''Picnic at Hanging Rock'' is a 1975 Australian

mystery film A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur Detective, sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means ...

produced by

Hal and Jim McElroy Hal and James "Jim" McElroy (born 6 April 1946) are Australian twin film and television producers. They are best known for three films they produced jointly in the 1970s, all directed by Peter Weir at the start of his career: ''The Cars That A ...

, directed by

Peter Weir Peter Lindsay Weir ( ; born August 21, 1944) is a retired Australian film director. He's known for directing films crossing various genres over forty years with films such as '' Picnic at Hanging Rock'' (1975), ''Gallipoli'' (1981), ''Witness ...

, and starring Rachel Roberts,

Dominic Guard Dominic Guard (born 18 June 1956) is an English child psychotherapist and author, formerly an actor. Early life Guard was born in London on 18 June 1956. His father, Philip Guard, was an English stage actor, his mother, Charlotte Mitchell, an ...

Helen Morse Helen Morse (born 24 January 1947) is an English-born Australian actress who has appeared in films, on television and on stage. She won the AFI (AACTA) Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the 1976 film '' Caddie'', and starred in the 19 ...

Vivean Gray Jean Vivra Gray (20 July 1924 – 29 July 2016), 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'' a ...

and

Jacki Weaver Jacqueline Ruth Weaver (born 25 May 1947) is an Australian theatre, film and television actress. Weaver emerged in the 1970s as a symbol of the Australian New Wave through her work in Ozploitation films such as '' Stork'' (1971), ''Alvin Purp ...

. It was adapted by

Cliff Green Clifford Green OAM (6 December 1934 – 4 December 2020), born in Melbourne, Australia, was an Australian screen writer, whose best-known work is the script for the film '' Picnic at Hanging Rock'' (1975). Career Green spent his early workin ...

from the 1967 novel of the same name by

Joan Lindsay Joan à Beckett Weigall, Lady Lindsay (16 November 189623 December 1984) 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 ...

. The plot involves the disappearance of several schoolgirls and their teacher during a picnic at

Hanging Rock Hanging Rock may refer to: Australia * Hanging Rock, New South Wales, a mining village on the Northern Tablelands * Hanging Rock, Victoria, a rock formation **''Picnic at Hanging Rock (novel)'', a 1967 novel by Australian author Joan Lindsay ** ...

, Victoria on Valentine's Day in 1900, and the subsequent effect on the local community. ''Picnic at Hanging Rock'' was a commercial and critical success, and helped draw international attention to the then-emerging

Australian New Wave The Australian New Wave (also known as the Australian Film Revival, Australian Film Renaissance, or New Australian Cinema) was an era of resurgence in worldwide popularity of Australian cinema, particularly in the United States. It began in the ea ...

of cinema.

Plot

At Appleyard College, a girls'

private school Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

near the town of Woodend in

Victoria, Australia Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in Au ...

, students are getting ready on the morning of

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, throu ...

, 1900. One student, an orphan named Sara, has a deep connection with her elder roommate Miranda. The school's austere headmistress, Mrs Appleyard, has arranged a picnic to a local geological formation known as

, accompanied by the peculiar mathematics teacher Miss Greta McCraw and the young French teacher Mademoiselle de Poitiers. Mrs Appleyard keeps Sara and jittery teacher Miss Lumley at the college. Buggy operator Ben Hussey gets the group to Hanging Rock by mid-afternoon, where they picnic at its base. Mr Hussey notes his pocket watch has stopped at the stroke of 12, as has Miss McCraw's. With permission from Mlle. de Poitiers, Miranda and classmates Marion, Irma, and Edith decide to explore Hanging Rock. The group is soon after observed crossing a creek by a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert, along with Albert, his friend and coachman for the Fitzhubert family. After exploring the rock for a while, Miranda, Marion, and Irma remove their shoes and stockings. Near the summit, seemingly under the influence of an unseen force, the four collapse and fall asleep next to a monolith. Everyone at the picnic spot is apparently asleep as well, except for Miss McCraw who looks at a

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

textbook and up at the Rock. The four awaken synchronously and, as if in a

trance Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...

