Caligula (The Unrated Edition) Review
If you expect to be intellectually edified and historically informed after viewing Bob Guccione's film Caligula, you will be enraged upon viewing this gargantuan, Preminger-esque porn extravaganza.
Caligula (the film) has many things going for it; notably viable dialogue, largely contributed by Gore Vidal who, I believe, disowned this film once he got wind of the direction the film script was going in the hands of the producers, and wildly imaginative set pieces that are probably not too far off the mark in regards to what Rome looked like in 40 A.D. It also boasts an impressive cast of stars who seem to have believed in the project by forcing themselves to pretend they were making a movie for Lindsay Anderson (O Lucky Man) or Stanley Kubrick (Clockwork Orange). In fact, the ever-splendid Peter O'Toole gives a chilling, scary performance as Tiberius Caesar, Caligula's grandfather. His dying emperor reminds me of Willem Dafoe's character in David Lynch's Wild at Heart, very dangerous and very insane. Tiberius, like all the historical individuals in most films about Rome, is completely bogus here, but O'Toole falls into the spirit of the cartoony nature of this flick and has a grand old time going WAY over the top as he would love to have done in every movie he's made. He is at his best in these kinds of roles, see The Ruling Class and The Lion in Winter.
The English are nothing if not mercenary in a very practical sense, so the producers of Caligula were able to entice the great John Gielgud to give them one of his programmed performances for a, no doubt, very high fee for 10 minutes of film time.
And I expect he enjoyed all the naked people running around in his scenes on the isle of Capri. Good work if you can get it.
The historic person, Gaius Caligula, was a huge man according to the historians, who was hairy, bald and brawny. We have quite a different impression of this man stemming from the really off-base character in I Claudius, played by the otherwise great John Hurt, and this version here, played by a similarly wan and blonde, English, naughty choirboy type. Malcolm MacDowell has stated that he now knew what it was like to be a whore. Well, I expect he had a pretty good idea of that before this project, but having said that, he certainly seems to be enjoying himself enormously as this fantasy anti-hero, Caligula Caesar, who spends his days and nights fornicating with girls and fisting the boys.
Helen Mirren seems game for anything and it isn't all that surprising to see her flailing her enormous breasts about in priapic rituals in old Roma. Mirren was always a superb actress who has shown over the years how versatile and adventurous she is when choosing roles, and she does them all brilliantly. After Caligula was made she went on, years later, to star in Peter Greenaway's shocking, often disgusting film The Cook, the thief, his wife and her lover, finally making her way to Buckingham Palace as Queen Elizabeth II. An amazing career when you look at her curriculum vitae.
These four stars make for engaging viewing between orgies and atrocities, which are, in themselves, interesting to watch, if you have the stomach for it.
Caligula is a movie for people who appreciate the beauty of the human body and are not averse to seeing it on display in a wide array of positions and activities. The dialogue is not nauseatingly inane because Guccione opted to concentrate on the sex stuff so few words were needed to add on to Vidal's work. What a con! The man was a genius.
The film is made slightly cheesy, in an appropriate manner for a porn flick, by the use of 'classical' music by Aram Khachaturian and Serge Prokofiev, recorded in Mantovani-like ffffFrequency sound; lots of swooning violins in an indoor pool environment, sort of thing, alternating with blaring Ben Hur-like brass fanfares and bombast.
The sets, as I stated, are first class, no expense was spared on the production and is in many ways beautiful to behold.
Guccione was the Preminger porn kings.
You've been warned, but for those of you still interested, get it.
Caligula (The Unrated Edition) Overview
Before Rome. Before Gladiator. The most controversial film of all time as you've never experienced it before! Combining lavish spectacle and top award-winning stars, this landmark production was shrouded in secrecy since its first day of filming. Now, this unprecedented special edition presents a bolder and more revealing Caligula than ever before, with a beautiful new high-definition transfer from recently uncovered negative elements and hours of never-before-seen bonus material! From the moment he ascends to the throne as Emperor, Caligula enforces a reign like no other as power and corruption transform him into a deranged beast whose deeds still live on as some of the most depraved in history.
Malcolm McDowell (NBC's top-rated Heroes, Rob Zombie's Halloween, A Clockwork Orange, Time After Time, If..., Cat People and O Lucky Man), Helen Mirren: 2007 Academy Award & Golden Globe Winner for The Queen; 2007 Emmy & Golden Globe winner for HBO's Elizabeth I; star of hit TV series Prime Suspect and films including National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Calendar Girls, Excalibur, The Mosquito Coast, and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover), Peter O'Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter, The Ruling Class, My Favorite Year, Venus, The Stunt Man), John Gielgud (Gandhi, The Elephant Man, Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent, and Academy Award-winning role in Arthur).
Supporting cast includes a wide array of European cult actors including Teresa Ann Savoy (Salon Kitty), John Steiner (Mario Bava's Shock), Leopoldo Trieste (Cinema Paradiso), Mirella D'Angelo (Tenebrae), Paolo Bonacelli (Mission: Impossible III) and Adriana Asti (The Best of Youth).
Caligula (The Unrated Edition) Specifications
Remember the dumbstruck, jaw-dropped expressions on "Springtime for Hitler's" shocked opening-night audience in Mel Brooks's original film of
The Producers? That will no doubt be your face through much of the two-and-a-half-hour running time of this infamous 1979 pornographic epic that was a (
Penthouse) pet project of publisher Bob Guccione. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But don't take our word for it. Listen to Helen Mirren--yes, the Oscar-winning
Queen herself--who stars as Caesonia, Caligula's third wife and "the most promiscuous woman in Rome" (and in this film's salacious vision of Pagan Rome, that is saying something). In her very gracious, thoughtful and candid audio commentary that alone is worth the price of this set, she remarks, "I think it's a movie that is unlike any other, which is difficult to achieve." And for those of a more prurient bent, she adds, "It has an awful lot of bottoms." Malcolm McDowell (
A Clockwork Orange) gives a brave and fearless performance as Caligula, the hated and feared emperor corrupted by absolute power and no doubt voted Most Likely to Be Assassinated. The film unflinchingly charts his plummet into madness and the brutality of his reign in scenes of hardcore sex and violence that cannot be described here ("I can't watch," Mirren cries to her interviewers over one scene in which unfortunate characters are beheaded by a blade-spinning combine. "I can't even listen to it").
Caligula is also a career curiosity for author Gore Vidal, who wrote the original screenplay, but later demanded his name be removed from the credits, and venerable actors Peter O'Toole, appearing briefly as the syphilitic Emperor Tiberius Caesar, and John Gielgud as Nerva, a Senator who'd rather take his own life than "live with this reptile." This controversial film's tortured history is untangled in a very helpful booklet that is packaged along with this set's three discs. One is hard-pressed to think of a more reviled film graced with such a gala presentation, but Caligula's defenders and the curious will be amply rewarded with both the original uncut theatrical version of the film and a re-edited alternate version. Supplementary material includes an hour of deleted footage, a pretentious "making of" documentary made during the film's production and a new interview with director Tinto Brass, whose softcore tendencies clashed with Guccioni's more extreme vision (Brass did not have final cut, allowing Guccione to insert more explicit footage into the film). McDowell contributes his own lively audio commentary. "God help us," he groans as the film begins, but by its bloody conclusion, he proclaims he has "no regrets at all" about making the film. Caligula, Mirren maintains, is "an irresistible mix of art and genitals." And you've got to hand it to Guccione. Especially in these politically correct times, it is still strong and scandalous stuff. --Donald Liebenson
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