Is there any explanation why Mrs. Appleyard hated Sarah so much? I mean Appleyard was a real nasty piece of work toward everybody but why the intensity she showed toward Sarah? What spooked me was the little smile on Sarah's face when Mrs. Appleyard told her she was going to be sent back to the orphanage. Do you think Appleyard had sexual feelings toward Sarah?
shareIf she 'had sexual feelings toward Sarah' it was very subtle and therefore too difficult for me to assess, but yeah that smile freaked me out too--was it just her smiling through the pain or was she glad to be getting away, or what?
Like many things in this film--those two guys for instance, what was the point of their subplot/dialogue?--it's very mysterious and atmospheric. I felt the girls were on some sort of mission, perhaps meeting boys who had arranged for it since it was Valentine's day, you know. But still there is no evidence of a secret (sexual) meeting. I suppose some guys murdering the girls is a possible explanation but since it's supposed to be fiction we aren't given enough facts.
One clue would be the survivor's blank memory--was that because she saw what happened and suppressed it?
Frustrating.
"Did you make coffee...? Make it!"--Cheyenne.
I watched it again and the more it eats at me! Another reason Appleyard may have had it in for Sarah was that Sarah / parents could not keep up the boarding fee like the other girls. I do now think the whole movie is about Victorian sexual oppression and how Appleyard kept such a tight control over the girls. Another thing, didn't one of the girls or teacher leave her garments behind on the rock? I can think of a possible theory -- the girls were abducted or killed by agents unknown. Even if one of the girls was raped and/or killed want happened to the others or were they all attacked? The repression theory is very interesting in that something was seen that was so horrible that it was subconsciously forgotten by the survivor.
shareSarah was an orphan and had no social standing. Her brother who had been in an orphanage was a servant. Appleyard didn't care about such people - remember the trappings of the British Empire on her walls. She is a snob and probably thinks that Sarah's origins are not as worthy as the other girls'. Hence the harsh punishments and constant nagging. Appleyard knew that no one would take her to task if something happened to Sarah. Ironically Sarah's death brings about the downfall of her precious school.
Do you think Appleyard pushed Sarah out the window and if so is that why they found Appleyard's body later at hanging rock? Kinda hypercritical for Appleyard to be shown in black mourning for Sarah (but then again it was proper Victorian Era custom to do so.
sharePoor Sara jumped, I think. She believed there was no hope for her. She had lost Bertie, she had lost Miranda, her guardian stopped paying for her schooling, she probably thought she had nothing good in her future. She was also shown sitting disconsolately on the stairs to the roof, in an earlier part of the film -- I think she may have been contemplating ending her life.
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I don't come from hell. I came from the forest.
There is one small thing to consider: both Mrs. Appleyard and Sara had something in common. They both lost the most precious person in their lives, Sara lost her brother Bertie (Albert), separated from him many years previously; Mrs. Appleyard lost her husband, with whom we can assume she was very much in love. Take it from this standpoint, go further with it. It may have been at the very root of their strained, mutually-resentful relationship.
shareAlso, two of the people that went missing on Hanging Rock were very important to Sara and Mrs Applegate. Sara relied on Miranda like a sister, and Mrs Applegate needed Miss Mcraw to help run the college. Without them, they both seemed to fall apart.
~ I'm a 21st century man and I don't wanna be here.
I think Sarah had figured out she'd be sent to the orphanage (she knew her fees weren't being paid) and, with Miranda gone, abandoned by whoever her guardian was, and about to be sent to a place she hated, she had decided to commit suicide, and she smiled because Mrs. Appleyard was merely telling her something she already knew and she'd never go to the orphanage, but Mrs. Appleyard didn't know that. It's said that the suicidal often seem more cheerful shortly before killing themselves, precisely because they've decided on a way to end their troubles.
I agree that Appleyard disliked Sarah because she was an orphan and thus it has to do with class and family background, and her guardian was probably already behind on payments. I see no reason to suspect her of sexual feelings towards Sarah.
I also see no reason to suspect Mrs. Appleyard of murder, as the death of a pupil guaranteed the ruin of her school, and in any case she was about to get rid of Sarah by sending her to an orphanage, so it would make no sense to do something that drastic and risky (for starters, Sarah was a teenager and not a young child so she had some chance to fight back, and even without resistance hauling a body any distance requires considerable physical strength that Mrs. Appleyard probably lacked).
