CALIGULA: THE ULTIMATE CUT [2023]

Caligula (1979, 2023)
Directed by: Bob Guccione, Tinto Brass
Written by: Bob Guccione, Giancarlo Lui, Gore Vidal
Starring: Guido Mannari, Malcolm McDowell, Peter O' Toole, Teresa Ann Savoy

And so we have yet another version of this totally fascinating motion picture, one entirely composed of different takes and adding a lot of previously unseen footage, which is getting a release in cinemas. I’ve taken the opportunity to rework my original review of the movie I wrote for this website, in addition to taking a detailed look at this new edit. 

ITALY / USA

CALIGULA: THE ULTIMATE CUT is in cinemas 9th August 2024 from Vertigo Releasing

RUNNING TIME: 178 min

REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera, Official HCF Critic

Caligula, heir to the Emperor Tiberius, thinks he’s received a bad omen after a blackbird flies into his room early one morning. Shortly afterward, Macro, the head of the Praetorian Guard, appears to tell Caligula that Tiberius, his great uncle, demands that he report at once to the island of Capri, where the Emperor has been residing for a number of years. There, Caligula, who himself is sexually involved with his own sister Druscilla, finds that Tiberius is showing signs of advanced venereal diseases. Tiberius jokingly tries to poison Caligula and one of Tiberius’ friends commits suicide on the prospect of Caligula’s rule. Caligula is saved from killing the dying Tiberius by Macro, who commits the deed himself, choking Tiberius and now ensuring that Caligula becomes Emperor….

How times change. When Caligula first hit UK cinemas in 1979, it had 11 mins cut from it, was widely denounced as garbage, and was even more hacked down for video releases, more complete versions being very hard to see unless you were savvy enough to read advertisements in the back of certain film magazines advertising rare and uncut movies for sale [I plead guilty]. In 2007, the film received a fabulous four disc DVD set from Arrow Films full of special features and containing no less than three versions of the film including the full uncut one, which contained some hardcore porn footage. I recall at the time finding it hard to believe that I could actually go into one’s local HMV and pick this up, but there it was in mine, stacked with all these “normal” films. It’s right though that Caligula was eventually treated so well on DVD, because whatever you think of it, it’s an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind movie that’s hard to believe actually got made. It’s part historical drama and part sex and violence exploitation, and also a film featuring pornographic footage that features major stars, which unbelievably include Peter O’ Toole and John Gielgud. It’s considered by many to be one of the worst films ever made, yet its fans seem to be increasing in number. In whichever cut you watch – and there are many – it’s a bit of a mess, and viewing it is sometimes close to the experience of slowing down on a road to watch a car crash – you’re aghast but fascinated at the same time – but it has some praise-worthy things in it, contains traces of a truly fine motion picture, and is just so totally insane you have to kind of admire it if you appreciate films that are off the beaten track.

The project had its origins in a TV series which was to be written and directed by Roberto Rossellini. He died, but Roberto’s nephew decided to turn it into a film, and hired the playwright Gore Vidal to write the script. However, nobody seemed interested in financing it until no less than Penthouse founder and publisher Bob Guccione heard about it. Directors John Huston and Lina Wertmuller turned it down so softcore porn maestro Tinto Brass came on board, but a strong cast was mostly retained. Shooting for what became a hugely troubled production began in 1976. Vidal insulted Brass in an interview and was sacked, Brass rewrote much of the script, Maria Schneider resigned because of the nudity – to be replaced by Helen Mirren causing some reshoots, the budget turned out to be too low for such an ambitious film causing set designer Danilo Donati to simplify most of his sets and even causing script changes, and Brass and Guccione kept falling out, mainly due to Guccione wanting more and more sex. After many delays it was virtually finished, but then Guccione fired Brass for going way over budget and extensively re-edited the film, replacing most of Brass’s orgy footage with newly shot hardcore porn, something which was supposedly unknown to the stars. The release was further delayed by both Brass and Vidal launching lawsuits against Guccione. Vidal and Gielgud got their names taken off the film, though Mirren publicly called it “an irresistible mixture of art and genitals”. Amazingly, or perhaps not, it was a commercial success in many countries despite usually being cut and sometimes even banned. During the time span of its post-production difficulties, Rossellini produced a second film titled Messalina, Messalina with the same sets and costumes, and soon afterwards Joe D’ Amato brought out Caligula 2: The Untold Story, which similarly contained some hardcore porn.

