By the time Lewis Milestone’s remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) reached theater screens it was advertised and distributed as one of MGM’s ‘landmark’ pictures – an experience more than a movie and quite sadly out of touch with changing audience tastes. A tale about the most infamous upheaval to ever befall a ship under British maritime law, the remake was a lavishly mounted super-spectacle that quite simply failed to come to life except in fits and sparks.
Undeniably good looking, the chief problem with the remake was its central casting of Marlon Brando as 1st Lt. Fletcher Christian. In the original 1935 version Christian was played by no less a heartthrob than Clark Gable. But for reasons only clear to the actor, Brando played Christian as an effeminate fop for the first third of the movie, becoming somewhat more butch after his first encounter with the Tahitian beauty, Tarita (Maimita). Yet as portrayed by Brando, Christian is a man more in love with his own image than the cavalcade of strumpets he playfully courts on the mainland.
The film has better luck with casting Trevor Howard as Capt. Bligh. Although Howard in no way measures up to Charles Laughton's epic portrait of the maniacal task master from the 1935 movie he is realistic enough in his mannerisms to be believable in the role.
Bligh is a devious master. The Bounty is his first command and he is determined that its mission – that of gathering rare tropical plants from the Tahitian islands for study – shall not fail at any cost. But Bligh is sadist – misperceiving treason from all his men and frequently administering extreme punishments to those who merely look at him the wrong way. In effect, he alienates his crew.
After rough seas, much sickness and near death experiences, the crew is at the crossroads of mutiny. But anarchy is staved off with their arrival to Tahiti – a tropical oasis teeming with luscious native girls to ‘satisfy’ their every whim. On the island Fletcher meets Tarita, a sultry Polynesian with whom he falls in love. For this brief wrinkle in their journey Bligh is preoccupied with his mission and loosens his tyrannical hold on the crew.
However, when the ship departs for home Bligh reverts to his strong-arm tactics. This time the crew has other plans. Charging mutiny, Christian interrupts the murder of Bligh as planned. Instead, Fletcher cast Bligh and his sympathizers adrift in a lifeboat, returning to the islands where he and the rest of the crew perceive a future of unending blissful milk and honey. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Mutiny on the Bounty is rather impressive in its accoutrements. The Bounty was actually a full scale working vessel built expressly for the film. And director Lewis Milestone and his cast and crew actually made the arduous journey around the world just as the original bounty did, filming their harrowing encounters with storms at sea along the way. But as pure entertainment, the remake becomes rather long-winded and tiresome almost from the moment it leaves port.
Unlike its Oscar winning 1935 predecessor starring Clark Gable, this remake’s narrative tends to fall apart in a series of not terribly prepossessing vignettes, including a harrowing storm at sea, various brutalization of the crew at the hands of Bligh, and the climatic torching of the ship. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the staging of any of these, but cumulatively there’s very little to tie the moments together into one narrative that is both compelling and cohesive.
Yes, the fact that the Bounty herself remains the only full scale functional ship ever built from the keel up for a motion picture is quite impressive, and yes, ditto for the fact that cast and crew actually sailed around the world to bring the story to life in its native locales. True, Brando’s Fletcher Christian is more textually layered than Gable’s rough and tumble paragon of masculinity. Yet, despite these advantages, the 1935 version has more staying power with an audience, more intensity and ultimately much more entertainment value. Evidently, when all was said and done, audiences agreed. The remake barely recouped its production costs and pushed MGM’s already precarious bottom line further into the red ink.
Warner Home Video’s 1080p Blu-ray improves on the 2-disc anamorphic DVD transfer from a few years ago. Sourced from restored original 65mm negatives the image is finely detailed and beautiful from start to finish – with fully saturated colors, deep velvety blacks and very clean whites. Contrast levels are superbly realized. Blu-ray's higher bit rate tightens up the fine detail. Flesh tones are more naturally rendered. On the DVD they were more ruddy orange. During the island sequences there is almost a third dimensionality to the sway of palms. The Blu-ray crisply captures Robert Surtees' cinematography. This image will surely NOT disappoint.
The HD DTS audio roars to life with Bronislau Kaper's score the real benefactor here. Extras are all direct imports from the aforementioned DVD and limited to an extended epilogue cut from the film before it premiered, two vintage featurettes and one newly produced, describing the construction and restoration of the ship, rather than the film. Recommended.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3
0 comments:
Post a Comment