"Picnic at Hanging Rock"

i haven't seen it for years mind

and yes, the girls are clearly supposed to be dwarfed by the natural landscape, no more than part of it.

you oughta see "kwaidan" next.

I didn't think much of the style.

Rachel Roberts reminds me of Nurse Gladys Emmanuel.

http://www.totaldvd.com.au/DVDProduct/Images/190x250pxgif/picnicathangingrockdvd.jpg

What the fuckity!?!?!? How come nobody told me about this!!!!!!

By the way - the rock formations in the film, they do all have faces in them, don't they? Do they have these in real life? Spooky.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/rewind/txt/s1168554.htm

It was on a show called "Rewind" which is btw a damn interesting show, going over historical "canon" and finding out new facts/exposing things people dont usually know, etc.

xpost no... did she own up to making it up then?

i haven't ever been there. but i have always loved the movie very much. i also loved the book when i was a little tacker too.

i remember waiting eagerly for that final chapter to come out when i was about 11 or 12 and being utterly devastated at how crappy it was

http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/rock/picnictc.html

it has Philip Adams, Elizabeth Jolley etc giving their theories on "wot did 'appen". Personally I like Adams' one, it has that DonnieDarkoesque feel:

Re-reading the text I had in mind Joan Lindsay's obsession with time. Like J.B.Priestley, Joan believed that times present, times past and times future co-exist, that time isn't a simplistic continuum that most of us believe. Long before Einstein revealed his relativity theory, in which time ceases to be something solid and dependable and becomes elastic, Joan believed that it was somehow dreamlike, that yesterday is still with us while tommorrow is already here.

As the girls moved towards the peak, Joan has them look down at the picnickers "through a drift of rosy smoke, or mist".

"Whatever can those people be doing down there, like a lot of ants?" says Marion. "A surprising number of human beings are without purpose." And just as those lines are sinking into the readers' minds, suggesting some sort of choice between meaningless reality and a fascinating dream, the key words -and the book's most emphatic clue - occur.

"Irma was aware, for a little time, of a rather curious sound coming up from the plain. Like the beating of far-off drums."

Hours later, in real time, the searchers will be beating sticks on sheets of tin. Yet the girls hear those sounds already, before they've disappeared, while, below them, the picnic continues undisturbed.

By putting all those clues together the truth becomes quite obvious. Like Alice stepping through the looking glass, Joan's girls moved into another dimension. Into time. What Joan Lindsay wrote was a sort of science fiction in crinolines instead of space suits.

SOmeone might think that silly but why? I like it.

i think what i objected to in the published final chapter was that it burst the mystery and dreamlike quality in the main story, i felt that story was better left unfinished, more enigmatic or something.

I wanna read it too now, Ive only ever seen the movie. I wish I had a decent library to hand, St Kilda library isnt that great.

i bet you'd be able to get it for bugger all in a second hand shop anyways trayce

Someone did. It's featured on Dead Cities by Future Sound of London.

Read the book many years back but have now finally just seen the film. Some astonishing editing in particular. Perhaps that's why this film works where so many of Weir's others just seem flat? A strong (not consistent but persistent) sense of controlling silence via careful cutting between shots.

i never did go to the library and re-borrow the novel... i must do that soon

one o' my favorite flix

why five-year delay?
kinda think Weir is a stylist rather than auteur, but Master and Commander is a return to form. Maybe his concerns are too sensual to maintain throughout a career hampered by doubt?
obv. connections to Roeg, Russell, even Mel Gibson in star-auteur mode (a la Eastwood).

I should rewatch this! Great movie!

yo where can you watch this on line. i'm feelin kinda grovoy

I should watch this again and keep Donnie Darko in my mind when I do, it'd be interesting to see how it changes the perspective.

i pretty much just watch up to the part where they disappear and then lose interest. great first part of a movie, though.

