Picnic on the Grass () is a 1959 French comedy film written and directed by Jean Renoir, starring Paul Meurisse, Fernand Sardou and Catherine Rouvel. It is known in the United Kingdom by its original title or in translation as Lunch on the Grass. A satire on contemporary science and politics, it revolves around a prominent biologist and politician who wants to replace sex with artificial insemination, but begins to reconsider when a picnic he organizes is interrupted by the forces of nature. The film brings up issues of modernity, human reproduction, youth and European integration. It ridicules rationalist idealism and celebrates a type of materialism it associates with classical mythology and ancient Greek philosophy.
The title is taken from the painting Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Édouard Manet. The female lead in Picnic on the Grass was the first major role for Rouvel, who due to an unusual contract would not appear in another film until 1963. Filming took place around Renoir's childhood home in Provence, and inspiration came from the impressionist paintings of his father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The filming technique was influenced by live television and involved multiple cameras and direct audio recording.
The press reviews were generally positive and described the film as charming and beautiful. Negative response came from the political left, where critics disapproved of the film's treatment of progress and depiction of a European superstate; the subject of European unification was topical and sensitive due to the creation of the European Economic Community in 1957. In spite of the generally good reviews, the film was a commercial failure, and has attracted little attention from general audiences over the years. Some later critics have seen its critiques of technocracy and dogged rationalism as both prophetic and of increasing relevance.
Plot The famous French biologist Étienne Alexis is the frontrunner in the upcoming election for the first President of Europe. He advocates mandatory artificial insemination in order to improve humanity and make it worthy of modern science. He is newly engaged to his German cousin Marie-Charlotte and has invited her to a picnic near his mansion in Provence.
Nénette, a farmer's daughter, is disappointed with men after a failed relationship, but still wants children and applies to be a test subject for Étienne's insemination project. She ends up hired as his chambermaid and accompanies the picnic with the other servants. Present at the picnic are several cousins of the engaged couple—stiff, rationally minded people who profess belief in scientific progress. They have invited journalists to document the picnic event, which they want to present as a symbol for the new unified Europe. The picnic takes place next to the ruins of a temple of Diana, the goddess who the ancient Romans believed presided over childbirth. Nearby is also a group of young campers. Nénette is worried when she spots the goatherd Gaspard; she knows that when he plays his flute, strange things tend to happen. Gaspard plays and suddenly a strong wind blows away the picnic chairs and tables. As everybody takes cover, Étienne and Nénette are separated from the rest.
When the wind subsides, the two are invited to sit down with the campers, to whom Étienne explains how he hopes to eliminate passion. Meanwhile, a Bacchanalia breaks out among the picnic guests not far away. Leaving the campers to look for Marie-Charlotte, Étienne ends up seeing Nénette swimming nude, and becomes visibly affected; when Nénette emerges from the water and joins him, Gaspard's flute is heard playing again, and the two run off into the high reeds together. After returning, they see the cousins and servants leaving in cars. They choose to not approach them, and instead rejoin the campers, who offer to let them stay the night in their camp. The next morning, Étienne says he wants to escape from the world for a while, so he and Nénette go to stay at Nénette's father Nino's house. Étienne begins to reconsider the relationship between humans and the natural world. The cousins eventually discover his whereabouts and arrive at the house, where they convince Nénette to leave. Realizing she is gone, Étienne becomes agitated and goes to look for her, running into Gaspard, the goatherd, who recommends that he kneel before his goat and ask for help. After doing so, Étienne turns ecstatic and shouts "Down with science!" before being forcibly restrained by his cousins.
Étienne goes back to his old life, but on the day of his wedding he discovers Nénette, happily pregnant with his child, working in a hotel kitchen. He abruptly brings her instead of Marie-Charlotte to the waiting crowd. He will launch his presidential campaign with a speech about science and nature, and he intends to marry Nénette.
Cast Cast adapted from A Companion to Jean Renoir and the British Film Institute. Paul Meurisse as Professor Étienne Alexis Catherine Rouvel as Nénette Fernand Sardou as Nino, Nénette's father Jacqueline Morane as Titine, Nénette's elder sister Jean-Pierre Granval as Ritou, Titine's husband Ingrid Nordine as Marie-Charlotte Charles Blavette as Gaspard, the old goatherd Paulette Dubost as Mlle Forestier, the telephonist
Themes Modernity and nature
The themes of Picnic on the Grass revolve around modern issues such as artificial insemination, the pharmaceutical industry and the mass media. Jean Renoir's biographer Pascal Mérigeau writes that the film "deals with disturbingly serious subjects using a farcical tone". The film historian Jean Douchet wrote that the film should be taken seriously, but describes its story as an invitation to not do so. Renoir satirizes a modernity he does not think highly of, and uses story and tone to suggest to the viewer that it is not very important.
