Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 115: Thu Apr 26

The Bounty (Donladson, 1984): Cinema Museum, 7pm


Cinema Museum introduction to 35mm screening:
The Celluloid Sorceress proudly presents a revisionist masterpiece, overlooked upon release, that has grown in stature and is considered by many among the finest epics of the 1980s. The Bounty (1984) is presented from a rare US 35mm print. Developed by Robert Bolt with Sir David Lean for over a decade and originally intended as a film in two parts, The Bounty was eventually directed by Australian Roger Donaldson. Stunningly photographed by Arthur Ibbotson and with one Vangelis’s finest score it also stars a stunning array of British talent including: Daniel Day Lewis, Liam Neeson, Philip Martin Brown, Bernard Hill, Phil Davis, Neil Morrissey, John Sessions, Dexter Fletcher, Edward Fox and Laurence Olivier. We are excited to welcome editor Tony Lawson (Straw Dogs (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), Bad Timing (1980)) to the Cinema Museum to talk about The Bounty and his career in conversation with host Rebecca Nicole Williams.
Chicago Reader review:
Roger Donaldson's film of the classic tale of discipline and revolt in the British navy (1984) is far better than its predecessors, despite the dim wattage of Anthony Hopkins (as Captain Bligh) and Mel Gibson (as Mister Christian). Robert Bolt's screenplay was originally prepared for David Lean, and it contains a lot of Bolt-ish/Lean-ish disquisition on the question of civilization versus savagery. But Donaldson brings it alive by applying the agonizing rhythm of tension and release, suppression and explosion, that governed his superb New Zealand film 
Smash Palace. Hardly another filmmaker in the 80s could leap from smooth classicism to dynamic modernism with such agility and expressiveness. The appalling electronic score, by Chariots of Fire's Vangelis, is the film's only grating flaw. With Edward Fox and Laurence Olivier.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
 

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