Mrs. Appleyard: The personification of empire
At the beginning of the film, Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) is portrayed as an imposing and regimented Englishwoman of genteel sophistication--a sophistication as foreign to the Australian psychic landscape as the imposing sandstone mansion and manicured lawns of Appleyard College are foreign to the physical landscape. The presence of clocks in the film is significant. The first time we observe Mrs. Appleyard she is pausing in her writing to check her timepiece. The sound of a ticking grandfather clock dominates the soundtrack of this scene and virtually every scene involving Mrs. Appleyard. Even when she is outside, standing on the steps of the college forbidding the departing schoolgirls any "tomboy foolishness in the matter of exploration" at Hanging Rock, a large clock can be viewed through the open front door of the college over Mrs. Appleyard's shoulder. What are these cinematic elements saying? What do clocks and the measurement of time symbolize in the film?
Mrs. Appleyard's world is clearly a structured one of certainty and control within which she confines herself as rigidly as she contains her own body within starched cloth and whalebone. Mrs. Appleyard's very Englishness in a foreign land denotes imperial power--a dominating and repressive power that is by necessity arrogant and controlling. The Union Jack, the flag of the British empire, flutters above the ancient Australian landscape while a portrait of Queen Victoria draped in similar flags, hangs high on the wall behind Mrs. Appleyard's desk.
Throughout the film, the English and/or many older Australians who remain strongly tied to the "mother-land" are portrayed negatively. The sole exception is the visiting young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert (Dominic Guard) who obsessed with Miranda (Anne Lambert), rejects his upper-class (and thus very British) obligations by joining with the young Australian stablehand, Albert (John Jarrett), to search for the missing picnickers on the Rock.
Thanks for this post; I had missed the imperial subtext. In your opinion, how did Sarah die? Suicide?
shareIs funny I was coming to talk about Saran and Miss Appleyard and this was
the first post/
First, I just finished the book yesterday, I loved it and can't believe how
perfect Peter Weir captured the atmosphere and subjects in the book, perfect adaptation.
In the book, Sara's faith is even more sad, as there is an Art teacher which is not depicted in the movie that quits the college after the scandal and gives the irish man ( the maids boyfriend ) a letter for Sara in which she invites her to come and live with her in Melbourne if her tuitons didn't come true, and the guy forgot to give to Sara.
And even worst, her tutor sended the money he owned the college to pay for Sara tuition,
so, is like she could scape her horrible destiny.
But my real question is, even in the book this is not so clear, do you think Miss Appleyard pushed Sara or did she kill herself.
Miss Appleyard by the end of the book seems to be really loosing her mind, I don't think she is the killer tipe, but 2 questions arrise, 1- she informs everybody that Sara has left the college because her tutor came to pick her up? why lie about that? She thought Sara would run away and nobody will ask for her? that means she couldn't have killed her and leave the body there. Also as others say why was she in her mourning black dress already?
In the book miss Appleyard after the gardener tells her of sara's death, is ready calls for a cab ( horse carriage ) and goes to Hanging rock where she climbs to the monolith where the girls dissapeared, Sara appears to her and she stars screaming and jumps from the clift.
i love this movie and the book was great, recomended!
I really don't think she disliked Sarah any more than she disliked anybody else. Nothing in the film makes us think that she treated anybody any better.
She seems very uncomfortable and conflicted about sending her away but in the end she is running a business not a charitable institution.
I really think deriving hidden sexual meaning from art is the lowest form of analysis. You can make anything, any film, song, or plot, into something sexual with very little imagination, effort, or reason to.
I felt that Sarah killed herself. As to why Mrs. Appleyard was dressed in mourning attire, perhaps she had already discovered Sarah was missing and/or realized she was dead. I thought it was strange, however, that she lied to Mlle. de Poitiers about having helped Sarah hurriedly pack her things, claiming that Sarah left the college quickly because "Mr. Cosgrove was in a hurry to get away."
A case can be made that Mrs. Appleyard's treatment toward Sarah was stoic and somewhat callous because she was a business woman. I would imagine that, just as journalists have to adhere to journalistic objectivity, businesspeople have to also abide by guidelines, even if it may make them appear cruel and inconsiderate. Add to that Sarah being a hard-headed student. I can't imagine running a massive place like that, with a full kitchen staff, would be cheap and it seemed like Mrs. Appleyard was deeply in debt. So each student was likely an amount of money to be lost or earned and Sarah was not only a complete loss of money, but also a waste since Sarah didn't seem to care to apply herself to her work, nor did she show any appreciation. So I think Mrs. Appleyard had a right, as a businesswoman and headmistress, to be hard to Sarah.
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Who are you carrying all those bricks for?
