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Heres a list of the major changes made toPicnic at Hanging Rockamong book, movie, and mini-series.
Thats obvious, of course, but its also a fundamentally different way of approaching Lindsays novel.
But like Lindsays novel, the mini-series anchors the events on the Rock to a lot more stuff.
In Weirs film, the police investigation is mostly a shrug.
In both Lindsays book and in Weirs film, the students are mostly ciphers.
Once they disappear onto the Rock, thats all we get.
Theyre spirited young women mysteriously drawn to the top of a strange rock formation, and then theyre gone.
The mini-series builds significantly more agency and backstory for both the students and their power-hungry headmistress.
Theres also an entirely new, explicitly romantic relationship between Marion and Greta McCraw.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Appleyard is an entirely different character in the mini-series.
In the mini-series, Mrs. Appleyard has real agency.
Shes not tragically booted out of her past life; she purposely escapes it.
As for those evocative scenes of Mrs. Appleyard whipping Mirandas hands, and of her friends treating her wounds?
Even in the explanatory unpublished final chapter, though,Picnic at Hanging Rockresists giving easy answers.
The mini-series doesnt take that scrubbed last chapter as text, but its clearly closer to the surface.
That obviousness is both the strength and weakness of the mini-series adaptation.
But all that extra detail becomes surplus, paradoxically diminishing the strange, self-possessed openness of the earlier versions.
So much of whats added to thePicnic at Hanging Rockmini-seriesis elegant and strong.
Its nice to know whats out there, but once you do, it becomes something knowable and closed.
Its no longer open to your imagination.