The second half is a bit odd, with that other girl's death at the end and the guy being her brother and that all kind of left unresolved, it was quite confusing.

Watched this on TCM last night, really liked it. Amazing how it captures the feeling of being dazed or in a dream. While I was watching it I felt like I was grasping for some idea that couldn't be realized, like in a dream.

Weirdly enough I understand now why I always liked the atmospheric tone of "Dead Poet's Society" (but was not too into the cheesy storyline), I sort of suspected that the director really knew what he was doing and I guess seeing "Picnic" confirms it for me.

Weir is a pretty great director with questionable taste in projects imo

He reminds me of Milos Forman, I guess, from what I've seen of both. I love the atmosphere of Amadeus, but the subject matter is sentimental to the extreme.

I'm a bit of a Weir stan and I think Dead Poet's Society is his worst (possibly only bad film, actually).

Not seen the ones I'm not interested in but can't imagine, say Green Card is much cop? I feel like he could've made better movies more often, or that he hasn't always succeeded in making his mainstream flicks distinctive enough?

What films of his would you recommend?

Dead Poet's Society...ugh

My fave alongside Picnic is Fearless, then Truman Show and Witness are thoroughly worth seeing if you haven't already. Gallipoli is great but sentimental iirc but it's been a long time.

I need to rewatch Year of Living Dangerously tho, I haven't seen it since the 80s.

ah, Green Card wasn't great. forgot about that. Though it's not at all bad for what it is.

I've not seen anything before Picnic, and not seen the TV stuff after (nor the new one, obv), but I everything else is very good and very interesting in some way.

I saw Year recently and it holds up, though still think of it as a lesser work. Bit of sentimentality in Gallipoli but not excessively so.

I still adore Master and Commander. Totally deserved its place in the ILX Best of Decade poll.

Haven't seen that one, didn't appeal at the time but am sort of interested in seeing it now.

Should add that Linda Hunt in Year is amazing and that film is totally worth watching just for her performance.

Weir has a lot of good work to his credit.

I'll add favorable comments on Fearless. The subject matter steps away from what Hollywood normally tackles, so there is less about it that is formulaic and predictable. Of course, it is a Hollywood film, so at each point where it approaches familiar territory it lurches back into formula, which makes it uneven, and less than it might have been in the best of circumstances. Still, quite good stuff in there.

I wonder if this film was an influence on Donnie Darko. The director talked about Peter Weir in some interview I read. I see similarities.
― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, August 6, 2004 10:53 AM (9 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

further...

I thought this myself when I watched Donne Darko the first time, did some research and noted Richard Kelly says Peter Weir was one of his favourite directors. One of the things that stuck in my mind was that Grandma Death might have been based on Joan Lindsay - who was herself quite reclusive and fascinated with time. Her autobiography "A Time Without Clocks" was about a period of her life where she felt she could influence time (or at least the perception of time passing) through consciousness and will.

I'd like to ask the question of Richard Kelly!

ok wow the original ending

'the last wave' is my favorite weir of my youth because it keeps up the dream state throughout. but if he'd ended with this, it would have had a similar impact on me back then

goes without saying do not watch if you haven't seen the whole film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcQ1URU6mpw

"The Last Wave" is a good movie but it could have done with a better actor than Richard Chamberlain in it.

Got the Criterion blu-ray of this and watched it last night (and then had to watch an episode of NewsRadio before going to bed as Hanging Rock spooked me). The restoration is amazing... I kinda wish they'd done an audio track with just the music and no dialog, not that it has very much to begin with. Got the same effect with this as I do with the Witch or Upstream Color, with the volume turned up the low end + visuals makes me nauseous!

I saw it a while back. It was p good. Maybe a bit frustrating and meandering.

Excellent to see if you liked the visuals and tone of Dead Poet's Society but were put off by the mawkish teens and gurning Robin Williams. Like, the suicide scene in Dead Poet's Society is 110% Picnic at Hanging Rock redux.