Giles Price’s “Parade Ground in Katmandu” (2015)

Giles Price’s “Parade Ground in Katmandu” (2015)

In the aftermath of a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in Nepal, Katmandu residents camped out in the open. At a glance, Price’s photograph seems to be a picnic. It is not. It’s a small segment of the chaos of disaster on what would otherwise be a glorious day....
William Boyd’s Sweet Caress (2015)

William Boyd’s Sweet Caress (2015)

Amory Clay, the central character, describes a solitary picnic for herself. She is recovering from childbirth trauma. A healthy baby suddenly dies. Amory is depressed, but one day she takes a moment to find solace. “Today was one of those weird Mediterranean moments...
Tom Harper’s War and Peace (2016)

Tom Harper’s War and Peace (2016)

For six hours and 17 minutes, Tom Harper’s War and Peace is a parade of armies marching or in battle, explosions, mutilations, death, love and seduction, incest, and constant social intrigue. The final 2:8 minutes is a picnic, a happy situation, if not a fairy tale...
Stephen Frears’s Victoria and Abdul (2017)

Stephen Frears’s Victoria and Abdul (2017)

For the picnic, Victoria, and Abdul, Stephen Frears jokes that it is typically English and glum. Unwilling to be put off by an oncoming thunderstorm, cold, and wind, Victoria insists on picnicking amid heath. It’s uncomfortably cold, and Victoria and fellow picnickers...
Danièle Thompson’s Cézanne et Moi (2017)

Danièle Thompson’s Cézanne et Moi (2017)

Mixing fact with fiction, Danièle Thompson (very) loosely retells the complex friendship of Emile Zola and Paul Cézanne in Cézanne et Moi, especially how Cezanne helped Zola see from a painter’s point of view. Though they were childhood friends in Aix and later...
Great Gerwig’s Little Woman (2019)

Great Gerwig’s Little Woman (2019)

There are two picnics in Gerwig’s Little Women: a wedding picnic and a beach picnic. The first is Meg March and Mr. Brook’s reception. As in Alcott’s novel, it’s “a plentiful lunch of cake and fruit, dressed in flowers.” But Gerwig’s foods include wine, lemonade, and...
Mad. Picnic (2020)

Mad. Picnic (2020)

This is a protest picnic in plague-time. It features two masked picnickers toasting one another with Molotov cocktails. MAD is a street artist from Tabriz, Iran. Featured Image: Picnic.Hand-Stencil on Prolux 300gsm Base Paper
Amor Towles’s The Lincoln Highway (2021)

Amor Towles’s The Lincoln Highway (2021)

There are two picnics, both occurring about the same time in 1946. One concerns the Watson’s and the other the Hewett’s. Both picnics are bittersweet and end with unhappy consequences. The Watson family celebrates the Fourth of July by attending a family picnic. It’s...