Picnic at Hanging Rock: Trailer VS Trailer #BasedonaBook #book2movie

We learned last February 2017 that Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay ’s classic Australian novel, was getting a remake. The new adaptation is set to make its small screen debut on May 25th on Amazon. 

Natalie Dormer in Picnic at Hanging Rock

The six-episode reimagining of the story stars Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) as school headmistress Mrs. Appleyard, played by Rachel Roberts in the acclaimed 1975 version directed by Peter Weir. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Linday’s book, Penguin has released a new paperback edition. Let’s take a look at the book, then compare the two trailers. 

About the book

‘A 50th-anniversary edition of the landmark novel about three “gone girls” that inspired the acclaimed 1975 film, featuring a foreword by Maile Meloy, author of Do Not Become Alarmed

It was a cloudless summer day in the year 1900. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of the secluded volcanic outcropping. Farther, higher, until at last they disappeared. They never returned. . . .

Mysterious and subtly erotic, Picnic at Hanging Rock inspired the iconic 1975 film of the same name by Peter Weir. A beguiling landmark of Australian literature, it stands with Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, and Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides as a masterpiece of intrigue.

It’s been a while since I watched Weir’s version but what I recall is the heat, a hazy hot day that leaves one enervated, an ooze that somehow emanated from the screen. The sound of buzzing flies, or cicadas perhaps, the notion of sweat trickling down the back of a neck. The somehow sensual association of heat and sex, the idea being I suppose that one is always on the point of disrobing. 

Let’s watch, shall we?

Picnic at Hanging Rock trailer [1975 ]

I love the heavy atmospherics here, the way the music and the narrator’s voice over in this long trailer make the most of the mystery. Let’s see how the more modern approach, where quick cuts are more often utilized work. Let me know what you think in the comment section below. 

And here’s the trailer for the new Amazon series [2018]