Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) represents a key moment in Australian cinema because of its help in the resurgence of the Australian film industry and the creation of a now famous Australian folklore. Based on a book of the same name by Joan Lindsay, Weir’s film follows the disappearance of several schoolgirls and their maths teacher during an afternoon spent picnicking at Hanging Rock on St. Valentine’s day in the year 1900.
Upon arriving at the bushy entrance to the Rock in their horse-drawn cart, the girls cheer and giggle as Miranda, the film’s beautifully angelic protagonist, skips toward the gate to let them in. As she unhooks the gate, opening the barrier between the Rock’s wild territory and the more civilised urban world, Miranda’s attention is drawn suddenly to the sky as a flock of birds screech and flutter in agitation. The unsettling score and the sound of distressed horses compound images of frenzied animals over images of Miranda’s frightened face. This then fades into an extremely low-angled shot of the schoolgirls standing below the Rock, the massive formation literally looming over them as they begin their picnic.
Peter Weir has constructed this scene to foreshadow the mystery in which the rest of the film will follow, a mystery that has since become Australian folklore thanks to Weir’s film and Joan Lindsay’s novel. This scene not only represents a key moment in Australian cinema in a historical sense due to Picnic at Hanging Rock prompting a resurgence of the Australian film industry at the time of its release, but the aesthetic choices are significant in reflecting the ongoing exploration in Australian cinema of the tensions between the Australian landscape and the people who dare inhabit it.
Picnic at Hanging Rock was made at a time in which the Australian film industry had only just started to pick back up thanks to the government providing incentives for film funding. The film was released in 1975, which was also the same year that the AFDC became the AFC, and the Australian Film Revival was only just beginning. This new wave of Australian cinema helped to attract both domestic and international attention to an industry that was once on the decline. In fact, Weir’s beguiling mystery of missing schoolgirls is considered to be the film in which helped bolster the Australian Cinema Revival. Weir’s film is representative of the sort of films that were in particular garnering funding from the government, films that were typically in a category known as the AFC genre, due to the Australian Film Commission being a government body that provided film funding through direct subsidies.
Being a period costume drama based on a known book, with the exploration of our relationship with the Australian landscape a major underlining theme of the story, Picnic at Hanging Rock epitomises the criteria for films that were considered as part of the AFC genre. Even in this short scene, Weir demonstrates elements that attracted funding from the AFC, creating a world in which aesthetically represents a romantic time of Australia’s past with the overgrown bush and whistling musical score. The conservative, corseted dresses that the girls wear, along with their traditional matching hat and gloves, as well as the horse-drawn cart they arrive in, are all clear indicators of the not-too-distant history of the early 1900s. This aesthetic is further emphasised with a slight hue that softens the visuals of the cinematography, creating a haze on the images that feels like we’re looking back on old photographs. These aesthetic choices not only adhere to the likes of the AFC genre, but they work in cementing this film, and this scene in particular, as a key moment that lives on as a type of mystical Australian folklore. The unresolved mystery of the narrative still prompts questions to this day of what actually happened, even if the story is only fiction, and the way in which Weir has emphasised the legend of the tale through creating dream-like visuals bolsters his film as a famous mythology, a key moment in Australian cinema that is still discussed over 40 years on.
As it can be categorised in the AFC genre, Picnic at Hanging Rock can be thought of as existing within Industry 1. Weir has constructed the visual style of this scene, and of the film as a whole, to place the Australian landscape at the forefront of the image. The wide, sweeping shot as the camera pans across the Victorian bush, the horse and cart rattling amongst the trees, sets up this visceral image of the unruly and untamed environment in which the story will unfold. This visual, juxtaposed with the beating sound of cicadas along with the soft, distant giggles of the schoolgirls, encapsulates the sort of soft, dreamy environmental imagery that was prominent in films that could be categorised as Industry 1 at this time in Australian cinema.
As part of the Australian Revival period, many films attempted to consider and reflect on the relationship between the land of Australia and the limited colonial perspective of the people who newly inhabit it. A common representation in this period of film history was of the landscape being positioned as an antagonistic force, and this scene perfectly captures the tension between nature and the people who dare to intrude upon it at Hanging Rock. As the girls pull up in their horse-drawn cart to the entrance of the Rock, they cheer and shout and giggle, showing off their school-girl innocence and naivety. However, the giggles and cheers are cut short with the sound of screeching birds, neighing horses and an eerie whistling score, replacing the serenity. Almost like a warning, Weir utilises his score to foreshadow the disruption of order in the natural world, with the quick dissolving of animal imagery over Miranda’s angelic face a hint to the corruption of innocence to come.
Picnic at Hanging Rock, although a success in its own right, has since become further renowned within Australian film history due to it being one of the first credits of a now-established director. Picnic at Hanging Rock wasn’t Weir’s first film, but it certainly helped propel his career into the mainstream, earning him the opportunity to work in Hollywood. Since the film’s release in 1975, Weir has gone on to direct several successful Hollywood productions, such as Witness (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Truman Show (1998), with six Academy Award nominations under his belt. The career that Weir was able to go on to achieve can’t be reflected upon without considering his earlier Australian work, most notably Picnic at Hanging Rock. This scene in particular strongly exemplifies Weir’s filmmaking talents, with his ability to create suspense with striking imagery and an unnerving score. The scope of Weir’s abilities as a director, although young in the span of his filmmaking career, was still evident in the way he utilised technical and narrative techniques to engage the audience, creating beguiling images of innocence and purity and juxtaposing these against the harshness of the Australian bush. Most notably, the extreme low-angled shot of the girls standing below the rock is a significant image in the context of the film and in the context of Weir’s career as a whole, as well as in the context of Australian cinema history. It captures everything about the film in one single image, the daunting nature of the wilderness, the youth and naivety of the girls, and the imbalance of mystical power that the rock which looms over them holds.
Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock remains a key film in Australian cinema history, with the scene of the girls arriving at the Rock a standout moment. Weir’s film is significant in what it represents at the time of its release in the Australian film industry, encapsulating the new wave of Australian cinema that was only just beginning with the Australian Film Revival, with help from the AFC. But it is this particular moment in Weir’s film that remains key in its ability to create mystery and intrigue, illustrating the tension between the Australian landscape and the people who intrude upon it in a story that is still yet to be resolved, the disappearance of the girls and their teacher forever living on as Australian folklore.
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