MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY

US, 1962, 183 minutes, Colour.
Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, Richard Harris, Gordon Jackson, Hugh Griffith, Chips Rafferty, John Meillon, Noel Purcell, Torin Thatcher.
Directed by Lewis Milestone.

Mutiny on the Bounty is a spectacular remake of the 1935 classic which starred Charles Laughton and Clark Gable as Bligh and Fletcher Christian. This time the roles are played by Trevor Howard and Marlon Brando. Trevor Howard gives a fierce interpretation of Bligh which softens only when he dances for duty's sake with the natives of Tahiti. Once one gets over the surprise of Marlon Brando's appearance and accent as an English foppish sailor, his performance becomes quite effective.

There is an emphasis on wide-screen spectacle, for example, storms round Cape Horn and the Tahitian sequences. There is also a terrible flashback method used which becomes exaggeratedly noble at the end. However, the film does give the audience a sense of being on the Bounty, of experiencing Bligh's unremitting devotion to orders and eighteenth century style of administering order and justice, and of growing sympathy with Christian as he is pushed by Bligh and manoeuvred by mutineers to take over the ship. In fact, the actual mutiny is well handled in a swift, unpretentious sequence which could have been badly melodramatic. The film raises many issues on authority and freedom and this makes Bligh's and Christian's clash always relevant to our contemporary concern.

1. Did this film successfully reconstruct for you the picture and atmosphere and spirit of the late eighteenth century?

2. What was the effect of using a flashback technique?

3. Why was the breadfruit expedition so important for the Admiralty? Did the film impress this urgency on its audience? Did Bligh see it as urgent? How did Christian initially see this grocery expedition?

4. How did Bligh begin to impress his personality on the audience; how did Trevor Howard's face, actions, rasping voice and manner show how he was going to develop?

5. How did Christian's initial appearance (coach, fashionable clothes, high connections and friends, accent and affected manner) indicate the conflict that would come?

6. The crew were all volunteers - what kind of men were they? Ordinary? Mercenary? Good - e.g. Mills.

7. How did the incident of Mills and the cheese and his subsequent flogging develop the conflict?

8. Why was Bligh unreasonable in his aim to go to Tahiti via Cape Horn? Was he within his rights? Did he have any obligation to listen to advice?

9. How callous was he when he was more interested in Christian's order to stop the ship than in the man crushed by the barrel?

10. What was the point of Christian and Young's laughing at the Way Bligh walked and Bligh's punishing Young?

11. Were the Tahiti sequences well done or were they conventional - the volcanoes, the feasts, the chasing of the girls?

12. How important was it for the film to set a mood about Tahiti in view of the foot that the mutineers were to return there?

13. What impression of colonialism did the film show - the king and hie daughter, Bligh’s civility (and dancing), the Tahitian who spoke English, the assumptions about the natives?

14. Was Bligh justified in putting Wills and his associates in irons?

15. How did Marlon Brando convey in his acting the dilemma in which he found himself - his repugnance of Bligh's methods, his thinly veiled ironic comments and yet his harsh reactions to Young and Mills when they hinted at mutiny?

16. Why was Bligh so anxious that the breadfruit be got to Jamaica? Did the breadfruit mean more to him than the men?

17. What was Bligh’s philosophy of fear of punishment as the main motive for getting anything done? What was wrong with this theory? (And did Bligh enjoy inflicting it?)

18. Why did the botanist Brown feel that he should climb the rigging to get the water for the sake of his self-respect?

19. How much influence did Mills exert on Christian in reminding him of the number of deaths?

20. Was the actual mutiny scene successful? Did it make sense in the situation? Was it the only course of action open to Christian?

21. Did Christian conduct the mutiny in a 'proper' way - avoiding the brutality the sailors wanted? Was it fair to put Bligh and the others in the longboat? Why did Brown stay with Christian?

22. How did Bligh exert himself in the longboat? Was he entitled to force the men to row 3600 miles to Timor?

23. Were the Admiralty justified in exonerating Bligh from all legal blame for the mutiny? How was their verdict that a code is fallible and does not cover every circumstance and that justice should be in the heart of the captain, otherwise it is not on board, a rebuke to all that Bligh stood for?

24. How much did Christian give up when he took over from Bligh - how did the film emphasise this?

25. Was Christian's plan to return to England realistic?

26. Were you satisfied with the ending? Why?