Picnic at Hanging Rock was a commercial and critical success, and helped draw international attention to the then-emerging Australian New Wave of cinema. It is widely regarded as one of the most iconic and defining films of the New Wave. In 1996 it was voted the best Australian movie of all time in a poll by the Victorian Centenary of Cinema Committee and the NFSA.
Plot
On Valentine's Day 1900, students from Appleyard College, a girls' private school in Victoria, Australia, embark on a picnic to Hanging Rock to celebrate St. Valentine, led by teachers Miss Greta McCraw and Mlle. de Poitiers. Sara, a quiet orphan who has been separated from her older brother Bertie, is forced to stay behind with Miss Lumley and the school's headmistress, the harsh Mrs. Appleyard.
At the Hanging Rock, students Miranda, Marion, Irma, and Edith leave the picnic to explore the area. They pass a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert, and his Australian friend, Albert Crundell. The girls climb the Rock and fall asleep under a strange influence. Later, the girls awaken and Miranda, Marion and Irma proceed in a trance into a hidden crevice; Edith watches and screams in terror as she flees back down the Rock.
The picnic group of students, having also fallen asleep, are alarmed when they wake up to find Miss McCraw and the three girls missing. A police search yields no clues, despite Edith's fragmented accounts of the girls' disappearances, seeing Miss McCraw running up to the Rock without her skirt, and seeing a mysterious red cloud.
After having nightmares about the girls' disappearances, Michael conducts his own search for the girls with Albert. Michael stays at the Rock overnight and finds Irma alive inside a crevice the next day, but loses consciousness due to heat exhaustion. After Albert returns with the police force, Michael slips him a scrap of Irma's dress. Albert returns to the mountain to find Irma, who has no memory of her disappearance and cannot say what happened to Miranda, Marion, or Miss McCraw.
The disappearances cause a scandal, leading to students leaving the school and spreading unrest. News attention begins to swarm the search parties as Michael's dreams about the disappearances continue, with Miranda symbolized via the presence of a white swan. As the school's reputation and financial stability suffers, Mrs. Appleyard informs Sara that her guardian has not contacted the college in months and her tuition has not been paid. She tells Sara that her presence at the school is in jeopardy and that as a result of missed payments, she is no longer able to participate in extracurricular lessons. Sara begins to spend most of her time bedridden, mourning Miranda.
Irma, recovered but amnesiac, is to be sent back to Europe to reunite with her parents. She visits the college during a dance lesson to wish the rest of the students farewell, but is swarmed by her classmates, who scream at her and question her innocence and amnesia. After Irma departs in tears, Mlle. de Poiters discovers that Miss Lumley has restrained Sara against one of the walls for the span of the lesson under the guise of improving her posture.
The night before the rest of the students are set to leave the college for Easter, the date Sara was given for her guardian to resolve missing fees, Mrs. Appleyard visits her in the dormitory to tell her that she must return to the orphanage. Despite her cold demeanor, she breaks down in her office weeping after this conversation. The next morning, Albert recalls a dream in which Sara visited him, surrounded by her favorite flower, to bid him goodbye. Mrs. Appleyard meets with Mlle. de Poitiers, who previously expressed concern for Sara's health, and falsely tells her that Sara's guardian came to collect her. That evening, the two have dinner together, although Mrs. Appleyard, drinking heavily, evades Mlle. de Poitiers' attempts to ask whether Sara will be joining them for the next term.
Sara's body is later discovered in the greenhouse; she has apparently jumped from the roof of the main building and crashed through the greenhouse's glass roof. The gardener rushes into Mrs. Appleyard's office to explain the tragedy and finds her sitting calmly at her desk, wearing funeral attire, with her suitcases already packed. A voiceover explains that Mrs. Appleyard, facing the collapse of her school and haunted by the events of the movie, was found dead at the base of Hanging Rock, having apparently fallen while climbing it.
During a flashback to the picnic day, the voiceover states that the disappearances of Miranda, Marion, and Miss McCraw remain unsolved mysteries despite further search attempts, continuing to haunt the local community.
The novel was published in 1967. Reading it four years later, Patricia Lovell thought it would make a great film. She did not originally think of producing it herself until Phillip Adams suggested she try it; she optioned the film rights in 1973, paying $100 for three months.[4] She hired Peter Weir to direct on the basis of his film Homesdale, and Weir brought in Hal and Jim McElroy to help produce.[1]
Screenwriter David Williamson originally was chosen to adapt the film, but was unavailable and recommended noted TV writer Cliff Green.[5] Joan Lindsay had approval over who did the adaptation and she gave it to Green, whose first draft Lovell says was "excellent".[4]
Martindale Hall (located near Mintaro in South Australia), was the location for Appleyard Hall, the school featured in the film.
