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BEEN THERE, DONE THAT The third major version of the mutiny against the monster Bligh, Roger Donaldson’s The Bounty is an indifferent economized psycho-sexological drama. Despite Anthony Hopkins working his ass off to provide a private storm of pathology, and probably because of Robert Bolt’s gutted script—originally touted to be closer to purported fact than the other versions and planned as two separate epics by David Lean—it’s without both new clarity and enticement, even with comely Mel Gibson. Smudged all over this sail is pedestrian toil, the worst possible kind for a sensual epic. Sins gets blamed, though—Hopkins’s Bligh tells us the degenerate “sexual excess” of Tahiti is the root cause of his men’s mounting displeasures, but neither the look of the picture via Arthur Ibbetson’s photography nor the abundant free sex are sufficent evidence needed to confirm the diagnosis. There’s a resignation hanging about—a “let’s get it done and outta here” attitude. And Ibbetson doesn’t help much by bringing the camera so near the actors we’re obliged to read meaning into the close-ups: Bligh the prude appears obsessed with Fletcher’s sexual activities and becomes disciplinarian to overcome his own insecurities; Gibson’s Fletcher seems bored of the Bounty’s mission, wants to escape back to his Tahitian wife and prefers anyone else but himself to lead the mutiny against Bligh. The second purposed trip around the Horn finally convinces him to lead the charge and his “I am in Hell” rupture is one of moviedom’s most discomforting seizures of power. (We’ll hear echoes of it in those infamous 2010 taped phone conversations.) To capsulize the essence of the incalculable number of words in the roughly 2,000 books written about the famous rebellion, Bolt provides Bligh with this underlining cause: “How could Fletcher betray my friendship?” What historians do agree on: the justice rendered by the British Admiralty was rigged so as not to convict Bligh. With Philip Davis as Young (who accidentally suggests both Billy Budd and his tormentor); Liam Neeson before he matured into attractiveness; Daniel Day Lewis practicing for future posing; Laurence Olivier, Edward Fox, Bernard Hlil. Note on the Captain: During his reign of terror, Blight faced his most humiliating insurrection when he was appointed governor of New South Wales and attempted to stop alleged corruption of well-established Australian settlers who, as military members, were profiting from private trading. Reputation as “the Bounty bastard” preceding him, and intensely disliked for his authoritarian style, he faced what was called “The Rum Rebellion” headed by Major George Johnston and four hundred New South Wales Corp soldiers who arrested and imprisoned him on a ship for nearly two years before being released. Johnston faced a hanging trial for the mutinous actions and though found guilty, his British judges had enough of sentencing anyone to death over Bligh’s revolt-provoking brutalities and merely “cashiered” the mutineer—stripping him of military position and, generously, allowing him to return to his wealthy private life. Following this, son of a bitch Bligh would induce two more mutinies. (Reportedly suffering from stomach cancer, he’d die at the age of 63 while visiting his doctor on London’s Bond Street.) Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved.
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