This sort of linguistic accuracy is probably unnecessary in period dramas, anyway. In terms of phonetic sound-values, in fact, Brando's effort is quite a reasonable attempt at an upper-class drawl- the real Fletcher Christian, the son of a Cumberland farmer, would probably have spoken with a strong northern accent- but it always sounds strained and unnatural. Much of the criticism (on this side of the Atlantic, at least) has centred upon his British accent. Moreover, Brando's performance is one of his weaker ones. In Mutiny on the Bounty, however, Brando proved to be equally obsessive, but the resulting film is not quite in the same class. In his previous film, One Eyed Jacks, which he had also directed, he had gained a reputation as an obsessive perfectionist, but, artistically, the result was a very fine film with an excellent performance from Brando himself. This is sometimes regarded as the film which started the decline in Brando's reputation. In this film, it is Christian who is the aristocrat and Bligh, ever insecure about his social status, who is from a humbler background. The temptation to portray Christian as a proto-Jacobin is, however, firmly resisted. The late 18th century is often described as the Age of Revolution, and as the Bounty mutiny took place in 1787, midway between the American and French Revolutions, there would have been an obvious temptation to play Bligh as a decadent aristocrat and Fletcher Christian, the leader of the rebels, as a man of the people, standing up for the Rights of the Common Man. Historical evidence, in fact, suggests that Captain William Bligh was not particularly brutal or sadistic, but this film, like its 1935 predecessor, is a film based upon legend rather than upon strict historical fact. The story is the well-known one of how a British naval crew, while on a voyage to transport breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies, revolt against their brutal and sadistic captain under the leadership of the humane first mate and sail off to make a new life for themselves with their Tahitian sweethearts on the remote Pacific island of Pitcairn. When the legend becomes fact, film the legend (to adapt the famous quotation from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance).
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