Episode 246: PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975)

Content warning: This episode includes references to sexual violence as discussed in PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. Public reaction to three missing schoolgirls and their teacher during a field trip to Hanging Rock – a prehistoric monolith – ranges from shock to guilt to pocket-watching. But how the citizens of Victoria react sometimes belies their true feelings: The girls who were spared their classmates’ fate are giddy with drama; the police fear what their inability to solve the incident means for their authority; and headmistress Ms. Appleyard may harbor more jealousy than guilt over the girls’ freak disappearance. This episode delves into the colonial, historical, sexual, and gender-centric throughlines of Peter Weir’s PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, focusing on Ms. Appleyard as a vector for the girls’ frivolous nature, their austere environment, and the imposition of British rule over the First Nations of Australia. Watch PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/picnic-at-hanging-rock-1975 “The Loss of Posture in Picnic at Hanging Rock” by Yuval Klein for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/09/24/the-loss-of-posture-in-picnic-at-hanging-rock/ “The Presence of Romantic Absence in Picnic at Hanging Rock” by Sophie Durbin for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/09/22/the-presence-of-romantic-absence-in-picnic-at-hanging-rock/ Roger Ebert’s 1998 review of PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-picnic-at-hanging-rock-1975 Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: 'Doina Sus Pe Culmea Dealului' (Main Theme) by Gheorghe Zamfir from the PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 246: PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975) 2:54 - The episode actually starts 5:36 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 24:57 - How PICNIC foregrounds its tone to resist a clear reading 37:45 - Mrs. Appleyard 52:37 - The ending 1:00:20 - The Junk Drawer 1:08:10 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF! 1:12:52 - Cody’s Noteys: The Try is Out There