What do you think?
Rate this book
BFI Film Classics
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Peter Weir's haunting and allusive Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), set in 1900, tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of three schoolgirls and their teacher on a trip to a local geological formation. The film is widely hailed as a classic of new Australian cinema, seen as exemplary of a peculiarly Australian style of heritage filmmaking.
Anna Backman Rogers' study considers Picnic from feminist, psychoanalytic and decolonialising perspectives, exploring its setting in a colonised Australian bushland in which the Aboriginal people are a spectral presence in a landscape stolen from them in pursuit of the white man's 'terra nullius'. She delves into the film's production history, addressing director Weir's influences and preoccupations at the time of its making, its reception and its lasting impact on visual culture more broadly. Rogers addresses the film's treatment of the young schoolgirls and their teachers, seemingly, as embodiments of an archetype of the 'eternal feminine', as objects of the male gaze, and in terms of ideas about female hysteria as a protest against gender norms. She argues that Picnic is, in fact, highly a film that requires its viewers to read its seductive surfaces against the grain of the image in order to uncover its psychological depths.
Anna Backman Rogers' study considers Picnic from feminist, psychoanalytic and decolonialising perspectives, exploring its setting in a colonised Australian bushland in which the Aboriginal people are a spectral presence in a landscape stolen from them in pursuit of the white man's 'terra nullius'. She delves into the film's production history, addressing director Weir's influences and preoccupations at the time of its making, its reception and its lasting impact on visual culture more broadly. Rogers addresses the film's treatment of the young schoolgirls and their teachers, seemingly, as embodiments of an archetype of the 'eternal feminine', as objects of the male gaze, and in terms of ideas about female hysteria as a protest against gender norms. She argues that Picnic is, in fact, highly a film that requires its viewers to read its seductive surfaces against the grain of the image in order to uncover its psychological depths.
- GenresFilm
104 pages, Paperback
First published October 6, 2022
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 20, 2026
This slim volume on Peter Weir's 1975 film is not one of the stronger entries that I've read in the "BFI Film Classics" series. Anna Backman Rogers' initial overview of the making of the film is decent, but the bulk of the book is taken up by some rather dense feminist interpretations of the film's meaning.
Her primary conclusion is that the film's central outcome (the disappearance of two schoolgirls on an outing) is a means of escape from pending adulthood, a willful act of disobedience by these young women in a Victorian age that dictated the life destinies of women in defiance of their own dreams and desires. I think that's a fully valid interpretation, but the many pages devoted to examining various strands of feminist thinking are out of place in a text that is less than one hundred pages in length.
Her primary conclusion is that the film's central outcome (the disappearance of two schoolgirls on an outing) is a means of escape from pending adulthood, a willful act of disobedience by these young women in a Victorian age that dictated the life destinies of women in defiance of their own dreams and desires. I think that's a fully valid interpretation, but the many pages devoted to examining various strands of feminist thinking are out of place in a text that is less than one hundred pages in length.
September 23, 2023
Excellent Analysis
This book offers a thorough and well-researched look into the film and invites the reader to confront the issues raised through the author's analysis. This is a great selection for fans and scholars of psychological horror and gender studies.
This book offers a thorough and well-researched look into the film and invites the reader to confront the issues raised through the author's analysis. This is a great selection for fans and scholars of psychological horror and gender studies.
March 2, 2024
This rogourous monograph was a much needed addition to the BFI Classics. It is an important book not only because of its careful reading and beautifully constructed analysis of the film (setting it within postcolonial and psychoanalytic concepts) but also for setting the record straight on Patricia Lovell's contribution to the film's making. It also contains a lot of detail on the film's production and casting, which I found very interesting. It is both an academic book and one accessible to the "grand public".. and that in itself is quite a tour de force.
February 28, 2024
it took 95 pages to explain to me revelations i had when i was 6
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews