires 4
        • Les Vampires 5
        • Les Vampires 6
        • Les Vampires, 7
        • Les Vampires 8
        • Les Vampires 9
        • Les Vampires 10
      • Irma Vep posts a letter
      • Inside-Outside: space and light in Judex
      • L'Affaire Barsac
      • neon Paris c.1913
      • electric nights in Paris (and Berlin)
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      • Quai des Orfèvres
      • Olivia - Audry - 1951
      • Paris Noir: Becker, Dassin, Melville
      • the persistence of graffiti: Paris c.1952
      • Du rififi chez les hommes - reading topotropically >
        • Du rififi chez les hommes - locations identified
      • Het Parijs van Le Ballon rouge
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          • New Wave Newness: architecture in Paris
          • Eric Rohmer in the rue de la Huchette, c.1956
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            • Baisers volés
          • 'New York Herald Tribune' - Parrish and Godard on the rue de Berri >
            • A bout de souffle (narrative of an identification)
          • the Grisbi connection: Chabrol and Becker
          • Les Bonnes Femmes: sequence by sequence
          • Une femme est une femme: the places documented
          • the boulevard des Italiens
          • Jules et Jim: Paris configured
          • the place of cinema: cinema as location in Vivre sa vie
          • Godard and Melville: the view from the rue Jenner >
            • Melville: more views from the rue Jenner
          • the New Wave in Pigalle c.1963
          • La Peau douce - displaced places
          • Le Bonheur 1965
          • Paris vu par
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          • The Topography of La Guerre est finie
        • France
      • Le Samourai: places and maps >
        • Un flic: art and artifice
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      • Bresson 69-71
      • Every Revolution
      • statues in Godard and Duras
      • Holy Motors >
        • Holy Motors - notes
    • banlieues >
      • Le Canal de Ourcq
      • Ville d'Avray en 1903
      • Three filmmakers in Romainville
      • filmmaking in the Fontainebleau forest
      • Feuillade's lonely villas
      • anarchists in the suburbs c.1912
      • One Church Two Cemeteries: Clouzot and Chabrol at Montfort L'Amaury
      • Feuilladian Franju - Les Yeux sans visage
      • country houses and suburban villas
      • banlieue locations in L'Amour existe
      • the Landru Villa
      • 1 place 2 filmmakers: Rivette & Chabrol in Ermenonville
      • Céline et Julie: what's the address of that house?
      • cinemas in La Petite Voleuse
    • The Stairs: Paris
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      • Cocaine 1922
      • Fu Manchu 1923
    • London Locations >
      • Piccadilly Circus >
        • Piccadilly Circus in films
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        • Piccadilly Circus photographed
        • Piccadilly Circus: invisible things
      • Muswell Hill
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      • some Baker Street irregularities
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        • Rififi in London
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      • maps in krimis
      • Kriminal (1966)
      • Kaurismaki's London c. 1989
    • places in Face
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    • Swiss New Wave - shared-world practice
    • Geneva in Swiss New Wave films >
      • SNW Geneva: collective housing
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    • The Chronology of Le Petit Soldat
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    • L'Inconnu de Shandigor (J.-L. Roy 1967)
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              • A Little Bit of Cloth
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    • Agnès Varda >
      • Cleo 5-7 - Time
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        • Sans toit ni loi - the 12 tracking shots
        • Mona's postcard collection
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      • Alice Guy + JLG
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      • a map of Out 1
      • Le Pont du Nord: locations identified >
        • topographical telescoping in Le Pont du Nord
        • Le Pont du Nord (narrative of an identification)
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      • Godardiana
      • A bout de souffle: footnotes to the film >
        • A bout de souffle - the cast list
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      • Pierre Alechinsky in Le Joli Mai (1963)
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      • 10 photographs by Brassaï in 3 Paris dancehalls >
        • painters in the rue Blomet
      • Gisèle Freund in Paris >
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      • Godard's Histoire(s): photographs of women
      • the photographer as photographer: André Dino with Tati, Truffaut and Chabrol
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      • a building site and some buildings, c.1961 >
        • Jean Ginsberg
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        • 93 - Seine Saint Denis: Drancy to l'île Saint Denis
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      • A Remarkable Journey in Zigoto's New Motor-Car - 1912
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The Cine-Tourist
Piccadilly Circus
​


​London is the most horrible place in the world, and the most horrible place in London is Piccadilly Circus. 
 
​- Allen Upward, ‘The Horrors of London’, 1897
​
Picture
Picture


​Has London a real heart? Well, it has got Piccadilly Circus (…), this paste jewel set in a noisy asphalt sea.  
​
- Len Deighton, London Dossier 1967

Here are links to four sets of images of Piccadilly Circus:
​
  • in films
  • on postcards
  • photographed
  • in art


See also, here, a recording with illustrations of 'Invisible Things', a talk I gave in Piccadilly Circus in 2014.


And see also James Hawthorn's wonderful site The Lights of Piccadilly.

Every time they passed through Piccadilly Circus, Mrs. Viveash leant out of the window to look at the sky signs dancing their unceasing St. Vitus's dance above the monument to the Earl of Shaftesbury.
'Too lovely.'
​'Too revolting', Gambril corrected her.
​'These things are the epileptic symbol of all that’s most bestial and idiotic in contemporary life. Look at those beastly things and then look at that.' He pointed to the County Fire Office on the northern side of the Circus. 'There stands decency, dignity beauty, repose. And there flickers, there gibbers and twitches—what? Restlessness, distraction, refusal to think anything for an unquiet life.' 
 

Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay, 1923
​
Picture
Tonite Let's All Make Love In London (1967)
Picture
Smashing Time (1967)



​The lights of the Circus are the best night-sight in London.

Lawrence Alloway, 'City Notes', 1959
Picture
Ark 20 (1957)
Picture
Nice Time (1957)