Filming began in February 1975 with principal photography taking six weeks.[6][7] Locations included Hanging Rock in Victoria, Martindale Hall near Mintaro in rural South Australia, and at the studio of the South Australian Film Corporation in Adelaide.
The film's mise-en-scène and cinematography was strongly influenced by the work of the Heidelberg School of Australian impressionists, active in Victoria in the 1880s and 1890s. Leading Heidelberg School member Frederick McCubbin also lived in and often painted the Macedon Ranges, the setting and filming location of Picnic at Hanging Rock.[8] To achieve the look of an impressionist painting for the film, director Weir and director of cinematography Russell Boyd were inspired by the work of British photographer and film director David Hamilton, who had draped different types of veils over his camera lens to produce diffused and soft-focus images.[7] Boyd created the ethereal, dreamy look of many scenes by placing simple bridal veil fabric of various thicknesses over his camera lens.[5][7] The film was edited by Max Lemon.
Weir recalled that while many in the cast and crew took the film in a humorous and jocular manner when filming began, the mood changed once location work began on Hanging Rock:
There is just something about the area that is oppressive and depressing. Absolutely nothing unusual happened while we were there, but everyone was nervous while we were there, and we were all glad to get away at last.[9]
Casting
Weir originally cast Ingrid Mason as Miranda, but realised after several weeks of rehearsals that it was "not working" and cast Anne-Louise Lambert. Mason was persuaded to remain in the role as a minor character, Rosamund, by producer Patricia Lovell.[5] The role of Mrs. Appleyard was originally to have been taken by Vivien Merchant; Merchant fell ill and Rachel Roberts was cast at short notice.[1] Several of the schoolgirls' voices were dubbed in secret by professional voice actors, as Weir had cast the young actresses for their innocent appearance rather than their acting ability.[10] The voice actors were not credited, although more than three decades later, actress Barbara Llewellyn revealed that she had provided the voice for all the dialogue of Edith (Christine Schuler, now Christine Lawrance).[10][11]
Music
The main title music was derived from two traditional Romanian panpipe pieces: "Doina: Sus Pe Culmea Dealului" and "Doina Lui Petru Unc" with Romanian Gheorghe Zamfir playing the panpipe (or panflute) and Swiss born Marcel Cellier the organ. Australian composer Bruce Smeaton also provided several original compositions (The Ascent Music and The Rock) written for the film.[5]
There is currently no official soundtrack commercially available. In 1976, CBS released a vinyl LP titled "A Theme from Picnic at Hanging Rock", a track of the same name and "Miranda's Theme". A 7" single was released in 1976 of the Picnic at Hanging Rock theme by the Nolan-Buddle Quartet. The song peaked at number 15 on the Australian singles chart.[12]
An album Flute de Pan et Orgue (Music from Picnic at Hanging Rock) was released by Festival Records France.
Theatrical release
The film premiered on 8 August 1975, at the Hindley Cinema Complex in Adelaide. It was well received by audiences and critics alike.[7] By 1978 it had made more than $3 million in Australian cinemas.[2] It eventually grossed $5,120,000 in box office sales in Australia.[13] This is equivalent to $40,863,759in 2022.
In 1998, Weir removed seven minutes from the film for a theatrical re-release, creating a shorter 107-minute director's cut.[5]
Reception
Horror need not always be a long-fanged gentleman in evening clothes or a dismembered corpse or a doctor who keeps a brain in his gold fish bowl. It may be a warm sunny day, the innocence of girlhood and hints of unexplored sexuality that combine to produce a euphoria so intense it becomes transporting, a state beyond life or death. Such horror is unspeakable not because it is gruesome but because it remains outside the realm of things that can be easily defined or explained in conventional ways."
