The mutiny on HMS Bounty has inspired many filmmakers and for millions of moviegoers the romantic backdrop of Tahiti has made the story of the Bounty a memorable experience; one we prefer to believe. We often hear the cliché, ‘read the book before watching the film’! A problem with the Bounty story is which book, indeed which film? There has been over two thousand books and articles published; five feature length films; numerous documentary productions, even musical plays and radio dramas to select from. When it comes to Hollywood’s portrayals of the story, criticism of historical accuracy has seldom been more profound. According to Bounty artist, Sir Ernie Hamilton Boyette, scriptwriters of Bounty movies have been ‘incompetent’, or ‘ignorant’, at best. Boyette claims that Bligh was a ‘great guy’ and that Christian was a ‘child molester’ – immoderately asserting that Christian’s descendants must bare these hallmarks. On the other hand, acclaimed academic art master, John Hagan, has painted the saga articulately close to the celebrated history and aesthetic scenes in the movies.
Unfortunately prints of the first feature movie are no longer available. Called The Mutiny of the Bounty it was a silent movie made in Australia and New Zealand in 1916. After an athletic leap forward to “talkie” films, Charles Chauvel produced and directed In the wake of the Bounty; a docudrama featuring Mayne Linton as Captain Bligh and Errol Flynn in his screen debut as Fletcher Christian. The dramatized portion was filmed in Sydney and the documented footage on location at Tahiti and Pitcairn Island. The latter probes the legacy of the mutiny and employs actors who were descendants of the mutineers – there are claims that Flynn is a descendant of Christian. Filmed in neo-realistic style, Chauvel was ahead in catching the harsh reality of the Pitcairn community’s remote existence.
The three movies that most will recall begin with Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s 1935 blockbuster, Mutiny on the Bounty. Filmed in black and white it features Charles Laughton as a notoriously tyrannical ‘Captain Bligh’, and Clark Gable as a disaffected Fletcher Christian championing justice for the Bounty’s downtrodden seamen. In 1962 MGM released another enactment of the same name; this version starred Trevor Howard as a manic authoritarian Bligh, and Marlon Brando as a foppish insubordinate Christian. Then in 1984, with the tagline ‘friends through hell … they became enemies in paradise’, Dino DeLaurentiis & Orion Pictures released The Bounty. Purported to be the most historically accurate version it features Anthony Hopkins as a socially impotent Bligh, and Mel Gibson as an emotional Christian smitten with a gorgeous (born in Mexico) Tahitian princess. The combination of splendid acting, plus haunting musical themes by Vangelis, rightfully earned The Bounty much applause.
BOUNTYMANIA
It is curious that critiques about these movies have tended to match while public assessment has been at odds with prickly judgments by renowned critics. Perhaps moviegoers have not been bothered by the fact that historical events have been out of kilter with what they had read, simply because they suspected that what they had read was historically erroneous to begin with. Certainly it was literature’s inaccuracies that turned the Bounty saga into a sea fable, more so than did the films. Choosing who would be heroes and villains has been a product of the literature, not the interpretations of scriptwriters.
We should keep in mind that in all the annals of maritime history never has there been such a flood of mimicked parodies; such a massive accumulation of nebulous gossip perpetrating so many permissive lies and tattle. Preaching populist themes like revenge, promiscuity, sadism and lust, this theater of bountiana has omitted, distorted, or embellished the facts. It is significant that in both literature and films any mention about Bligh’s breadfruit has been sparse to say the least. In MGM’s 1935 film, out of 129 minutes running time, there’s only 3 minutes of scenes attributed to the breadfruit itself. In MGM’s 1962 production, which ran for a mighty 163 minutes, there’s just 4 minutes of scenes concerning breadfruit. In Orion’s supposedly historically accurate version, out of 130 minutes, a mere two minutes and forty-three seconds is assigned to the breadfruit. It is almost as if the recorders of this history considered the breadfruit in the way of a good salty yarn.
Having little botanical material to draw upon, what directors lacked in their scripts, was made up for on location by access to real breadfruit plants. With numerous delays in filming, it’s a wonder that no one recognized that a contradiction existed between the potted breadfruit exhibits and what Bligh had written in his journals. As the Conspiracy meticulously examines, and the movies indicated, the Bounty was detained at its anchorage at Tahiti because of problems in propagating breadfruit, not adverse monsoon trade-winds as documented – a factor lost in bountiana that otherwise pointed to a reason for Bligh’s frustration and the mutiny that followed.
The Bounty saga began well before the ship left England and few have examined the aims behind the expedition. The Conspiracy throws a very different light upon the subject, and in doing so, it explains how Hollywood had actually, accidentally, got closer to discovering why there was a mutiny on the Bounty than any book on the subject had done. It is ironic that if people had watched more Bounty movies, and read less Bounty books, their perception of the story might have been closer to the reality. The Conspiracy argues that truth can be nothing more than an historic fact, an undeniable absolute concept, yet postmodern theorists hold that concepts of truths are relative to varying ethnic and political cultures of the time, and by extension, historical narratives – such as Bligh’s journals – are manifestly more likely to be ‘verbal fiction’ than an accurate record of the reality. Be that as it may the Conspiracy has confirmed that whatever happened on the Bounty was nothing like as previously thought and therefore, it’s time for a film which includes the fresh material and the radical new conclusions drawn.
An Australian award-winning production company is already coordinating a new film and pre-production is in progress. In a flurry of interest by producers, notably the French have been keen to be involved. The strategic role that the French played in colonizing Oceania, especially their foothold at Tahiti, is what really gave rise to the English commissioning the Bounty expedition. In the late eighteenth century it was the French, not the British, who were avant-garde in the dissemination of breadfruit and other exotics from the eastern to western hemisphere. Contrary to previous Bounty literature, with the release of Conspiracy on the Bounty, in this instance, it is recommended that moviegoers read this book before watching the coming film.