The original UK cinema release was shortened by 11 mins, removing all the hardcore footage and using a lot of alternate angles so that very little of Brass’s sexual material was in it either, while the violence was also toned down; one of the film’s most unforgettable scenes, where Caligula cruelly ruins a wedding, was almost entirely cut out. 4 minutes of tamer original Brass footage was put back in, this version running 149 mins. The UK video version supposedly only ran 102 mins, but I once saw Caligula on a video shop shelf running as short as 90 mins! In 1984 Rossellini released his own 133 mins cut in Italy which itself was re-edited at least twice. In 1999 Channel 4 showed a 145 mins version [partly shorter due to PAL speed-up] which contained some more alternate footage and lots of panning and scanning. Then in 2007 for the DVD set, a new 153 mins cut was created which replaced most of the hardcore footage with as much of Brass’s original orgy material as they could find, and re-arranged the order of some scenes in keeping with Brass’s original vision. Though there’s only 6 mins of it, how much one likes the 156 mins version probably depends on ones feelings towards hardcore porn. I don’t find it offensive to watch, but the insertions during the several orgy scenes here, plus a lengthy lesbian sequence which happens for no apparent reason, just aren’t necessary, and Brass’s orgy footage is actually more interesting than Guccioni’s because, while it’s far less explicit, it suggests more deviancy including animals being involved. For me therefore the 153 mins cut is the best version up to now. A few hardcore shots remain, and it’s obvious that, out of the cast, certainly McDowell and O’ Toole must have had some idea of what they were making; in some shots you can clearly see very interesting stuff going on near and behind them, in particular a bit where some men “provide” a very unique kind of beauty treatment for a woman.

Caligula shows you what it’s all about in the first half hour, after which it’s not really worth any viewer who doesn’t like they what they’re see continuing. All versions up to now except for the 2007 cut begin with showing him romping with his sister Drusilla in gauzy soft focus, then take him to Capri where, during an orgy [actually people seem to be constantly having sex or appearing naked all over the place in this movie], Emperor Tiberius decides to punish a soldier for drinking on duty by having rope tied round his penis to close his urinary tract, gallons of wine poured down his throat, and his bursting stomach punctured with a sword so both blood and wine pour out. Then we get a bizarre scene set in and around a swimming pool where naked women [and a few men] are sitting around. Tiberius, who despite claiming that “one needs both to keep healthy”, referring to both sexes, is riddled with syphilis and therefore looks horrid, cries out: “Come in my little fishes, all of you”, and most of the women dive in while Caligula does a strange march/dance that includes pretending to shoot with a bow and arrow. Then a guy called Nerva [and at least Gielgud wasn’t in the film for long, while O’ Toole soon follows him], is found dying in his pool, having slit his throat, and Caligula tries to get him to tell him what it’s like to die in a rather deep as well as extremely sad moment. You have it all in these first scenes: sex, sexual perversion, extreme violence, weird camp, and bits of real resonance with strong acting. It’s these things that make up Caligula, and it’s certainly is an odd mix, resulting in a work that is terribly uneven, but also in one that is hardly ever dull despite its considerable running time and it being a sword and sandal epic that has plenty of sandals but very few swords.