Weir recalled that when the film was first screened in the United States, American audiences were disturbed by the fact that the mystery remained unsolved. According to Weir, "One distributor threw his coffee cup at the screen at the end of it, because he'd wasted two hours of his life—a mystery without a goddamn solution!"[5] Critic Vincent Canby noted this reaction among audiences in a 1979 review of the film, in which he discussed the film's elements of artistic "Australian horror romance", albeit one without the cliches of a conventional horror film.[14]
Despite this, the film was a critical success, with American film critic Roger Ebert calling it "a film of haunting mystery and buried sexual hysteria" and remarked that it "employs two of the hallmarks of modern Australian films: beautiful cinematography and stories about the chasm between settlers from Europe and the mysteries of their ancient new home."[15]
Richard Freedman of the The Star-Ledger wrote "it is so drenched in the sensuality of a time and way of life long passed that it is a sheer pleasure for weary 20th Century eyes to behold. Yet it has a unique sensibility of its own. By giving us the materials to fashion our own work of art, it performs a function given only to the highest art: it makes us think as it fills us with awe and wonder."[16]
Joseph Bensou of the Daily Breeze praised Weir's direction, writing "It's an arty film... And like the artist, Weir insists on layering colors and depth to his mystery ever so slowly and deliberately, adding a stroke of character here and a brush of suspense there." He also notes the "convincing" performances of the cast, especially Mrs. Appleyard, "played with a touch of evil" by Rachel Roberts, and Sara Waybourne, "played effortlessly" by Margaret Nelson.[17]
Cliff Green stated in interview that "Writing the film and later through its production, did I—or anyone else—predict that it would become Australia's most loved movie? We always knew it was going to be good—but that good? How could we?"[6]
Picnic at Hanging Rock currently has an approval rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 48 reviews, with an average rating of 8.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Visually mesmerizing, Picnic at Hanging Rock is moody, unsettling, and enigmatic -- a masterpiece of Australian cinema and a major early triumph for director Peter Weir".[18] Metacritic, another review aggregator, gives the film a score of 81/100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[19]
The director's cut was released on DVD in the US by the Criterion Collection on 3 November 1998. This release featured a new transfer of the film, a theatrical trailer and liner notes. The Criterion Collection released the director's cut on Blu-ray in the US on 17 June 2014. It includes a paperback copy of the novel and a number of featurettes.
In the UK, the film was released in a special 3-disc DVD set on 30 June 2008. This set included both the director's cut and the longer original cut, the feature-length documentary A Dream Within a Dream, deleted scenes, interviews with the filmmakers and the book's author Joan Lindsay, poster and still galleries,. UK distributor Second Sight Films released the film on Blu-ray in the UK on 26 July 2010.[20][21]
In Australia it was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in August 2007, and re-released in a 2-disc Collector's Edition in May 2011. This edition includes special features including theatrical trailers, poster and still galleries, documentaries and interviews with cast, crew and Joan Lindsay.[22] It was released on Blu-ray in Australia by Umbrella Entertainment on 12 May 2010, including the feature-length documentary A Dream Within a Dream, a 25-minute on-set documentary titled A Recollection: Hanging Rock 1900 and the theatrical trailer.[23]
Legacy and influence
Picnic at Hanging Rock was voted the best Australian film of all time by members of the Australian Film Institute, industry guilds and unions, film critics and reviewers, academics and media teachers, and Kookaburra Card members of the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA), in a 1996 poll organised by the Victorian Centenary of Cinema Committee and the NFSA.[24]
The film has gone on to inspire other more recent artists, who have come to regard the film for its themes as well as its unique visuals.
Director Sofia Coppola has borrowed heavily from Picnic at Hanging Rock for her productions of The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette.[25] Both films, like Picnic at Hanging Rock, deal extensively with themes of death and femininity as well as adolescent perceptions of love and sexuality.[26][27]
American television writer Damon Lindelof said that the film was an influence on the second season of the television show The Leftovers.[28]
Green Card is a 1990 American romantic comedy film written, produced, and directed by Peter Weir and starring Gérard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell.
Peter Lindsay Weir is an Australian retired film director. He is known for directing films crossing various genres over forty years with films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Gallipoli (1981), The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Witness (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989), Fearless (1993), The Truman Show (1998), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and The Way Back (2010). He has received six Academy Award nominations. In 2022 he was awarded the Academy Honorary Award for his lifetime achievement career. In 2024, he received an honorary life-time achievement award at the Venice Film Festival.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a 1967 historical fiction novel by Australian author Joan Lindsay. Set in Victoria, Australia in 1900, is about a group of female boarding school students who vanish at Hanging Rock while on a Valentine's Day picnic, and the effects the disappearances have on the school and local community.
Joan à Beckett Weigall, Lady Lindsay was an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and visual artist. Trained in her youth as a painter, she published her first literary work in 1936 at age forty under a pseudonym, a satirical novel titled Through Darkest Pondelayo. Her second novel, Time Without Clocks, was published nearly thirty years later, and was a semi-autobiographical account of the early years of her marriage to artist Sir Daryl Lindsay.
Gallipoli is a 1981 Australian war drama film directed by Peter Weir and produced by Patricia Lovell and Robert Stigwood, starring Mel Gibson and Mark Lee. The film revolves around several young men from Western Australia who enlist in the Australian Army during World War I. They are sent to the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire, where they take part in the Gallipoli campaign. During the course of the film, the young men slowly lose their innocence about the purpose of war. The climax of the film occurs on the Anzac battlefield at Gallipoli, depicting the futile attack at the Battle of the Nek on 7 August 1915. It modifies events for dramatic purpose and contains a number of significant historical inaccuracies.
