Summer is picnic time, and who doesn’t love a picnic in historical costume? It’s one of the most common activities we do around here, probably because it’s an easy event to put together when you want to dress up and socialize. Just find an attractive park, pack a basket with tasty treats, and enjoy! So let’s look to some lovely picnics in historical costume movies and TV shows that inspire us to get out there.
Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018)
I mean, c’mon, it has “picnic” right in the title! Sure, this one’s a bit weird and you probably don’t want any of your friends to go missing on your picnic, but the aesthetic is pretty cool with those floaty white 1900s dresses. The 1975 movie is even more ethereal, though that could be due to the soundtrack by Zamfir Master of the Pan Flute.
The Sound of Music (1965)
It’s not my favorite movie (shhh, don’t tell Kendra!), but I’ll include it because when Maria takes the kids for a picnic, that’s when she teaches them “Do-Re-Mi.” This is has got to be the most fun song in the flick! It’s easy, it’s memorable, and it’s one of my top five songs to sing to my cats.
Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
This movie feels like one big sun-drenched Tuscan picnic, interrupted by a bit of villainy in leather pants. Shakespeare’s two pairs of lovers have to go through some trials and tribulations to get shacked up, and all the while, the company frolics in white linen and picnics on grapes. Livin’ the life!
The Buccaneers (1995)
There are several good al-fresco scenes in this, the only decent adaption of Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel (the Apple TV dreck also has picnic-y scenes, but let’s not talk about that crap!). None of these are ‘pack a basket’ type picnics, but they’re frothy outdoors refreshments, so I’m counting it. The one pictured is highly relevant to the plot (and yes, at some point we’ll do a deep-dive on this miniseries, promise).
Emma (1996)
I saved the best for last — the Box Hill picnic in Jane Austen’s novel is delightful and a turning point in the story, and I absolutely love this version of it! Now, each of the filmed Emmas have picnic that look great, sure. But I love how this one starts with an extended view of the servants carrying all the party’s stuff up the hill. Because fancy-pants picnics are WORK, and of course, nobody as genteel as Emma and her friends would do that work themselves. I like how this frock flick acknowledges the servants, and I’m also jealous because I’ve been to plenty of costumed picnics where I had to haul all this stuff myself a long-ass way from the car to the actual picnic spot, playing both the role of the servant and the fancy lady. I can relate to this one!
What’s your favorite picnic in a frock flick? Do you go picnicking in historical costume?
I’m a bit sad you forgot the sex-segregated picnic in A Room With a View.
I bought an adorable picnic basket 2 years ago, and have only used it once. Me :”I think I’ll go on a picnic this weekend.” Then it rains, or it’s too hot. This past weekend, my dog hurt her foot and I didn’t want to leave her alone for too long. (She got to eat some prosciutto). :)
We had a pinic at the coast of the Baltic in Regency style. My favorite picnic is that of the Musketeers in “The four Musketeers” from 1974 if that counts as a picnic. If not I would vote for 1996 “Emma” as you did.
I have to go with the small picnic at the Dashwood cottage in S&S 95, after the big picnic was canceled, I love that little moment of domestic bliss.
And the Sunday School picnic from Anne of Green Gables 85, because I think that’s the exact moment when I first really fell in love with frock flicks as a kid. Puffed sleeves!!
“Room With a View”
“Women in Love”… Ursula and Rupert are having a picnic where he gives her some rings, they have a terrible row and then make up.
Oooo… and
“Angels and Insects”… when the ants swarm.
Do the open air meals in “The Draughtsman’s Contract” count?
Of the ones featured above, my ranked faves are: Emma (first); Much Ado About Nothing (second); and The Sound of Music (third). Not listed: I love the picnic scenes in A Room with a View; the French/German film Frantz; and all the picnic scenes in the TV shows Grantchester and Downton Abbey.
The first picnic I immediately thought of was A Room with a View-sex segregated as was commented on earlier.
Others I can think of that could be mentioned are Renoir’s A Day in the Country; the picnic is the movie’s center action. The Twelve Oaks picnic in Gone with the Wind. The safari picnic in Out of Africa. My own vote would be Emma, of course. I was inspired to do a long walk up Box Hill because of the book and the movie. So many, many steps! The poor servants.
Whether or not I sympathise with your opinion of THE SOUND OF MUSIC even slightly, I cannot possibly agree with it: my Mum loves the film so much she dressed up as The Baroness, so I have a sinking feeling she’d have me keelhauled for getting caught passing comment against one of the only things she’s loved longer than the average family member.
No really, she was exactly the right age to receive this as a personal birthday present on it first being released in cinemas, the case is absolutely hopeless.
The picnic in Dreamchild is lovely but also fraught, but it ends with Alice apologetic embrace of Mr Dodgson (and his inability to respond at all, so it breaks your heart). I love the picnic in Angels and Insects, which is a favorite of mine (and I have it on DVD!). I agree that the little picnic in Sense and Sensibility is a delight, homier than a big to-do. As for Picnic at Hanging Rock, it is a masterpiece, and considered one of the greatest films of the Australian New Wave. If you ever get a chance to see it in the cinema, do so!
I would definitely include the champagne-and-strawberries picnic in the original Brideshead Revisited.
I love all of these, with The Buccaneers probably being my favorite. Really looking forward to that promised deep-dive :-)
Does the breakfast in the ruins during the battle in the Three Musketeers count? I really like that one.