Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd (2007)

Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd (2007)

Sweeney Todd and Nellie Lovett’s picnic is a satiric commentary on middle-class values that seems typical, but it’s not quite what it seems. The screenplay describes an ideal setup: “Mrs. Lovett and Todd rest on a picnic blanket, just like any other couple...

Harold Bloom’s “Picnic of Selves” (2008)

Discussing Chaucer and Shakespeare, Bloom coins the interesting but enigmatic phrase “picnic of selves”:  “A critic addicted to what is now called “language” but might more aptly be called the “priority of language over meaning” will not be much given to searching for...
David RussellTalbott’s Apple Pie Picnic (2008)

David RussellTalbott’s Apple Pie Picnic (2008)

Talbott’s Apple Pie Picnic is a send-up of the cliché “As American as apple pie.” Talbott jams as many icons as he can on the picnic cloth. Marilyn Monroe is on her knees next to a picnic basket, a steaming apple pie, a  copy of Jack Kerouac’s...

Jane Campion’s Bright Star (2009)

Bright Star (2009), Jane Campion’s version of John Keats and Fanny Brawne’s love affair, invents two romantic courtship picnic scenes. These moments are poignant because we know the romance will end in heartbreak. The first is a picnic at which they kiss....
David Nichol’s One Day (2009)

David Nichol’s One Day (2009)

As sappy romantic novels go, David Nicholls’ One Day (2009) is about a one-night sexual encounter that becomes a life-long romantic heartache. Dexter and Emma’s picnic on Arthur’s Seat is never revealed, but we do know what each brings in their...
Dover Kosashvili’s The Duel (2010)

Dover Kosashvili’s The Duel (2010)

Kosashvili’s picnic is comic and glum, as Chekhov intended. While other picnickers enjoy the view, Laevski, the protagonist, says, “To be in continual ecstasy over nature shows a poverty of imagination.” Laevski is a man who cannot enjoy himself,...
David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King (2011)

David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King (2011)

Wallace’s The Pale King is an unhappy novel by an unhappy author who committed suicide before completing it. As is, a picnic, without food or drink,  finds Lane A. Dean, Jr. and his girlfriend Sherri, “good people,” middle-American-Christian youth,...
Terry Gilliam’s Zero Theorem (2013)

Terry Gilliam’s Zero Theorem (2013)

Gilliam’s Zero Theorem is a sexy, pleasantly ordinary picnic. Except it is virtual, taking place in Qohen’s computer program and placed there by his horrid boss to make him work, work, work. The picnic is a romp on the tropical beach with a virtual sex...