Patricia Anna Lovell, commonly referred to as Pat Lovell, was an Australian film producer and actress, whose work within that country's film industry led her to receive the Raymond Longford Award in 2004 from the Australian Film Institute (AFI).
Anne-Louise Lambert, also credited as Anne Lambert, is an Australian actress. She is best known for her role as Miranda in the 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The Virgin Suicides is a 1999 American psychological romantic drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola in her feature directorial debut, and co-produced by her father, Francis Ford Coppola. It stars James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, A.J. Cook, and Josh Hartnett, with Scott Glenn, Michael Paré, Jonathan Tucker, and Danny DeVito in supporting roles.
The Last Wave is a 1977 Australian mystery drama film directed by Peter Weir. It is about a white solicitor in Sydney whose seemingly normal life is disrupted after he takes on a murder case and discovers that he shares a strange, mystical connection with the small group of local Aboriginal people accused of the crime.
Jean Vivra Gray, known professionally as Vivean Gray, also credited as Vivian Gray and Viven Gray, was an English television and film actress. She starred in the films Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave, but her best-known roles were in TV soap operas, after having appeared in numerous roles for Crawford Productions, she had regular roles in serials, The Sullivans, as Ida Jessup for its entire run from 1976 to 1983; in Prisoner, as Edna Pearson 1984, and in Neighbours, as Nell Mangel from 1986 to 1988.
Helen Morse is an English-born Australian actress who has appeared in films, on television and on stage. She won the AFI Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the 1976 film Caddie, and starred in the 1981 miniseries A Town Like Alice. Her other film appearances include Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Agatha (1979), Far East (1982) and The Eye of the Storm (2011).
Summerfield is a 1977 Australian film, directed by Ken Hannam, written by Cliff Green and produced by Patricia Lovell. It stars Nick Tate, Elizabeth Alexander, John Waters, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, Max Fairchild and Geraldine Turner, and was filmed on location on Phillip Island and Churchill Island in Victoria.
Karen Robson is an Australian entertainment lawyer, producer and briefly an actress, best known for her portrayal of the mysterious brunette Irma in the Peter Weir cult classic Picnic at Hanging Rock. She is based in Los Angeles and is a partner in the law firm Pryor Cashman LLP, where she specializes in film finance.
The Plumber is a 1979 Australian psychological thriller film about a psychotic plumber who terrorizes a grad student. Written and directed by Peter Weir, The Plumber was originally made and broadcast as a television film in Australia in 1979 but was subsequently released to theatres in several countries beginning with the United States in 1981. The film was made shortly after Weir's critically acclaimed Picnic at Hanging Rock became one of the first Australian films to appeal to an international audience. The film stars Judy Morris, Ivar Kants, and Robert Coleby, all of them being most notable at the time as actors in Australian soap operas.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a 1978 Australian drama film directed, written and produced by Fred Schepisi, and starring Tom E. Lewis, Freddy Reynolds and Ray Barrett. The film also featured early appearances by Bryan Brown, Arthur Dignam, and John Jarratt. It is an adaptation of the 1972 novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally.
Larysa Kondracki is a Canadian producer, director and screenwriter. Her debut feature film, The Whistleblower, was released in 2011 and received nominations for six Genies at the 32nd Genie Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. She has received international accolades for reporting on the stories of victims of trafficking in the former Yugoslavia.
Break of Day is a 1976 Australian film set immediately after World War I.
Lily Sullivan is an Australian actress. She played Coral in the 2012 film Mental, and Miranda in the 2018 television series Picnic at Hanging Rock. She plays leading roles in two 2023 feature films, Australian sci-fi thriller Monolith, and American horror film Evil Dead Rise.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is an Australian mystery romantic drama television series that premiered on Foxtel's Showcase on 6 May 2018. The series was adapted from Joan Lindsay's 1967 novel of the same name about a group of schoolgirls who, while on an outing to Hanging Rock, mysteriously disappear. The score won the Screen Music Award for Best Music for a Television Series.
The Last Time I Lied is a 2018 thriller novel by American author Todd Ritter under the pen name Riley Sager. The plot concerns the reopening of a summer camp from which three girls disappeared 15 years before. Their former roommate, now a counselor, attempts to solve the disappearance while dealing with her own survivor guilt. The novel was inspired by the classic Australian film Picnic at Hanging Rock. It received favorable reviews and reached the New York Times Bestseller List.
My Kingdom for a Chocolate Blancmange! A tragedy in fifty thousand acts. With apologies to William Shakespeare, Thornton Wilder and some very fine artists (1948)
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