, all except Edith move up into a crevice. Witnessing this, Edith screams and flees down the Rock in terror. When the party returns to the college a few hours late and hysterical, Mrs Appleyard notes that Miss McCraw is absent. Mr. Hussey explains that they all woke up to Edith's screams and, along with the three students, Miss McCraw was nowhere to be found. Sara is especially devastated by the disappearance due to her connection with Miranda. A search party conducted by the local police finds no trace of them, although Edith reveals that she witnessed Miss McCraw climbing the rock in only undergarments, as well as an odd red cloud. Michael Fitzhubert is questioned and informs that he briefly saw the schoolgirls, but can provide no clues as to their whereabouts. Michael becomes obsessed with the mystery, deciding to conduct his own search of Hanging Rock along with Albert. After finding nothing, Michael decides to remain overnight and begins searching again the next day. He too eventually collapses, hearing bits of conversation from the picnic and having a vision of the girls going into the crevice, up to which he drags himself. Albert returns, finding Michael nearly catatonic. He gets help and Michael is carried down to a carriage. As he departs, Michael passes Albert a fragment of

lace Lace is a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open weblike pattern, made by machine or by hand. Generally, lace is divided into two main categories, needlelace and bobbin lace, although there are other types of lace, such as knitted o ...

he had clenched in his hand. Albert again ascends Hanging Rock and discovers Irma unconscious but somehow alive. Mrs Appleyard advises Miss Lumley that the mystery is devastating the school's reputation, bringing to her attention that several parents have withdrawn their children. Unrest spreads among locals about the mystery and school. At the Fitzhubert home, where Irma is treated for dehydration, a medical examination strangely shows only minor injuries. A servant girl notes that Irma's

corset A corset is a support garment commonly worn to hold and train the torso into a desired shape, traditionally a smaller waist or larger bottom, for aesthetic or medical purposes (either for the duration of wearing it or with a more lasting effe ...

is missing. Irma tells the police and Mlle. de Poitiers that she has no memory of what happened. Mrs Appleyard notifies Sara that her presence at the college is endangered, as her guardian has not been keeping up with payments or communication. Increasingly despondent due to this and her loss of Miranda, Sara reveals to a maid that she was in an orphanage with her brother before being able to come to the college through her guardian, describing how she was abused by the

matron Matron is the job title of a very senior or the chief nurse in several countries, including the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and other Commonwealth countries and former colonies. Etymology The chief nurse, in other words the person ...

. She also tells Mlle. de Poitiers that Miranda knew she would vanish forever. During an exercise class, Irma arrives to bid farewell to her classmates, who violently swarm her, demanding that she reveal what happened on the rock and where the missing girls are. As everyone exits crying, Mlle. de Poitiers finds Sara feeble and strapped to a posture correction board. Afterward, Miss Lumley gives notice to a drunken Mrs Appleyard that she is resigning. Mrs Appleyard goes to Sara's room that night and informs her that, as her guardian has still not paid her tuition, she will be returned to the orphanage, then weeps in her office while Sara leaves her room. The next day, Albert reveals to Michael that he had a dream in which his lost sister, revealed to be Sara, visited him. Meanwhile, Mrs Appleyard claims that Sara's guardian came to pick her up early that morning. The students then depart for their holiday, and at dinner with Mlle. de Poitiers, an unhinged Mrs Appleyard spitefully rages about Miss McCraw and Hanging Rock. In the morning, Sara's body is found by the school gardener in a small

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...

, apparently having plummeted into it from the school's rooftop. He goes into Mrs Appleyard's office to inform her but is rendered nearly speechless as she is in full

mourning dress Mourning is the expression of an experience that is the consequence of an event in life involving loss, causing grief, occurring as a result of someone's death, specifically someone who was loved although loss from death is not exclusively ...

with her possessions packed, unresponsively staring. During a flashback to the picnic, a police sergeant states in a voiceover that Mrs Appleyard's body was later found at the base of Hanging Rock, apparently having fallen, and that the search for Miranda, Marion, and Miss McCraw continued for several years without success, their disappearance remaining a mystery.