Once Caligula becomes emperor, we see how power corrupts, though of course Caligula hardly seems particularly sane even at the beginning. There not being a whole lot of tension despite the fact that anybody can probably be killed off by someone at any time  – something not helped by a few scenes going on for far longer than they need to like an endless death scene where Caligula goes way over the top in mourning the person – the main fascination is awaiting what insane thing is Caligula going to do next and what shocking image will be thrown at us. Caligula makes his soldiers invade Britain naked. He interrupts a wedding to rape the bride on the kitchen table and then put his hand up the groom’s bottom, claiming it’s to prove whether they’re virgins or not. A combine harvester-type device chops off the heads of people buried in the sand of an arena. Two lesbians wipe the blood of a dead man onto themselves and urinate on him, after which his penis is cut off and fed to two dogs. And so it goes on. The main idea was to obviously show the Romans, at least the rich kind [though there’s is an interesting scene where Caligula, in disguise, visits a poor area of the city at a time where he’s banned sex and indeed most forms of social interaction], as they really were, and records do indicate they really were often like this, though the film weakens its aspirations to authenticity by messing around with the historical facts as we know them. Authenticity certainly doesn’t seem to have been aimed for by Sergio Donati’s sets either, but they’re oddly effective anyway, the obvious attempts to get around the budget like blacked-out areas, silk backdrops and scenic backings helping to give parts an almost dreamlike feel. A lot of Donati’s work, especially an early cave-like room leading to lots of other rooms where an orgy is taking place, is really interesting and stylishly lit by cinematographer Silvano Ippoliti, who particularly uses red a lot.

Every now and again you get a really well done scene with strong writing and acting, and there’s also a great lesbian pool scene which is perhaps the only sexual scene which actually seems to try to be erotic. The setting, the camerawork, the music, and yes, the pretty girls, all come together to create a heady yet relaxing sequence with an extremely sexy mood, something Brass was often good at doing. And Malcolm McDowell, seemingly building on certain previous roles like his superb turn in A Clockwork Orange, gives an extremely full-throttle, no-holds-barred performance. This Caligula is a nasty piece of work, but exists in an environment full of nasty pieces of work and is also very charismatic; you just can’t take your eyes off him when he’s on-screen, which is most of the time. There’s little doubt though that Caligula was as cruel, perverted [in fact probably even more – the film just shows him sharing a bed with his horse] and insane as depicted here. He’s perhaps at his nastiest with his treatment of a man named Proculus – not content with raping his wife and fisting him, then deciding that their son is his, he later has him slowly and repeatedly be stabbed to death so he can feel death’s icy touch gradually dominate him.  O’ Toole just comes across as hammy and Helen Mirren looks lost. The score is credited to a Paul Clemente, but the original music is actually the work of Ennio Morricone’s ex-producer and collaborator Bruno Nicolai. Some of the music just doesn’t seem to go with the on-screen action at all, while familiar classical pieces by Prokofiev and Khachaturian are also a bit jarring. Caligula is a degenerate, muddled piece of trash, but it’s also quite remarkable in its bonkers way, has bits and pieces of genius in there, and is really pretty compelling if you can get past all the sex and violence. I’m very glad it exists, and most definitely not just because with each watch I ask myself “What were they thinking? How did this get made?”

THE ULTIMATE CUT 

And so we come to the latest cut of Caligula, and by far the most ambitious, painstaking and prestigious. Producer Thomas Negovan found over 90 hours of original camera negative and was able to put together a version which can be said to consist of entirely new footage, because even in existing scenes different takes are used. His chief aims were, he’s said, to make an edit that’s as close to Vidal’s original screenplay as possible, and to allow viewers to see a great McDowell performance that he’s said “the world never saw”. The result is undeniably the best version of the film so far, and one that I hope will become the most seen. For a start all those awkward transitions and edits of a film which up to now has never seemed properly put together are gone, and the tinny audio is considerably improved too. Obviously the hardcore footage is gone, replaced by most of Brass’s softcore stuff, as per the 2003 cut to which, out of the most seen previous versions, this one is closest to. It’s hard to tell the amount of footage that’s been put back in, but the majority of scenes contain extensions both small and large, and many of these were definitely worth including, especially in terms of the performances, some of which come off a bit differently at times due to the usage of different takes, and usually better. And there are a few entirely new scenes, most of which involve McDowell and / or Mirren. However, some material familiar from the most-seen earlier versions is missing; not much, but enough to probably annoy some fans who are used to this footage being in and will miss their absence. And the general vibe of the film has been altered a little, certainly not enough that it no longer seems like Caligula but in a way that some will find to be significant.