Mrs Appleyard lied to Mlle de Poitiers because she's trying to save face in her universe of hieratic dignity. But as her world crumbles piece by piece (2 girls missing, 4 leaving the school, one teacher missing, another one who resigned, and one girl who committed suicide) she's getting cornered and her camouflage is less and less believable. Hence her madness then probable suicide.
shareAppleyard despised Sarah because she represented a break from tradition and from the 'old world' of English nobility. Sarah was not interested in 'toeing the line' and becoming the 'English lady' Appleyard wanted her to become. Sarah wanted to go her own way, hence the fact she wrote her own poems and had no desire to regurgitate old poems from England verbatim that had no connection to the world she was inhabiting in Australia.
There is a very strong theme of moving away from traditional England in this film; the absurdity of English traditions being transplanted onto a wild untamed, and massive landscape like Australia. I have created a post that discusses just this theme of the film.
I seem to recall that when Albert is talking about his dream he refers to his kid Sister calling out and then fading away. I don't recall she had a name. This was the day of or after Sarah's suicide. Sarah's brother was Bertie - one and the same? Significance? No one seems to have mentioned - too obvious?
shareYes... I believe that they are brother and sister. It was mentioned in the film that, Bertie and his kid sister were both in an orphanage.
shareAlbert does say her name when he relates the dream. That is the 'reveal' in this movie -- the moment the audience is meant to realize that 'Bertie' (for whom poor Sara has been mourning) is Albert.
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I don't come from hell. I came from the forest.
Evidently Mrs. Appleyard was a secret alcoholic and probably mentally unbalanced. She didn't have to be rational. But yes, I'm sure that Sara's being arrears in tuition had something to do with her dislike for her. There was a suggestion that the school was already in touble even before the disappearances. Ironically if Sara had been allowed to go on the picnic, she probably would have had a chance to reunite with her brother. But she might also have disappeared with Miranda.
What I didn't quite understand was how Sara came to be at the school in the first place.. She had been in an orphanage, she now had a "guardian", evidently not a very conscientious one, and her brother was already working. I don't see how there were enough funds to enroll her at the school at all.
"I didn't betray you--I simply put a stop to you."
Sarah's "guardian," Mr. Cosgrove, was probably grooming her to be his mistress. (In the Victorian world, a "gentleman" could go into an orphanage, slip someone a tip, and have his way with any little girl (or boy) he liked, relying on reticence and denial to preclude any serious consequences; this guy was downright decent by comparison.) Mrs. A probably thought that he had just lost interest, and then when Sarah disappeared, she assumed the girl had just run away, solving the problem. In the book, on the day the body is found, Mr. Cosgrove's letter finally arrives, apologizing for losing touch and announcing that he will soon arrive, settle the debt, and collect the girl. At that point it's all over for Mrs. A.
One point I don't think anyone has ever mentioned is that the poem Mrs. A was trying to force Sarah to memorize, "The Wreck of the Hesperus," is actually by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The English woman whose name Mrs. A cites is probably just an anthologist. I doubt Mrs. A would recognize the existence of such a thing as an American poet.
http://redkincaid.com
In the Victorian world, a "gentleman" could go into an orphanage, slip someone a tip, and have his way with any little girl (or boy) he liked, relying on reticence and denial to preclude any serious consequences
That seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a mistress. I'm not being argumentative but when you add up the cost of her schooling, wardrobe and supplies it would have been cheaper to just find a mistress.
I always thought it so sad for Sarah (in a way) and ironic for Mrs. Appleyard that the student who she hated and looked down on could have possibly been the salvation of her school. It's also mentioned in the movie that some of the other girls' parents are behind in payments as well. Yet Sarah is the only one who has no on-hand protector so Mrs. Appleyard feels safe venting her frustrations on Sarah because the other girls have parents that she doesn't dare upset.
I don't know. Sure, it's expensive and a lot of trouble, but maybe the guardian was a pedophile, so the 'partner" that he prefers could not be purchased in the 'lady of the evening' population.
If he was just looking for sex, then he could get that anywhere, for a cheaper price. But if he's wanting to be looked at as some humanitarian type guy, but also secretly take advantage of his charge, then maybe the set up appealed to him.
I think Sarah probably did suffer at his hands, and he only got rid of her (sent her to the school) because she grew out of her guardian's preferred size/age range.
And she thought if she was sent BACK to the orphanage, then someone else may 'rescue' her again.
Eww. This is making me sick to think about. Poor Sarah.
Mrs Appleyard, now there was one woman that needed to go out and get laid!
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