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Editorial Reviews
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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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Customer Reviews
Disc One contains an unrated X-rated version including all the Bob Guccione inserted scenes of somewhat hardcore sex acts. The editing is a little off as Guccione assembled this cut from what Tinto Brass directed and put some scenes out of order thus blurring the narrative and character development.
Disc Two contains a pre-release cut of the film without the hardcore scenes, and a more logical progression of scenes assembled to depict the order Tinto Brass wanted them in. It runs 3 minutes shorter, and you'll notice alternate footage in many scenes. Three commentaries are delivered over this version with Malcolm McDowell on one, Helen Mirren on the second, and Ernest Volkman on the final track. Each are joined by authors and film critics who help keep the conversation flowing and on topic. Also included are a dozen cut and alternate takes.
The third disc contains featurettes, interviews, and archival footage from the production. A 1980 documentary proves interesting and provides more graphic footage.
The transfer is improved, but still looks blurred and lacking in contrast. The reason for some of this is the movie was shot like a magazine spread with soft focus cameras. It's never super clear, and there's plenty of grain and digital artifacts to contend with.
This is the best the film has ever looked, and has tons of extra material to wade through. A dream for collectors, and a nightmare for the detractors. The film is dispassionate and brutal - depicting every peversity you could imagine and then some. Costumes and sets are amazing - including a five story machine that decapitates heads in a colisseum. Breathtaking for all the wrong reasons, CALIGULA is about ego out of control. Oddly enough those that made it suffered from the same malady.
"Caligula" does have some merit from the historical point of view, surely already present in Gore Vidal's original script. It's also very weak in many points.
The bare events of Caligula's life and reign are actually quite accurate. It may surprise many viewers that most of the secondary characters - Emperor Tiberius, Senator Nerva, the praetorian prefect Macro, Tiberius's grandson and Caligula's rival for the succession Gemellus, Caesonia, Chaerea (who murdered Caligula), his sister Drusilla - were all historical and, as far as the facts have come down to us, their portrayal in "Caligula" was fairly accurate, at least according to some ancient authors.
Tiberius did retire to the island of Capri in his last years and did invite the elderly Nerva to join him there, and ancient authors do claim that he indulged in sexual perversions there. Nerva really committed suicide as shown in the movie.
The conversations between Caligula, Nerva and Tiberius, probably by Vidal, really reflect contemporary views and issues - for instance, the deification of Julius Caesar and Augustus, Tiberius's predecessors: Tiberius was totally cynical about the whole thing, whereas Caligula firmly believed it. Throughout the movie, many of Caligula's lines come straight from ancient authors.
On the other hand, Nerva's comment on Caligula's "gift for logic" seems to owe more to Camus than to ancient sources - still, a nice touch, I thought.
Tiberius's murder by Caligula and Macro, Caligula's removal of Macro and Gemellus, his incestuous relationship with Drusilla, her death, his marriage to Caesonia, her giving him a daughter, his increasing tyranny, his farcical invasion of Germany and attempted invasion of Britain, and his murder by his own guard - are all historical facts, and on the whole not too inaccurately shown in the movie.
On the other hand, the movie's biggest weaknesses from the historical point of view are (1) the way it *looks* and (2) the suggestion that Caligula's and Tiberius's depravity were somehow "normal", part of Rome's "decadence".
The sets and clothes all look more like something from a Fellini film than from ancient Rome. Tiberius's palace on Capri is perhaps the most unrealistic, along with that ship, and the execution machine - and countless details.
The clothes aren't very realistic, either. Romans were more casual about nudity than we are today, and I suppose that their clothes might reveal much some times. But I doubt that Roman ladies would be as casual about parading half-naked as portrayed in the movie (I mean in normal situations, not the sex scenes).
Moreover, it's simply not true that "orgies" such as that portrayed in the movie were common among the Roman upper classes. Actually adultery - also on the part of males - was an offense punishable by death, at least for the upper classes (this didn't cover prostitution). The vast majority of the Roman senatorial class would, and did, find behavior such as that of Tiberius and Caligula scandalous.
However, Caligula's in cognito wanderings through Rome after Drusilla's death give perhaps for the first time in a movie a good impression of what ancient Rome actually was at night - dangerous, dark, chaotic, where no person of means would venture without an armed escort.
I also enjoyed the glimpse of what an emperor's routine largely consisted of, with Tiberius and Caligula stamping their seal onto endless piles of official documents.
"Caligula" was obviously intended to be mainly a pornographic movie - Bob Guccione made sure of that. But it also, at some point, was intended to have a core of historical accuracy, which is why Gore Vidal was asked to write the script.
This core is still present in the movie, and it's not true that you don't learn anything of Roman history by watching it.
But of course, I know that that's not what most people will watch it for. So perhaps Guccione was right.
The DVD has these things going for it: the creepy music added to the menu (the same as the opening title with the quote from Mark), the 30 chapters nicely divided up, the documentary about the making of featuring Gore Vidal and Bob Guccione (although in places everyone's face looked way too pale, but it was an old '70s film), and the sound is far superior to the VHS from what I can remember.
But this is Caligula and I would definitely not let anyone under 18 (or maybe even 21) watch it.
