Peter Weir on Picnic at Hanging Rock

The scenes see the light  

Part of what makes Picnic so reverberant is its spaces. The unresolved ending, the silent presence of the land, the unsaid, the hidden. Weir consciously built suspense through this economy; while most director’s cuts expand, his 1988 version pared back, removing scenes rather than adding them. This streamlined edit was what he had wanted in 1975, but his investors wouldn’t allow it. ‘The changes were important in retaining the overall tension of the film. The deleted scenes, when viewed in isolation, may have charm, but they contributed to a languor that was harmful to the mood I was carefully building.’ 

The artist Martin Sharp, who had a profound knowledge of Lindsay’s novel and played an important role on set, hoarded some 35mm outtakes from the film; he later donated them to the National Film and Sound Archive. This selection of them offers glimpses not found in either of the released cuts. Soundless, fragmentary, they act as a dream-like augmentation to Weir’s film, opening up further doors within it to show the schoolgirls reddening their lips with rose petals before the picnic; a gliding swan; a forlorn suitor gazing at Appleyard College. Most significantly, they show an alternative ending, with Mrs Appleyard shedding her heavy, funereal clothing as she ascends the Rock, and Sara awaiting her at the top.  

This series of outtakes focuses on the four schoolgirls, showing their slow, tranced climb through the crevices of the Rock; the circle they make around a boulder, echoing a child’s game or witches’ ritual; Irma playfully hiding in a hollow of the Rock; a white swan, which is associated with Miranda; and Miranda herself, looking back over her shoulder in a shadowy garden. Her pose echoes Mademoiselle de Poitiers’ last sight of her, in the lyrical afternoon light, when she exclaims, ‘Miranda is a Botticelli angel’ – but here the angel seems half-swallowed by the dark.   

Martin Sharp’s magnificent obsession

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Sharp’s multi-disciplinary practice was based on deep, compulsive investigations. He spent decades revolving around single preoccupations, notably Sydney’s Luna Park and the singer Tiny Tim. Lindsay’s novel fascinated him. When Weir was in pre-production for the film, Sharp invited him to Wirian, his home and studio, to talk about the book. ‘He saw a labyrinth of meaning in Joan's story, beyond what she had written. It was hard to follow his theory; I found it impenetrable really, but it wasn't his interpretation that interested me so much as his obsession. It was contagious. He forced me to dive deeper. We got on so well, I asked him to join us on the shoot. He had no specific role but ended up with the art department, collecting various props, like small personal items for the girls and the headmistress. These were more often than not specific to the individual, and they loved his choices. He brought a special magic to the shoot.’ 

Helen Morse, who played Mademoiselle de Poitiers, described the intricate levels of Sharp’s selections, as when he placed a bowl of pansies in a key scene to evoke Sara, who loved pansies and returned from the dead to farewell her brother in a waft of their scent.   

After the shoot, Sharp asked Weir if he could keep the trims and outtakes. ‘To him they were significant, even magical,’ says Weir. ‘This was consistent with his concept, as an artist, of the whole experience. Just as the book held hidden meanings, so did the shards of film.’ 

This selection of outtakes centres on the formal symmetries of Appleyard College (shot at South Australia’s Martindale Hall), and shows Michael looking longingly towards it after Miranda’s disappearance; Miranda gathering flowers in the dawn; Sara as a lone, lonely figure in the garden and on the parapets; Rosamund meditatively playing the piano; and Miranda framed by floating lace in a window. There are also glimpses of the crew at work – scaling the flagpole, tugging open a sash window. 

The alternative ending  

Mrs Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) has been unhinged by the disappearances at Hanging Rock and their consequences for her school. Weir’s film ends with a close shot of her face. ‘I can see in my mind that final close-up of the headmistress, and recall the feeling I had in the cutting room 50 years ago: “This is the ending of the film.” So much conveyed by Rachel Roberts; so much meaning in that shot. With all the advances in technique over the decades, the close-up remains the greatest single discovery, especially to see the eyes of the subject on a large screen – “the windows to the soul”.’  

In the outtakes, we see the end of Mrs Appleyard’s trajectory. After Sara’s death, she gravitates to the Rock. Suffering in her cumbersome mourning clothes, she climbs the path taken by the vanished girls. (Cliff Green’s script describes her progress: ‘an exhausted, half-mad old woman, as far away from the study and the drawing-room as it is possible to be.’) Eventually, she is confronted by Sara, a nemesis in a white nightgown. 

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Mrs Appleyard’s ascent of the Rock is the dark counterpart of the schoolgirls’ climb. Dishevelled by her struggle through the undergrowth, she is smothered by her dark clothes where they moved lightly in their white muslins, and she moves against grey cloud rather than idyllic golden light. But like them, she circles the boulder; like them, she falls into a mysterious sleep. Sara, whom she had cruelly oppressed before the girl fell to her death from the roof of Appleyard Hall, is waiting in white at the top of the Rock. 

Picnic at Hanging Rock, in its sensitive and nuanced final form, is perfectly paced and balanced. However, fans of the film will be eternally grateful that Sharp rescued the outtakes, which stand on their own as hypnotic, beautiful wisps, a ‘dream within a dream’, as well as offering insights into the production process and deepening our appreciation of the filmmakers’ immersion in Picnic’s thralled world.   

Looking for more? 

• Book a ticket for a 50th anniversary screening of Picnic at Hanging Rock at Arc Cinema in Canberra on 17 August
• See rare videos, costumes, props, interviews, music, posters, photographs, scripts and production documents in our curated collection about Picnic at Hanging Rock
• Read a rare interview with actor Anne Louise Lambert reflecting on playing Miranda in Picnic, 40 years earlier
• Take a close look at the costumes from Picnic at Hanging Rock with Curator Jenny Gall

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Main image: Miranda (played by Anne Louise Lambert) collects flowers in the grounds of Appleyard College in an outtake from Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975). Courtesy: Picnic Productions. NFSA title: 1395795