Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This black-and-white clip shows residents from Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific rowing out in a longboat, or 'lighter’, to collect passengers from a steamer anchored out at sea. The boat is shown navigating a passage through rocks and turbulent seas to a narrow inlet called Bounty Bay, the only safe landing place on the remote island. Shots of sheer volcanic cliff faces and broiling surf emphasise the ruggedness of the island and its inaccessibility. The narration indicates that the art of boat-building has been passed down to the Islanders from their forefathers, the Bounty mutineers, who established the island settlement.

Educational value points

• Pitcairn, which was settled in 1790 by the Bounty mutineers, is a small and isolated volcanic island in the South Pacific Ocean situated about 5,300 km east of New Zealand. Pitcairn has a population of about 50 people, although in 1932, when this footage was shot, there were 200 inhabitants. Queen Victoria bequeathed Norfolk Island to the Pitcairn Islanders, and on 3 May 1856 all 194 people living on Pitcairn moved to Norfolk Island, about 6,000 km to the west. More than a year later 17 of them returned to Pitcairn, and four other families followed in 1864. Today, Norfolk Island has approximately 1,000 Bounty descendants.

• Pitcairn is only accessible by sea and landing is possible only at the rocky cove known as Bounty Bay. Longboats, such as the one seen in the clip, are designed to be launched and landed in heavy surf, and are used to transport people and supplies from ships anchored off the island. Islanders had to become skilled at handling the boats in hazardous conditions, although these days the boats are motorised. Longboats were carried by sailing ships in the 1800s. They had rowing benches that seated two oarsmen each, and were generally rowed by eight to ten oarsmen in total.

• In 1789 Fletcher Christian, senior master’s mate on the Bounty, led a mutiny against Lieutenant William Bligh, the ship’s commander. Bligh was cast adrift in the ship’s launch with the 18 officers and crew who were loyal to him. Christian and eight other mutineers, who were accompanied by 12 Tahitian women and 6 Tahitian men, spent months searching for a safe haven to avoid being caught and court-martialled by the British Navy. Pitcairn’s inaccessibility made the island an ideal hideaway for the Bounty mutineers, and the British did not discover the small settlement until 1814.

• The original settlers of Pitcairn survived by cultivating yams and breadfruit and by breeding the pigs and chickens that had been onboard the Bounty. In addition, they harvested the bananas and coconuts that grew on the island. After the British discovered the settlement in 1814, the Islanders began trading provisions with passing ships for tools, clothing and money, and later sold carved wooden curios to passenger ships. Today the island derives much of its income from the sale of souvenir postage stamps and, more recently, honey. Three times a year a ship delivers about 80 tonnes of supplies to the island.

• As a result of its isolation and small population, the community at Pitcairn is close-knit and the members rely closely on each other for survival. All adults are expected to perform community work to maintain the island, while it is the responsibility of the men to operate the longboats. In recent years some people have left the island to seek opportunities in countries such as Australia and New Zealand. This exodus and the court case, in 2004, in which several men from the community (numbering 47 at the time) were charged with sexual assault and subsequently jailed, has raised questions about whether the island community will survive.

• In the Wake of the Bounty was director Charles Chauvel’s first feature film with sound. A unique record of everyday life on Pitcairn in the 1930s, it combined a travelogue with a dramatic historical reconstruction of the mutiny. Chauvel, his wife Elsa and cinematographer Tasman Higgins spent three months on Pitcairn and two months in Tahiti filming the documentary sections of the film. Chauvel’s account of the hardships encountered during the Pitcairn shoot was serialised in the Australian press and published as a book to coincide with the film’s release.

• Director Charles Chauvel (1897–1959) was a pioneer of the Australian film industry, and was passionate about forging a national cinema and telling uniquely Australian stories. During a 40-year career he made nine feature films, five wartime shorts and a television series. He directed two silent films, The Moth of Moonbi (1926) and Greenhide (1926), before In the Wake of the Bounty. Among his other features are Forty Thousand Horseman (1940), Sons of Matthew (1949) and Jedda (1955), the first Australian film made in colour and the first to feature an Indigenous Australian as a central character.

• Elsa Chauvel (1898–1983) shared Charles’s vision for a national cinema, and after their marriage the couple formed a dynamic filmmaking partnership. Born Elsa May Wilcox, she was an actress who went by the name of Elsie Sylvaney when she met Charles, who cast her in Greenhide. While she collaborated on all his subsequent projects, she is credited as screenwriter on Jedda, Sons of Matthew and Forty Thousand Horsemen, and was involved as a writer, director and producer on Australian Walkabout (1959), a 13-part television series that the couple produced for the British Broadcasting Commission.

We see footage of large rowing boats setting off from an inlet. Charles Chauvel provides an archival-style voiceover.
Charles Chauvel Throughout four generations, the art of boat-building has been handed down from the sailors of the Bounty. This tiny inlet is the only safe landing place on the rugged little island. The first boat bounds to sea, manned by a crew of the best oarsmen in the Pacific. For a brief hour, the steamer will link this lonely island to our civilisation.
The rowing boat approaches the large ship docked offshore.
Chauvel Having shipped oars, the first island boat slides to the steamer’s side. Like a piece of cargo, Mrs Chauvel was swung to the Pitcairn boat. She will be the first Australian woman ever to land on Pitcairn Island. As we move in closer to the island, with its foaming seashore and precipitous walls, and hear the crash of the surf, we realise how well Fletcher Christian had chosen his hiding place. A narrow passageway between rocks has to be negotiated before a landing can be made at Bounty Bay. Even during the calmest weather, a heavy surf rolls in and boats have to await their turn to ride from the back of an incoming wave.
The rowing boat lands at the inlet.
Chauvel After their battle with Old Man Sea, the island boats are drawn into sheds above the landing ramp, to be safe from further onslaught. A community spirit not to be excelled elsewhere in the world makes light work of every task on Pitcairn. In their exile, these people cling very closely to each other, sharing their joys and sorrows and making light of their difficulties.