Bearden transports Omar Khayyám’s Persia to the Tropics for his take on “Quatrain XI” from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. But the man is Persian and the woman is black. Though the poem suggests sensuality, Bearden presents the poet clothed but the woman naked, except...
Among the best picnics, adult or otherwise, A Picnic in the Woods sets an example of optimistic picnic fun. It begins with the usual refrain: “It’s a beautiful day for a picnic!” as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Mickey’s nephews Ferdy and...
If the Simpsons ever do any right, it’s a miracle, and the picnic at Mr. Bruns’s mansion is a typical disaster. Thinking that the boss likes dessert, Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa bring gelatin dessert to the picnic. (So does everyone else.) It’s an...
Paul Theroux’s O-Zone is a sci-fi satire of the decline of American civilization caused by environmental degradation. It opens as a New Year’s Eve celebration in the degraded O-Zone, a no-go area contaminated by radiation, noxious chemicals, and inhabited by savage...
The picnic at the Castello San Salvatore in Portofino’s vicinity is a happy fairy tale. * Saint Salvatore suggests salvation for the four women, all suffering from emotional depression and finding friendship and renewal of love. Mike Newell’s Enchanted...
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Heat and Dust has two picnics. But as the screenwriter for James Ivory’s film, she included only Olivia Rivers, a British colonial wife, picnic with the Nawab, the local ruler of a small state in central India. Bored with her husband, Rivers...
As in Lawrence’s Women in Love, Russell’s water party, a euphemism for a picnic, begins happily in the bright light of the early afternoon but ends dismally in the evening, partially illuminated by gaudy party lights. More like a country fair than an...
Arthur Penn’s picnics seem ordinary. Penn figured that picnics make good human interest episodes and would humanize Bonnie and Clyde’s selfishness and essential nastiness. The Parker family picnic is a temporary lull for Bonnie and Clyde, who are...
Widerberg’s Elvira Madigan has two picnics. The first is a lover’s idyll; the second is sad and deadly. When Elvira Madigan, aka Hedvig Jensen, a circus performer, and Count Sixten Sparre, a married cavalry officer, eloped, their life together was a picnic. Their...
The Picnic, a seven-minute Mickey Mouse packs as many picnic conventions as possible: a motorcar drive to the country, a stream, shady tree, a wicker basket, a gingham cloth jammed with a gourmand feast of sandwiches, Swiss cheese, mustard, pickles, olives, honey,...