Cast

* Rachel Roberts as Mrs Appleyard *

as Michael Fitzhubert *

as Mlle. de Poitiers *

as Minnie *

Anne-Louise Lambert Anne-Louise Lambert (born 21 August 1955) (also credited as Anne Lambert) is an Australian actress whose acting career began with her role in '' Number 96'' in 1973. She is well known and quite popular since her role of Miranda in the Peter We ...

as Miranda St. Clare *

Margaret Nelson Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular through ...

as Sara Waybourne *

John Jarratt John Jarratt is an Australian television film actor, producer and director and TV presenter who rose to fame through his work in the Australian New Wave. He has appeared in a number of film roles including '' Picnic at Hanging Rock'' (1975), ' ...

as Albert Crundall *

Wyn Roberts Ieuan Wyn Pritchard Roberts, Baron Roberts of Conwy, PC (10 July 1930 – 13 December 2013) was a Welsh Conservative politician. His father was a Minister in a chapel in Llansadwrn, Anglesey, and they lived in the schoolhouse. He was Member of ...

as Sgt Bumpher * Karen Robson as Irma Leopold * Christine Schuler as Edith Horton * Jane Vallis as Marion Quade *

as Miss McCraw *

Martin Vaughan Martin Kevin Vaughan (5 June 1931 – October 2022) was an Australian stage, television and film actor and musician. He is best known for appearing in the film Phar Lap as trainer Harry Telford and the lead role in the award-winning 26-part 1976 ...

as Ben Hussey * Kirsty Child as Miss Lumley * Frank Gunnell as Mr Whitehead *

Tony Llewellyn-Jones Tony Llewellyn-Jones is a British-born Australian actor. He was nominated for the 1976 AFI Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role in '' Picnic at Hanging Rock''. Born in London, England, Llewellyn-Jones lived in Singapore, Kua ...

as Tom * John Fegan as Doc. McKenzie * Kay Taylor as Mrs Bumpher *

Peter Collingwood Peter Trevor Collingwood (6 May 1920 – 23 September 2016) was an English-born actor who appeared in theatre roles, films, miniseries and serials from 1938 to 2003 in his native England and Australia. Collingwood was known for his portrayal ...

as Col. Fitzhubert *

Garry McDonald Garry George McDonald AO (born 30 October 1948) is an Australian actor, satirist and comedian. In a career spanning five decades he has had many theatre, television and film roles, and has been listed as a National Living Treasure. He is bes ...

as Const. Jones *

Olga Dickie Olga Helen Fowler Dickie (28 August 1900 – 7 March 1992) was a British and later Australian actress best known for her numerous film roles, especially in the horror and suspense genre, and radio announcer. Life and career Dickie was born in Bri ...

as Mrs Fitzhubert *

Jenny Lovell Jenny Lovell is an Australian theatre, television and film actress, and drama teacher, probably best known for her stint as Jenny Hartley in 44 episodes in the television series ''Prisoner''. She is the daughter of Sydney actor and producer Ni ...

as Blanche

Production

Frederick McCubbin - Lost - Google Art Project

The novel was published in 1967. Reading it four years later,

Patricia Lovell Patricia Anna Lovell (née Parr), (1929 – 26 January 2013), 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 2 ...

thought it would make a great film. She did not originally think of producing it herself until

Phillip Adams Phillip Adams, Philip Adams, or Phil Adams may refer to: Sports * Phillip Adams (American football) (1988–2021), American football cornerback * Phillip Adams (sport shooter) (born 1945), Australian pistol shooter * Phil Adams (cricketer) (born 1 ...

suggested she try it; she optioned the film rights in 1973, paying $100 for three months. She hired Peter Weir to direct on the basis of his film ''

Homesdale ''Homesdale'' is a 1971 Australian film directed by Peter Weir. ''Homesdale'' is a black comedy about visitors at a guest-house acting out their violent private fantasies and games under the control of the house staff. Plot Several people gather ...

