Caligula (The Unrated Edition)
by Bob Guccione, Giancarlo Lui, Tinto Brass
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Actor: Guido Mannari, Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, Peter O'Toole, Teresa Ann SavoyDirector: Bob Guccione, Giancarlo Lui, Tinto Brass
Brand: Image Entertainment
Producer: Bob Guccione
Writer: Bob Guccione
Writer: Giancarlo Lui
Writer: Franco Rossellini
Writer: Gore Vidal
Audio: English (Original Language); Italian (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 156 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-10-02
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Analysis Film Releasing Corporation
DVD Reviews of Caligula (The Unrated Edition)
DVD Review: Caligula would be pleased.
Summary: 3 Stars
Honestly, as bad as this excuse for cinema was in as much as it tried to be both a biopic and a skin flick, I really didn't hate it. Malcom MacDowell (the reason I watched it to begin with) is fascinating onscreen and always brims with a kind of unrestrained energy in his roles. For Caligula this was a perfect match as his mad dottering around and over the top virtuosity led very much to being a fine Caligula. Of note especially, the scene with the newlyweds recalled his performance of Alex with the same kind of smug cruelty on his face. Aside from everything else, I honestly think Caligula himself would be pleased at this unrestrained, slightly off picture.DVD Review: Gutsy for 1979, none-the-less, a never-to-be-forgotten work.
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw this film for the first time in 1984, I was 20. Irrelevant of good or bad, the move left an impression. And isn't that exactly what films are intended to do? Consider the move "Jaws." Was it a good film or a bad film? It was a bloody film that kept millions of people from swimming, anywhere! But, it did make an impression. Do you own it? Why? For posterity? Perhaps.
Movies rarely get the credit they deserve when they upset the norm and put bible-thumpers at the ready. The protestors and the holy alike will chase art and creativity out of town before the townsfolk can make a decision on their own about the quality. Remember the Exorcist? The clergy had their vestals in a bunch over that one. Because of that, the move never did make it to some towns and when it did, people were practically considered outcasts if they were recognized going in or out of the theatre.
If you watched those movies today, would you think the same about them as you did back then? Let's hope not. I recently saw this one and I had an entirely different perspective of the film, and of myslef.
This movie is a classic. Young Malcolm McDowell was somewhat still a teensy wet, er... inexperienced, but he was well on his way to bigger projects like "Cat People" and "Star Trek Generations: The Movie." and most recently in "Wanted." And Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole, and John Gielgud. Nuff said.
It's a must for collectors or if you simply appreciate it for what it is. If you consider that it based on some fact, then love it for its history.
DVD Review: An odd mixture of artistry and pornography
Summary: 3 Stars
In some ways, this film is a unique cultural product, that demonstrates the tension between historic fact and imaginative embellishment; between the craft of fine acting and pornography; and between the contrasting philosophies of the artists responsible for this collage of intentions. This review will look at all three of these contrasts.
Many of the events in this film come down to us as part of the historic record. The rise and fall of these characters was documented by historians of the time and in following generations. However, in this production the events are embellished to the extreme so that the film becomes nightmarish or surreal. The costumes are akin to the flimsy costumes worn by strippers. The lives of Tiberius and Caligula and Claudius offer incredible drama and decadence as related in Suetonius' Live of the Caesars and in Robert Graves' I, Claudius. Yet we know enough of Roman culture and daily life to understand that these characters were aberrations and products of madness and absolute power. The average Roman did not act this way and were scandalized by the behaviors of Tiberius and Caligula. The beautiful young lovers, Livia and Proculus, exemplify this in the film. The terrible deeds that are inflicted on this handsome and innocent couple are a critical aspect of the film for they demonstrate the violation of commonly-held moral behaviors by those in absolute power who also are mentally deranged. This is a critical point in understanding this film. The absolute power of the Julio-Claudians family, of which Tiberius and Caligula were emperors 3 and 4, surrounds itself with immoral fortune seekers and parasites, that reflect back to the source of power a sense that their cruelty is indeed just fun and games, that their abuse of power is justified because of the baseness of human nature and that the people they rule are scum. An important scene in the film depicts Caligula forcing the entire Senate to make sheep sounds while he gleefully laughs at the ability of his absolute power to create absurd behaviors in others.
The second theme that any reviewer must address is the contrast between actors with top tier reputations combining their art with that of pornographers. John Gielgud, Peter O'Toole, and Helen Mirren are highly respected and are the three strongest actors in this production. It is actually hard to judge the acting of Malcolm McDowell as Caligula since the character is so wildly overstated and dominant. McDowell plays Caligula as highly intelligent, highly indulged, and sadistically deranged. Again we are less concerned with his violent outbursts against the self serving court favorites as we are about his treatment of the lovers, Livia and Proculus, the moral center of the production. As an example, handsome and ruthless and cunning Macro is outsmarted by Caligula and comes to a terrible end, but the viewer could care less because we have learned that Macro is corrupted and power seeking. However the violation of Livia and Proculus on their wedding night and then the subsequent violence against Proculus is horrifying. As they torture Proculus he screams asking why such pain is being inflicted on him since he is a loyal lower rank military officer. Caligula answers that it is because he is not guilty that he is guilty. It is because he is not corrupt that he must be destroyed. Absolute power in combination with sadism is the recipe for human evil. But beyond Caligula, we must remember that power over others in combination with inability to experience empathy with the other is one strong source of the evil we may all experience in everyday life.
This last point brings up the contrasting and conflicting visions of Gore Vidal and Bob Guccione, the owner of Penthouse and the producer of the film. If you are familiar with the excellent novels and essays of Gore Vidal, you soon learn of his contention that when Republics become Empires they lose their moral footing and begin to inflict cruelty and oppression against those they conquer and begin to stimulate decadence in the lives of the privileged individuals who have risen in the social class structure of the Empire. Thus the decadence of Tiberius and Caligula and the suicide of Nerva all help convey his message that Empire and power corrupts. But Bob Guccione has a philosophy against censorship and sexual oppression, and therefore he inserted many pornographic sequences into the film in the final edits, as if to thumb his nose at the moral sensibilities of those that run our current Empire. At first glance it would appear to be that Vidal and Guccione would be allies in their assault against the Empire. Vidal would accost the Empire for turning from its Republican roots and suppressing other nations for the aggrandizement of the Empire. Guccione would accost the Empire for sexual hypocrisy and lack of sexual freedoms. However it is the manner in which they accost the Empire that differs, and style and taste matter. For Vidal wishes us to draw upon our intellectual history and challenge the Empire on historic and rational grounds founded in the Enlightenment whereas Guccione wishes to challenge the Empire with sexual truths that often stay inside the bedroom but become unnerving when viewed in the light of day or on the motion picture screen.
This film is definitely a unique viewing experience.
DVD Review: Hardcore and gore
Summary: 4 Stars
My title say's it all. But I think the the movie is worth having a look at! It is hard to believe this is how life was once unless you see it with your own eyes.DVD Review: Not for the faint of heart!
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie has elements that are astonishing, but it also has an inordinate amount of sex and gore. Remember, Bob Guccione made the film. The thing is, it actually portrays life as it probably was back then. Life was brutal and fleeting, which is really brought out here. Malcom MacDowell is amazing as Caligula, and Helen Mirrin is fantastic as well. If you cannot watch violence easily, this is not the film for you, but if you want an idea of what life in ancient Rome was like, get this film.
Description of Caligula (The Unrated Edition)
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).
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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