After introductory text briefly describing the movie and the circumstances of this new edit, we have more writing setting the scene, which is very worthwhile indeed; now we know where Caligula’s name came from and the political background which most of the characters move around in. Unless they were well up on Roman history, viewers of the previous cuts probably wouldn’t have picked up on the fact that Tiberius killed the wife of war hero Germanicus and his children except for Caligula and Drusilla. As per the 2007 edit, the forest romping of those two is placed much later, so instead we go straight into the opening titles which now contain animation, which struck me as being rather pointless even though it’s based on an intended dream sequence that was never shot, though it’s interesting to watch and nicely leads us into the film proper. Caligula and Drusilla are still in bed, Caligula still has to go to Capri though here we get a fine dissolve from a window to the sea and then a pan right to the face of a huge statue. Now we get the hysterical scene of Caligula dancing and all those naked nymphs jumping into the pond with Tiberius, but the tone is different, being more sober and less campy due to some different editing, shots and music. Tiberius afterwards now talking about death introduces the theme of mortality a bit earlier than before, a theme which runs through the film more in this version and provides a bit more depth. Of course we don’t get those shots of actual sex that follow in the most seen edit, and some of the Brass orgy shots seen in the 2007 cut are missing, whie the vicious killing of that silly guard is considerably toned down. Hmmm.

A description of every difference that I noticed could become a boring read and won’t leave anything for people who go and see this version to discover. There are now more wide shots so we can more the admire the sets, and more variety of angles, but the new music score by Troy Sterling Nies lacks anything memorable, though it does sometimes provide a darker feel to the proceedings, gloomily going on in the background, The new material increases as the film goes on, with rather more of Caligula’s madness and the relationship between him and Drusilla, the latter now coming across as a proper character with complex emotions, rather more just “the most promiscuous woman in Rome” which is how she’s introduced. I described Mirren’s performance as “awkward” earlier, but that was in previous cuts where it was heavily abbreviated; here, it seems not just complete but very committed. All this can’t help but dilute some of the impact of the sex and violence which is now more spread out, making for a slower paced movie that has more resonance and which certainly feels more intelligent and less of an exploitation flick, though not everyone will think that the latter to be necessarily a good thing. In addition to a bit of Brass sex footage missing. the brutality sometimes has some graphic shots missing and the horrid death of one character is now entirely missing. Negovan clearly thought that such material was gratuitous and detracted from other elements of the film, but none of this was filmed by Guccione, it was Brass who shot it, and seeing one important character now disappear with no reason is a strange decision seeing how much time and care was taken over this edit to make it good. McDowell’s most over the top scene, where Caligula seems to come close to committing necrophilia, has also been very cut down and is the one instance where using a more measured take doesn’t really work.

Elsewhere though this is a simply fantastic showcase for the underrate McDowell; more vulnerability is allowed to come through in this edit because of the takes chosen and the extra footage. In general this Ultimate Cut does better showcase many of the qualities that are to be found in this one-of-a-kind motion picture, and the improvements extend to the ending, which instead of abruptly finishing is now allowed to properly conclude. However, Negovan decided to also tame Caligula a bit, and I think that he was misguided in doing this, apart from not including any of the hardcore footage which was a wise decision despite me missing that hilarious moment where Guccione cuts repeatedly back and forth between Roman soldiers marching and a very graphic and lengthy blowjob. After all, it’s still hardly a film that you’ll take your grandmother too, let alone that critics will show love for. Has the now-90 year old Brass, who spoke of doing his own cut back in 2010 though we’ve heard nothing about it since then, been poorly treated again? I don’t really rate Brass as a filmmaker particularly highly, unlike our own Bat who’s a bit of a fan, but he was the person chosen to be the director of Caligula, and should have been allowed to provide some input. Well, it seems that he was actually invited to do so, but declined, and its doubtful that Brass, who now suffers from dementia, would have been able to do much anyway. At the end of the day this is Caligula, so issues are always going to exist and not everyone will he happy. The “perfect” cut may not be possible because there are so many decisions and choices to make.

Nonetheless Negovan’s version, while it has its notable flaws, flaws which admittedly may actually be improvements to some, is still the closest we’ve had to an definitive edit. Whether you like Caligula or not, It’s a pretty extraordinary film, so I do recommend readers, whether they’ve seen Caligula or not, to check the Ultimate Cut out.

Rating:

CALIGULA: THE ULTIMATE CUT is in cinemas 9th August 2024 from Vertigo Releasing