'', and Weir brought in

to help produce. Screenwriter

David Williamson David Keith Williamson Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (born 24 February 1942) is an Australians, Australian dramatist and playwright. He has also written screenplays and teleplays. Early life David Williamson was born in Melbourne, Vi ...

originally was chosen to adapt the film, but was unavailable and recommended noted TV writer

.''"A Dream Within a Dream"'': Documentary (120 minutes, Umbrella Entertainment, 2004) Joan Lindsay had approval over who did the adaptation and she gave it to Green, whose first draft Lovell says was "excellent". The finalised budget was A$440,000, coming from the

Australian Film Development Corporation The Australian Film Development Corporation was an organisation created and funded by the Australian Government in the 1970s, intended to allow filmmakers in the Australian film industry to create movies for everyone to see. In 1975 it was repla ...

British Empire Films British Empire Films (BEF) was an Australian film distributor, serving as the distribution arm of Greater Union. They distributed films of Cinesound Productions.South Australian Film Corporation South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) is a South Australian Government statutory corporation established in 1972 to engage in film production and promote the film industry, located in Adelaide, South Australia. The Adelaide Studios are managed ...

. $3,000 came from private investors.

Filming

Filming began in February 1975 with principal photography taking six weeks."The Vault", ''Storyline'', Australian Writers Guild, 2011, p. 68 Locations included

in Victoria,

Martindale Hall Martindale Hall is a Georgian style mansion near Mintaro, South Australia which appeared in the film '' Picnic at Hanging Rock''. Construction Martindale Hall was built for a wealthy bachelor pastoralist, Edmund Bowman Jr (1855–1921). T ...

near Mintaro in rural South Australia, and at the studio of the South Australian Film Corporation in Adelaide. To achieve the look of an

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

painting for the film, director Weir and director of cinematography

Russell Boyd Russell Stewart Boyd, , ACS, ASC, (born 21 April 1944) is an Australian cinematographer. He rose to prominence with his highly praised work on '' Picnic at Hanging Rock'' (1975), the first of several collaborations with director Peter Weir. ...

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. Boyd created the ethereal, dreamy look of many scenes by placing simple bridal veil fabric of various thicknesses over his camera lens. The film was edited by Max Lemon.

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 of a minor character by producer Patricia Lovell. The role of Mrs. Appleyard was originally to have been taken by

Vivien Merchant Ada Brand Thomson (22 July 1929 – 3 October 1982), known professionally as Vivien Merchant, was an English actress. She began her career in 1942, and became known for dramatic roles on stage and in films. In 1956 she married the playwright H ...

; Merchant fell ill and Rachel Roberts was cast at short notice. 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. 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).

Music

The main title music was derived from two traditional Romanian

panpipe A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

pieces: "

Doina The doina () is a Romanian musical tune style, possibly with Middle Eastern roots, customary in Romanian peasant music, as well as in Lăutărească. It was also adopted into klezmer music. Similar tunes are found throughout Eastern Europe an ...

: Sus Pe Culmea Dealului" and "Doina Lui Petru Unc" with Romanian

Gheorghe Zamfir Gheorghe Zamfir (; born April 6, 1941) is a Romanian nai (pan flute) musician. Zamfir is known for playing an expanded version of normally 20-pipe nai, with 22, 25, 28 or even 30 pipes, to increase its range, and obtaining as many as eight ove ...

playing the panpipe (or panflute) and Swiss born

Marcel Cellier Marcel Cellier (29 October 1925 – 13 December 2013) was a Swiss organist, ethnomusicologist and music producer, internationally known for introducing the singing of '' Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares'', and the playing of Gheorghe Zamfir. Celli ...

the organ. Australian composer

Bruce Smeaton Bruce Smeaton (born 5 March 1938) is an Australian composer who is well known for a variety of Australian film and television scores in all genres, including features, shorts, television, documentaries and advertisements. His scores include '' ...

also provided several original compositions (The Ascent Music and The Rock) written for the film. Other classical additions included Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C from ''

The Well-Tempered Clavier ''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time, ''clavier'', meaning keyboard, referred to a variety of in ...

'' performed by

Jenő Jandó Jenő Jandó (; born 1 February 1952) is a Hungarian pianist and Professor of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. Background and education Jandó studied piano at the Liszt Academy with Katalin Nemes and Pál Kadosa, late ...

; the Romance movement from

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

's '' Eine kleine Nachtmusik''; the Andante Cantabile movement from

Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...

