Once upon a time in St. Petersburg, Florida, there was a festival for tall sailing ships.  Being the history nerd that I am, I went to it whenever possible.  Unfortunately, it is no longer put on, partly because the St. Pete Pier, the site where the boats docked, has changed so much in recent years.  I call it unfortunate because while it happened, one of the vessels that would come here was a replica of HMS Bounty, the ship on which there was the famous mutiny.  However, that reproduction was built for an earlier cinematic version of this story called Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), starring Marlon Brandon as First Lieutenant Fletcher Christian.  I was somewhat disappointed to learn that the same vessel was not used for today’s film, The Bounty (1984), but even more shocked that the one for the earlier version sank off Cape Hatteras during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.  It had been on its way to St. Petersburg.  Given what I am about to describe to you, you might find this a fitting end.

Actually, Lieutenant William Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) believes his naval career might be coming to an end as he appears before the Admiralty of the His Majesty King George III’s (not pictured) Navy in London at the beginning of The Bounty.  As discussed in the previous paragraph, he had been in charge of a ship whose crew had mutinied, led by Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson).  Lieutenant Blight is called before the board, led by Admiral Hood (Laurence Olivier), to explain how such an event could happen under the watch of one of His Majesty’s officers.  It started in 1787 when Lieutenant Bligh receives the commission to sail HMS Bounty to Tahiti in the South Pacific to pick up breadfruit plants and bring them to Jamaica in order to feed the enslaved populations on the British colonial plantations.  This does not sound like the most glamorous of voyages, but he sees it as an opportunity to bring himself some glory by circumnavigating the globe.  The first person he turns to come with him on the trip is his old friend and shipmate, Fletcher.  Another one is John Fryer (Daniel Day-Lewis), who will act as Sailing Master and effectively the second-in-command.  Once these two agree, the rest of a crew is assembled, and they set sail from Portsmouth, England.  Trouble commences on the first night as Seamen Charles Churchill (Liam Neeson) takes umbrage with a crewmate sitting in his perceived mess seat, and a brawl erupts.  Lieutenant Bligh remains oblivious to the ruckus because a fiddle player amongst the men plays a tune to drown out the noise of the fighting.  However, Lieutenant Blight is soon going to notice those under his command a lot more as they approach Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America.  They spend an entire month trying to navigate the treacherous waters and winds around this often deadly geographical feature before finally deciding to go in the other direction and sail around Africa.  The Admiralty is shocked by this revelation, but the crew at the time took it harder.  Nonetheless, they make it to Tahiti where they are warmly greeted, owing to the good will fostered by a visit by Captain James Cook (not pictured) some years ago.  Because of that, Lieutenant Bligh is easily able to converse with King Tynah (Wi Kuki Kaa), providing gifts in exchange for the intended breadfruit plants.  It is expected to take a couple months to gather the resources, and during this time many of the crew ingratiate themselves with the local population, particularly the bare-chested women.  Though Lieutenant Bligh remains aloof from these charms, Fletcher meets and falls in love with the king’s daughter, Mauatua (Tevaite Vernette).  With this budding relationship, he becomes more familiar with Tahitian customs and starts to lose interest in maintaining naval discipline.  Doing so angers Lieutenant Bligh, especially when Fletcher arrives a half-hour late to an officer’s dinner.  This comes close to the time they are scheduled to depart, and Fletcher is increasingly upset by the thought of leaving.  Lieutenant Bligh is dismissive of Fletcher’s feelings, not understanding why anyone would have any consideration for such “savages,” as the commander calls the Tahitians.  Fletcher’s criticisms grow louder, as does the grumbling of the rest of the crew.  Lieutenant Bligh’s remedy for the rising tensions is to increase the harshness of the discipline.  This means repeatedly scrubbing the decks and doing a number of other chores that come off as arbitrary.  As these go on, more and more of the sailors talk of getting rid of Lieutenant Bligh, eventually voicing the idea to Fletcher.  Fletcher only agrees to act if his fellow mutineers promise to kill no one.  Despite oaths to that effect, they are about to murder Lieutenant Bligh before Fletcher intervenes.  Instead, the captain and anyone loyal to him are set adrift with a compass and only enough rations for a week.  Meanwhile, Fletcher takes HMS Bounty back to Tahiti, but is not welcomed by King Tynah.  What Fletcher is allowed is to take Mauatua and a few other Tahitians with him, and they set sail to look for a deserted island to settle.  Their search nearly causes his co-conspirators to overthrow him as leader until they finally locate Pitcairn Island, a speck in the Pacific he had found using the charts he commandeered.  As for the others with Lieutenant Bligh, they survive a harrowing trek across the Pacific to the Dutch East Indies where, half delirious with starvation, they finally stumble ashore.  With the entire tale unfolded, the Admiralty finds fault with Fletcher and the other mutineers, and Lieutenant Bligh is cleared of any wrongdoing.

If you are wondering what happens to Fletcher and the others that settle on Pitcairn Island at the end of The Bounty, a post-script tells us that his fate is a mystery.  Nineteen years after these events, an American whaler stops at Pitcairn Island where the only survivor from the mutineers is Seaman John Adams (Philip Martin Brown), some of the women, and most of the offspring from these relationships.  You have to do some extra research for Lieutenant Bligh’s post-mutiny career.  Suffice to say, he did okay for himself.  What is a little harder to understand from a modern perspective is how the English sailors viewed native peoples like the Tahitians.  Though this may sound like a non-sequitur, it is different from how the Church has viewed such peoples.  Lieutenant Bligh is blunter about it, referring to them as savages.  However, one can also make the argument that Fletcher and the other mutineers’ approach is no better.  They over sexualize the Tahitians, especially the women.  Catholicism thinks of all people, regardless of where they live or the color of their skin, as fully human.  They are not savages or sexual objects.  Still, if one has to pick a more relatable character from a Christian point of view, it would be Lieutenant Bligh.  After being marooned, he has to not only maintain discipline in a desperate situation, but is also reduced to the same struggles as the rest of the men.  There is a parallel to this in what God did by becoming one of us in the form of His only Son, Jesus.  In fully taking on humanity, besides showing His love for us, He shared in all the hardships we do on a daily basis.  He also did so compassionately, which is echoed when Lieutenant Bligh gives up some of his already meager rations so that one of the crew could eat.  It is an act of compassion that is sorely lacking from what we see from the mutineers.

Then again, the divide between good and evil is not as clearcut as I would prefer in The Bounty.  What I do appreciate about the film is its historical accuracy, which is different from the 1962 movie.  What I was not prepared for was the amount of nudity in it, which is also accurate to the period, but far outside of its bounds as a PG rated production.