The central conflict is built on several dichotomies: between the Apollonian and Dionysian, the technocratic Northern Europe and underdeveloped Mediterranean region, and the rationalist idealism of Postchristianity and materialist philosophy of ancient Greece. The film ridicules the idealist notion of progress and celebrates the Dionysian world. It portrays an empty spirituality produced by a bureaucratic utilitarianism, and thereby seeks to justify the celebration of a material world imbued with spirit. When Étienne converses with a Christian priest, the two are shown to have disagreements, but to simultaneously understand each other well; this is because both still belong to the idealist side in the film's conflict. According to Douchet, the film sets up a scenario where harmonious equilibrium is achieved when science abandons idealism and submits to a materialist view of nature. This happens when Étienne marries Nénette, who is pregnant with their naturally conceived child.
Étienne is an intellectual who lives in a theoretical world. This makes him similar to the main characters in two earlier works by Renoir: the play Orvet (1955) and the television film The Doctor's Horrible Experiment (1959). Étienne's eugenic ideology combines rationalism and moralism in a way that gives Darwinism an active role in concord with individualism. Human reproduction and evolution become tied to Étienne's notions of self-sufficiency and to ideas about social responsibility. Nénette is comfortable with her human physicality, but is also driven by self-sufficiency in her wish to have her own child through artificial insemination. She is emancipated and mobile, and it is her actions that twice bring her to Étienne. Another—militaristic—type of women's emancipation is represented by Marie-Charlotte. Allied against Western rationalism are the gods Pan and Diana. Pan is evoked through the flute-playing goatherd, and Diana presides over chastity and childbirth, which in this classical mythological context are aspects of female independence.
Youth and experience
Renoir had spent years of his childhood and adolescence in the area where Picnic on the Grass was filmed. He had recently begun to write a book about his father, the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, which made him reminisce about his early life. According to Mérigeau, the film sees Renoir return to the perspective he had as a young boy and adolescent, from where he confronts the troubling questions of the contemporary world. Renoir's reconnection to his younger self is paralleled in the mode of storytelling, which is reminiscent of the silent cinema in which he began his filmmaking career in the 1920s; Mérigeau writes that the film thereby creates a paradox, since it was made using new techniques from television. Another parallel to Renoir's earlier experiences is how the portrayal of eroticism is similar to that of his 1936 film Partie de campagne. The filmmaker Shirley Clarke said that Picnic on the Grass "could only have been made by someone of 6 or 60".
European integration The historian Hugo Frey groups Picnic on the Grass with a number of French comedies that deal with a "modernist invasion". These include the films of Jacques Tati, Mr. Freedom (1968), directed by William Klein, and The Holes (1974), directed by Pierre Tchernia. Renoir's film stands out in the group because it targets the nascent European Union rather than the United States.
The vision of a European superstate was conceived as the logical continuation of the European Economic Community (EEC), created in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome. The film's depiction of a French and German elite couple follows a convention where European integration is understood as something that particularly concerns France and Germany, or France and Germanic-speaking Europe overall. The way Étienne speaks to journalists, with technical and obscure terminology, envisions a future political elite as the only people who will comprehend the European project.
Production Development After working in Hollywood in the 1940s, Renoir had re-established himself in European cinema following the international success of The River (1951). During the 1950s, he developed a more detached and depoliticized approach to filmmaking than before. Simultaneously, he became a more prominent celebrity in France due to television appearances and an increased appreciation for his films from the 1930s. His work became more oriented toward personal subjects.
The title of Picnic on the Grass is taken from the painting Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) by Édouard Manet. Renoir wrote seven versions of the screenplay. He made the film through his own production company, Compagnie Jean Renoir; it was the last time he did so, as annoyances about logistics during the production made him decide to never produce his own films again. Financial backing was provided by Pathé and the UCIF, to whom Renoir also offered 50% of his earnings from La Grande Illusion (1937) as a reimbursement guarantee, to a limit of 10 million francs.
Pre-production