's String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11, and the ''Adagio un poco mosso'' from Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" performed by István Antal with the

Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra The Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra ( hu, Nemzeti Filharmonikus Zenekar; formerly, the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra, hu, Magyar Állami Hangversenyzenekar) is one of the most prestigious symphony orchestras in Hungary. Based in t ...

. Traditional British songs ''

God Save the Queen "God Save the King" is the national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, bu ...

'' and ''

Men of Harlech "Men of Harlech" or "The March of the Men of Harlech" (Welsh: ) is a song and military march which is traditionally saidFuld, James J., ''The Book of World-famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk'', Dover, 5th ed. 2000, p. 394 to describe even ...

'' also appear. 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. An album ''Flute de Pan et Orgue (Music from Picnic at Hanging Rock)'' was released by Festival Records France.

Release

The film premiered on 8 August 1975, at the Hindley Cinema Complex in Adelaide. It was well received by audiences and critics alike.

Reception

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!" Critic

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

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. Despite this, the film was a critical success, with American film critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

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." 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?" ''Picnic at Hanging Rock'' currently has an approval rating of 91% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 43 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. 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". Metacritic, another review aggregator, gives the film a score of 81/100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Box office

''Picnic at Hanging Rock'' grossed $5,120,000 in box office sales in Australia. This is equivalent to approximately $23,269,160 in 2016 Australian dollars.

Accolades

Versions

In 1998, Weir removed seven minutes from the film for a theatrical re-release, creating a shorter 107-minute

director's cut A director's cut is an edited version of a film (or video game, television episode, music video, or commercial) that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit in contrast to the theatrical release. "Cut" explicitly refers to the ...

Home Video

The director's cut was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

in the US by the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

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 The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

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

, poster and still galleries,. UK distributor Second Sight Films released the film on Blu-ray in the UK on 26 July 2010. 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. 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.

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 The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...

(NFSA), in a 1996 poll organized by the Victorian Centenary of Cinema Committee and the NFSA. 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 Sofia Carmina Coppola (; born May 14, 1971) is an American filmmaker and actress. The youngest child and only daughter of filmmakers Eleanor Coppola, Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola, she made her film debut as an infant in her father's acclaimed ...

has borrowed heavily from ''Picnic at Hanging Rock'' for her productions of ''

The Virgin Suicides ''The Virgin Suicides'' is a 1993 debut novel by the American author Jeffrey Eugenides. The fictional story, which is set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s, centers on the lives of five doomed sisters, the Lisbon girls. The novel is w ...

'' and ''

Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...

''. Both films, like ''Picnic at Hanging Rock'', deal extensively with themes of death and femininity as well as adolescent perceptions of love and sexuality. American television writer

Damon Lindelof Damon Laurence Lindelof (born April 24, 1973) is an American screenwriter, comic book writer, and producer. Among his accolades, he received three Primetime Emmy Awards, from twelve nominations. In 2010, ''Time'' magazine named him one of the ...

said that the film was an influence on the second season of the television show '' The Leftovers''.

References

External links

* * *
''Picnic at Hanging Rock''
at Oz Movies
"Picnic at Hanging Rock Locations"
- field guide to the locations used for filming at Hanging Rock, Victoria, Australia
''Picnic at Hanging Rock: What We See and What We Seem''
- an essay by

Megan Abbott Megan Abbott (born August 21, 1971) is an American author of crime fiction and of non-fiction analyses of hardboiled crime fiction. Her novels and short stories have drawn from and re-worked classic subgenres of crime writing from a female perspec ...

at the

"Picnic" collection

*
Picnic at Hanging Rock
' - includes bibliography {{DEFAULTSORT:Picnic At Hanging Rock 1975 films 1970s mystery drama films Australian drama films Films based on Australian novels Films about missing people Picnic films Films about sexual repression Films directed by Peter Weir Films scored by Bruce Smeaton Films set in Victoria (Australia) Films shot in South Australia Films set in the Victorian era Films set in colonial Australia Valentine's Day in films Films set in 1900 Films set in boarding schools 1975 drama films 1970s English-language films