Frank’s Picnic Ground-Glendale, California (1959) captures American youth and the motorcar culture circa 1955-1956. It’s direct and unmediated, serving his intention to portray Americans as they are. The couples congregate in front of their cars. Because they are...
Grass’s mordant picnic satire describes five dwarfs, all Nazis, all entertainers in Bebra’s “Theater at the Front,” gathering for a picnic feast on a beach in Normandy. The irony of pleasure is lost on them. Living in the present, Oskar and his friends are happy to...
William Kurelek said he carried “wretchedness like a heavy stone sewn up inside of me.” At times, the stone was lifted as in two picnic paintings Manitoba Party (1964) and Out of the Maze (1973), each testifying his recovery from schizophrenia and lost...
Two picnics engage viewers to admire Lindsay’s unmistakable style. The Picnic, done in 1944) is a joke that upends expectations. Half of the women picnickers are naked. The Duke’s Picnic (1945) is a typical picnic where all the guests are clothed. Viewers...
Help! It is Richard Lester’s romp with The Beatles. Among the many scenes is a brief picnic in the snow that sets up singing “Ticket to Ride.” The song and the picnic are completely disconnected. And there’s no picnic basket when the quartet sits at a red and white...
Wise’s The Sound of Music picnic is among film’s happiest and most exuberant picnics. It’s his creation because Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical does not have picnic. Maria and the children sing “Do-Re-Mi” while marching in the...
When a child is murdered at Bratbe’s picnic, a public and family scandal erupts. Then it begins to rain. Hytha Bratbe’s picnic is an annual event for about 800 invited guests, including the Prime Minister, at her estate in the West Sussex Downs, surpassing...
Ironically, the picnic at Hanging Rock overpowers the narrative though it is the novel’s shortest section. The events and ambiance are so actual that readers accept the narrative at face value. Lindsay helped set this delusion by suggesting, “Whether...
Five years after Sylvia Plath’s suicide, Hughes wrote Iron Man as entertainment to help their children Frieda and Nicholas deal with their mother’s death. The story is a fantasy about a colossal Iron Man (from somewhere unknown in the universe) with an appetite for...
Celentano’s painting Picnic depicts working-class people happily at leisure. The picnic is simple without frills or elegance. A family picnic in the country. the picnic blanket is spread out under a tree. Seems to be several families, and they all cluster on or around...
