Caligula: The Ultimate Cut

This is truly a lost opportunity. After a massive search, a film scholar tracked down all of the original film shot by director Tinto Brass, who is still alive, and he wante4d to work with Brass to finally make a director's cut.

Penthouse, which own the rights, changed management and the new management instead turned the footage over to some people with absolutely no background in film restoration. This new team said they wanted to restore the film to the intentions of Gore Vidal's script. The main problem with that is Tinto Brass was not filming Vidal's script as it was written, as he thought it was terrible. He and actor Malcolm McDowell reworked the script into something more of an art film.

The result of this restoration is that the scenes are finally in the right order but put together with with no sense of style or pacing. Tinto Brass envisioned lots of close up and fast editing, and completed about half of the film this way. Instead we get long takes that emphasize the lavish sets and obscure the action. It looks like a rough cut that is waiting for someone to add closeups and quicken the pace. A few individual scenes work much better in the original due to better editing.

Another drawback is the overly modern score, which doesn't reflect musical trends of the 1970s, when the film was shot.

On the plus side, all of the incongruous hardcore scenes shot by Penthouse chief Bob Guccione are gone. A more coherent performance by Malcolm McDowell can be seen, though at times some of the more manic takes might have worked better to emphasize his deteriorating mental state.

A movie that needs getting used to. But also somehow fascinating.

In the opening credits, it's explained that the film was financed and produced by the founder of Hustler magazine, who originally had high ambitions for the film. Renowned actors like Malcolm McDowell, Peter O'Toole, Helen Mirren, and John Gielgud were cast, the screenplay was written by writer Gore Vidal, and Tinto Brass directed. But Brass was fired towards the end, the final script was butchered during editing, arbitrary sex scenes were inserted, and some contributors didn't want to be mentioned in the credits afterwards.

I watched the three-hour Ultimate Cut from 2023, which tried to reconstruct the film as much as possible as it was originally intended. And what should I say, it was still quite intense in terms of violence and sex depiction. McDowell has no problem with difficult and harsh roles, he had already proven as Alex in Stanley Kubricks "A Clockwork Orange". The cast of, for example, O'Toole on the other hand surprised me a bit. Some scenes must have been quite a challenge to shoot. But well, Caligula was a tyrant who was probably also mentally disturbed, maybe the depictions weren't all that exaggerated after all.

The Roman Empire naturally offers a lot in terms of stories and characters. Visually, I find that the film does make a lot of impact (if you leave the perversions aside for now). And I like historical stuff and films of the sword-and-sandal subgenre a lot. I'd also be tempted to watch the normal version sometime for comparison. Not a film for everyone, like "Antichrist" or also "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom", you have to be able to handle it, and I understand all too well that people don't like films of this kind - as a movie buff, I find you can take a look if you're not too sensitive - 7/10.

Having looked at the laserdisc R-rated version, the "Imperial" unrated version and the documentary promotional short featuring Guccione and Vidal attempting to explain, I find it very hard to see the "Ultimate Cut" as the new movie it is supposed to be. It does indeed appear to be made of elements previously unseen. This was never a terrible, but an unfortunate movie, born crippled over and over. We may never see the 4 hour masterpiece that (perhaps) could have been. In this version there is much to like, much beauty and humor. Maybe not the best takes, or camera angles, but more story. The whole thing makes more sense. Not subtle, but fun. Happily the actors have loads more screen time. Teresa Ann Savoy isn't just pretty and likable. As Caligula's calculating, patient, loving sister, she helps so much! If you have ever dreamed of being a movie editor because it looks easy, this movie and its difficulties will enhance your respect for the editor's art. Enjoy it some time when the children and the easily offended are not around.

Now I'll be honest, I think John Hurt ("I Claudius" - BBC - 1976) made a better Caligula, but Malcolm McDowell is still pretty convincing as the despotic sexual deviant who held the ultimate power in the Roman Empire for four years. It ought not to have been a surprise that he turned out the way he did when we are introduced to the decrepitly monstrous Tiberius (Peter O'Toole) on his island paradise of Capri. He lives there in a court of acolyte nymphs and "fishes" guided only by the vaguest semblance of decency from his friend Nerva (Sir John Gielgud). When that brief sequence of hedonism is swiftly over, our antihero assumes the throne and proceeds to share it with his sister Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy) with whom he enjoys a pretty incestuous relationship. There's pressure on him to marry, though, and father a legitimate child - so along comes Caesonia (Helen Mirren) - a woman all too keen to father the imperial progeny whilst enjoying a life of luxury and depravity. That's the history bit - which is really all rather peripheral to this shockingly scripted exercise in soft-porn which we are now going to watch in all it's three hour glory. It's clear that no expense has been spared on the look of the film, and to be fair to director Tinto Brass he does offer us quite a convincing glimpse at the excessiveness of a despotic court ruled by a monarch who believed himself a god - and who had few prepared to argue. It's maybe on that last point that "Longinus" (John Steiner) takes a decisive stance. He is the chancellor who increasingly finds himself, along with Praetorian Commander Chaerea (Paolo Bonacelli), more and more disgusted by the antics of this man with the thinnest grasp on reality. There's nudity all over the shop to the point that it becomes innocuous and once you've got used to that the rest of it fails to carry what could have been a blank cheque opportunity to portray the pivot of historical decadence. Instead, we have McDowell hamming it up energetically as he flounces around, scantily clad, but very little else. It's tawdry, no other word for it - and the unwelcome intermission completely throttled whatever pace there was as it sort of lumbered along in the most clunky of episodic fashions to an denouement that history told us about nearly two thousand years ago. It doesn't seem to know whether it's a movie or a sequence of short theatrical plays, Mirren adds precisely nothing and the magnificently odious O'Toole isn't around long enough to make enough of a difference. It's a shambles, certainly, and this ultimate cut is far, far too long - but somehow it's not unwatchable. You might never eat cottage cheese again!

I watched Caligula for the first time in July 2023. Shortly after, I found out about a new version that had premiered at Cannes, but wasn't available to stream or purchase.

I did my research, found out about the man in charge of this restoration, Thomas Negovan, subscribed to his youtube and Patreon and just kept checking from time to time to see when I would finally be able to watch this.

The time finally came. This is a much better movie. It flows a lot better. Caligula's descend into madness and fear is far far better shown.

All of the new scenes are excellent. When you watch them, you realize how so many of the scenes in the original version were cut short.

For example, near the end, at the dinner after Britain's ''conquer'', in the original version he suddenly yells ''CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL!'', doesn't make a lot of sense. But in this new cut, they added the entire scene in which Caligula was playing ''Caesar says'' and commanding the people there to do different things. Such as ''Caesar says turn right, caesar says hop'' He finally snaps and that's when he screams ''CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL'' Just one of many examples.

There are however, a few things I liked more in the original. The final shot for example. It showed the blood dripping down the stairs with the dead bodies lying there, I think it is a great final shot. In this new cut they removed that.

I also miss the music from the original opening and the phrase that appears :''For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?''

The music in this new version was a bit tame in my opinion.

All the long porn scenes have been removed, no more 10 minute long blowjobs. However, I believe there were a few highly explicit very short scenes that I believe should have been left in. I think that explicitness added a lot.

I don't think it is a perfect film, but it is definitely superior to the original. You get a lot a lot more character development, overall, it just flows better.