Francois Truffaut’s Les deux Anglaises et le continent (1971)

Truffaut’s title Les deux Anglaises et le continent refers to two English girls, Muriel and Anne Brown, and their lover, Claude Roc, a Frenchman. It’s a confusing title until it is explained that the girls affectionately call Claude le continent. Even so, it’s a ditsy...

James Ivory’s A Room with a View (1985)

Ivory is faithful to Forster’s picnic at Fiesole, where a group of English tourists gathers to enjoy the view from Fiesole. * This prospect offers a glorious of Florence, but neither Ivory nor Forster describes it. As so many picnics do, the day begins well but...

Rita Dove’s “Wingfoot Lake” (1986)

Dove’s collection of poems Thomas and Beulah is a history of her mother Beulah and her father Thomas’ life together from their courtship to his death. “Wingfoot Lake,” subtitled “Independence Day,” signifies the Fourth of July. More...

William B. Montgomery’s Industrial Picnic (1986)

You have to look at this again to fully grasp the satire. Nice. Compare this with  Banksy’s picnic. See William B. Montgomery. Industrial Picnic. 1986. Etching, hand-colored    

William Montgomery’s Industrial Picnic (1986)

Industrial Picnic is William Montgomery’s satirical vision of how we are desensitized by pollution and learn to do with what we have. Wonderful satire. Featured Image: William B. Montgomery. Industrial Picnic. Hand-colored etching.

H.E. Bates’s A Month by the Lake (1987)

Though billed as a comedy of errors, for all that happens in Bates’s “A Month by the Lake,” the lake might as well be Lake Coma. There is, however, a Bates a lovely picnic in the summer of 1937, enhancing the slow-paced relationship of the...

Faith Ringgold’s Church Picnic (1988)

Ringgold’s Church Picnic Story Quilt (1988)  is a painted quilt that portrays the Freedom Baptist Church Sunday School picnic. Picnic cloths are spread out on the grass, and families sit in separate groups eating the foods they have totted along. The children playing...

Laurie Colwin’s Picnics (1988 & 1993)

Family Happiness is Laurie Colwin’s comic tale about an Eastside Manhattan Jewish housewife, finds who finds happiness at home and on a picnic in bed with her lover. On the way to her first affair, Polly Demarest stops for a smoked salmon sandwich. Alone and...

Randal Kleiser’s Big Top Pee-Wee (1988)

Among the silly escapades in Big Top Pee-wee is Pee-Wee’s klutzy relationship with his financé Winnie Johnson. Every day, Pee-wee and Winnie meet for a lunchtime picnic, for which she makes egg salad sandwiches that Pee-wee hates.   Pee-wee endures this because...

E.L. Doctorow’s Billy Bathgate (1989)

A picnic in the woods is a novelty for Billy Bathgate, a fifteen-year-old New York City boy who has never walked on anything but pavement. So, when Drew Preston, a worldly woman of twenty-one, says,” Let’s go for a picnic….” Billy is flummoxed. He...