King Vidor’s picnic in La Bohème narrates the critical moment when Mimi and Rodolpho fall in love. It’s absent from the screenplay’s sources: Puccini’s opera La Bohème and Henri Murger’s Scenes de la vie bohème (Scenes of Bohemian Life).
The legend tells that this is Mimi’s first picnic, and her heart flutters with “excitement and suspense at what she read in Rodolphe’s eye.” Mimi is primped and dressed to please, and so excited she almost forgets her wicker.
At first, Mimi is coy. But when Rodolpho tries to embrace her, she runs–but not so fast that he cannot catch her. When at last, he asks, “Mimi. . . Mimi. . . .Why did you run away?” She replies, “Because. . . . I love you.”
Though they begin a passionate love affair, nothing works out, and they separate. Reunited at last, Mimi is dying of tuberculosis. He cradles her in his arms, heartbroken. Ah, romance; Ah, gloom!
Featured Image: Mimi (Lillian Gish) tantalizes Rodolphe (Jon Gilbert) with her apples.
See: King Vidor. La Bohème (1926). Screenplay by Fred de Gresac, Harry Behn, and Ray Doyle based on Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème (1896) and Henri Murger’s Scenes of Bohemian Life [Scenes de la vie bohème] (1845). Lillian Gish as Mimi and John Gilbert as Rodolphe