Movies - Picnic at Hanging Rock

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	Movies - Picnic at Hanging Rock

Picnic at Hanging Rock is the title of a 1967 novel by Australian author Joan Lindsay, and the 1975 film adaptation directed by Peter Weir.

Both the novel and the film imply that they are based on a true story; the film even bookends the story with a pseudo-historical prologue and epilogue. However, while Hanging Rock is a real geological feature just outside Melbourne, the story is entirely fictional. Many readers and viewers assume that the story is true, and Lindsay did little to dispel that myth , in many interviews either refusing to confirm it was entirely fiction, or hinting that parts of the book were fictitious, and others were not.

The novel

Lindsay wrote the novel at her home Mulberry Hill in Baxter, on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. It was first published in 1967 in Australia by Cheshire Publishing and was released in paperback by Penguin in 1970. In 1973, it was optioned as a film by film producer Patricia Lovell.

Synopsis

The plot concerns a trip by a party of girls from an exclusive private school, who travel to Hanging Rock in Victoria's Mt. Macedon area for a picnic on St. Valentine's Day, 1900. The excursion ends in tragedy when three girls and a teacher mysteriously vanish after climbing the rock. The reason for their disappearance is never revealed.

The mystery

The insoluble mystery of the disappearances was arguably the key to the success of both the book and the subsequent film.

In fact, Lindsay's original draft included a final chapter in which the mystery was resolved, but Lindsay removed it prior to publication, and it was not released until after her death. Chapter Eighteen, as it is known, was not widely known until the mid-1980s, but in 1987 was finally published as The Secret of Hanging Rock by Angus & Robertson Publishing. Ironically, when it was finally released, Lindsay's long-withheld last chapter proved extremely puzzling and raised more questions than it answered.

Both the original version of the novel and the film provide a number of oblique clues that point to the most popular 'alternate' explanation - that Miss McCraw and the girls vanished into some sort of time warp.

The film

Peter Weir's film of Picnic at Hanging Rock premiered at the Hindley Cinema Complex in Adelaide on 8 August, 1975. It became one of the first Australian films to reach an international audience, and thus has an important place in Australian film history.

Synopsis

The screenplay, adapted by Green from Lindsay's novel, tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of three schoolgirls and their teacher on Valentine's Day in 1900. The reason for their disappearance, whether by human, natural or supernatural agency, is never discovered, but their disappearance has a profound effect upon everybody in their community.

The film begins in an English girls' school in the Australian bush. The school is headed by the stentorian Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts), an indomitable and unbending figurehead of authority. Her staff include the remote mathematics mistress Miss McCraw (Vivean Gray), who vanishes on the Rock with three pupils, the young and beautiful Mademoiselle de Portiers (Helen Morse) who teaches French and deportment, and the jittery Miss Lumley (Kirsty Child), who is anxious to please Mrs. Appleyard.

Although she commands only a little more than a half-hour of screen time, the film's central character is Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert), a young student whose beauty is compared by Mademoiselle de Portiers to one of Botticelli's angels. Her circle of friends includes Irma (Karen Robson), Marion (Jane Vallis), Rosamund (Ingrid Mason) and the waifish Sara (Margaret Nelson) whose affection for Miranda stems from a deep crush. Another pupil, Edith (Christine Schuler) hovers on the edge of Miranda's circle, desperate for acceptance.

During the picnic, a handful of the girls - Miranda, Irma, Marion and Edith - decide to explore the rock in direct defiance of Mrs Appleyard's specific instruction. One of the teachers, Miss McCraw, follows them. By sunset, only Edith has returned, hysterical and unable to explain what has transpired. The police investigation led by Sgt. Bumpher (Wyn Roberts) and Constable Jones (Garry McDonald) leads them to a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert (Dominic Guard) who was lunching at the rock with his family, Colonel Fitzhubert (Peter Collingwood) and Mrs. Fitzhubert (Olga Dickie). Michael, with Albert (John Jarratt), the Fitzhubert party's young local Australian valet, spent part of the lunch watching the picnic, but offer no clues in the investigation.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Picnic at Hanging Rock ]

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Movies - Picnic at Hanging Rock

The novel

Synopsis

The mystery

The film

Synopsis

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