In the late 1970s, Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione had a dream similar to that of Burt Reynolds’ Jack Horner in “Boogie Nights“: He wanted to produce a p*rnographic feature film that was also, on some level, high art. Guccione had already dabbled in film financing by partnering with Paramount on a few now-classic “straight” films — including “Chinatown” and the original “The Longest Yard.” But now, he was ready to realize his dream of becoming a movie mogul by launching his own big-budget, sexually explicit epic following the Roman emperor Caligula.
The resulting film, “Caligula,” became one of the most notorious films ever made within weeks of its release (it opened in Europe in the summer of 1979 and made its way to the United States in early 1980). Disowned by everyone from its writer (Gore Vidal) and director (Tinto Brass) to its cast and critically reviled in a manner more appropriate for a war crime than a feature film (Variety, in fact, called it “a moral holocaust”), it was nevertheless a box office hit, outgrossing John Carpenter’s “The Fog” when it was released the same month.
Related Stories
Jane Campion Thinks Box Office Success of ‘Barbie’ Has Helped Female Filmmakers Be ‘Trusted with Money’
David Jonsson Says His ‘Alien: Romulus’ Character Is ‘Unique’ in the Franchise’s History of Synthetics
“If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful,” film critic Roger Ebert wrote at the time. “People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty.” And indeed, in the decades since “Caligula” came out, many have wondered what might have been if Guccione hadn’t taken the movie away from director Brass and reshaped it to his own ends — after all, this was a film written by Gore Vidal and starring some of the greatest actors of their time, from Malcolm McDowell in the title role to Helen Mirren as his wife Caesonia and John Gielgud and Peter O’Toole in supporting roles.
Now, a new restoration and reconstruction by art historian Thomas Negovan called “Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” attempts to answer the question of whether or not there was ever a great movie buried in the raw footage. The answer turns out to be…well, sort of. Clocking in at around three hours — almost a half-hour longer than the 1980 theatrical cut released in North America — “Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” is still no masterpiece, but it is essential viewing.
Perhaps there was never a completely coherent vision to be assembled from the warring visions of Guccione, Vidal, and Brass, but sifting through the celluloid rubble, Negovan has proven one thing unequivocally: Before his work got hacked to bits, McDowell and Mirren gave performances for the ages.
A little background is probably in order here. Although Guccione always intended “Caligula” to be sexually explicit, he also wanted it to be respectable, maybe even an awards contender, and to that end, he wanted the best actors he could get. To reel them in, he hired novelist and celebrity intellectual Gore Vidal to write the screenplay (after an aborted attempt by Lina Wertmüller!), correctly assuming that Vidal’s name would give the project an air of legitimacy.
McDowell, Mirren, Gielgud, and O’Toole signed on for what became a notoriously chaotic production plagued by battles between Vidal (who was ultimately barred from the set), Brass, Guccione, and the actors, including “Last Tango in Paris” star Maria Schneider, who quit the movie early on. (For a deep dive into all of this, check out Collin Friesen’s superb podcast “Caligula: Package of Excellence,” which contains hours of hilarious and shocking production anecdotes.) Guccione populated the backgrounds with centerfolds from his magazine, so that Shakespearean actors like Gielgud were sharing the screen with naked Penthouse “Pets.” And Guccione pressured Brass to go beyond simulated sex scenes to include hardcore p*rnography in the film.
Brass pushed back, and it gives you some idea of how far Guccione wanted to go that the director of the Nazisploitation epic “Salon Kitty” felt “Caligula” was in poor taste. After the movie wrapped, Guccione fired Brass from the editing room and shot the hardcore scenes he had always wanted; they were inserted into the movie, and when it opened, many of the actors were understandably surprised to learn that they had appeared in an X-rated skin flick.
Not only that, but an enormous amount of material had been sacrificed to make room for Guccione’s sex scenes; there were hints of greatness in McDowell and Mirren’s performances, but it seemed reasonable to believe that their best work had been left on the cutting room floor. That’s where Negovan and the “Ultimate Cut” come in. Negovan and editor Aaron Shaps went back to the original camera negatives of everything that was shot for “Caligula” — which amounted to around 90 hours of footage — and reconstructed the movie from scratch, using alternate takes with the guiding principle of serving the performances and giving the story some kind of coherent shape.
The result is fascinating and unlike virtually any other restoration or reconstruction, in that, according to Negovan, not a frame of footage from the original theatrical release is used. As he told Cinapse, when he looked through the dailies, he discovered that, in every single case, there was a better performance take than what was actually used. In addition to prioritizing the integrity of the performances, “Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” eliminates Guccione’s hardcore additions and replaces them with previously deleted scenes that give the narrative more depth and coherence, though even without Guccione’s material, the film contains nearly wall-to-wall nudity and carnage.
With a stronger directorial voice behind it — that of Wertmüller or maybe even John Huston, to whom Guccione initially offered the movie — “Caligula” might have been a scathing attack on the corruption of power along the lines of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Salò.” But as it exists, “Caligula” feels a bit rudderless in spite of Negovan’s laudable efforts. It’s endlessly compelling in its odd juxtaposition of scale (increased in the reconstruction thanks to some digital set extensions), smut, and classically trained thespians, but given the incompatible sensibilities of Vidal, Guccione, and Brass, there was never much hope for it existing as a fully realized piece of art.
What is fully realized, at long last, is McDowell’s performance as Caligula. In his expertly calibrated shifts between rage, petulance, delight, insecurity, narcissism, and lust, the actor creates a portrait of a truly evil leader who exists in an intersection between cruelty, carelessness, and unearned power. It’s a timeless characterization that’s both wholly original and clearly recognizable — one doesn’t have to look far to see elements of McDowell’s Caligula in the dictators and aspiring dictators of our current age.
The force of McDowell’s delivery and the depth of his characterization give “Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” a throughline and a dramatic intensity that the theatrical cut never had — and that, truthfully, this one lacks outside of the lead performance. But that performance is so singular — every bit as iconic as McDowell’s more celebrated turns in Lindsay Anderson’s “If…” and Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” — that it justifies Negovan’s efforts all on its own.
And it’s not the only great performance Negovan unearthed: Helen Mirren, whose part was considerably diminished in the original version, equals McDowell’s inventiveness and complexity in the new cut, playing her character’s constantly shifting loyalties and political calculations with clarity and nuance. Like Caligula, her Caesonia is a highly contradictory character, but the contradictions are seamlessly reconciled in Mirren’s precise performance. It’s unlikely that “Caligula” was ever going to be the truly great movie that Guccione — who aspired to make the X-rated “Citizen Kane” — wanted it to be, but its new incarnation contains enough greatness for one to be thankful for Negovan’s excavation.
“Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” opens in theaters on Friday, August 16. The new version arrives on DVD and Blu-ray September 17, which will include the original theatrical release, from Unobstructed View.
