Martin’s picnic in Birdsong is situated in a forest clearing on the shore of a tranquil river. The group stops to picnic, ignoring the sign prohibiting boating and fishing that the picnickers have blithely ignored. Unless you miss its significance, the sign symbolizes the tension between would-be-adulterous lovers.
In the novel, Faulks describes a picnic feast of a jellied tongue, chicken, a strawberry tart, and unidentified little cakes, wine, and orangeade. Martin uses food as picnic fodder.
Though the landscape seems idyllic, there is a sense of foreboding as the love affair of Isabell Bérard and Stephen Wraysford unfolds. We watch as they “sniff out” each other’s feelings with lust in their hearts. The interactions are Sudsy.
When they depart for home in a punt, Isabelle and Stephen sit opposite. His extended foot touched hers.
The cast: Cleménce Poésy as Isabelle Bérard; Eddie Redmayne as Stephan Wraysford; Isabelle Gomez as Madame Bérard
See Philip Martin. Birdsong (2012). The screenplay by Abi Morgan is based on Sebastian Faulk’s novel (1993), Sebastian Faulks. Birdsong. London: Hutchinson, 1993