Caligula: The Ultimate Cut: A Notable Improvement of a Cinematic Disaster (Blu-ray)
The Film:
"Caligula" is one of those films that has a remarkably fascinating history. Originally envisioned as a prestigious historical epic about the notorious Roman emperor by screenwriter Gore Vidal, plans soon changed when producer Bob Guccione (founder of Penthouse) came aboard. To everyone's shock and disgust, he filled it with a multitude of pornographic scenes that resulted in one of the very worst films ever made (and the only film that this critic knows of that the great Roger Ebert walked out of). The product was so terrible that several participants, including Vidal, didn't even want their names on it.
Over 40 years later, producer and reconstructionist Thomas Negovan and his team sifted through over 90 hours of original camera negatives & location audio to bring us an entirely new version of the film dubbed "The Ultimate Cut," one that leaves almost all of the lewd material behind and hews closer to what Vidal originally intended. For a film like this, there was truly nowhere to go but upwards, but would the changes be enough to turn what was originally a disaster into something worth seeing?
The film opens by showing the sensual relationship between Caligula (Malcolm McDowell) and his sister Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy). They are soon interrupted by Macro (Guido Mannari), a leader of the Praetorian Guard, who informs Caligula that his uncle, Emperor Tiberius (Peter O'Toole), wishes to see him in Capri. Their conversation mostly concerns Caligula being the heir & possible assassination attempts, with Tiberius even attempting to poison his nephew during their talk. Soon after, Caligula tries to kill the ailing Tiberius, but hesitates, causing Macro to step in to do the deed. Caligula is then proclaimed emperor, and so begins his infamous reign of terror & madness.
The original theatrical cut of "Caligula" is indeed quite an intriguing piece of cinema history. I first saw it years ago simply due to the aforementioned trivia point of it being the only film that I recall Roger Ebert admitting that he walked out of, which begged the question of how it could be so bad that even the most beloved film critic would get up and leave early. The answer became rather clear within the first 20-30 minutes in which you're inundated with a number of pornographic elements that add absolutely nothing to the film, with many being repeated throughout the 156-minute runtime. By the end, you would no doubt find yourself asking how anything like this was ever released in the first place.
Rewatching it now, several years later, nothing has changed about that original cut. It's still vile, depraved, and practically unwatchable, which is a shame due to the remarkable cast that's involved, including Malcolm McDowell, Peter O'Toole, Sir John Gielgud (as Tiberius' friend, Nerva), and Dame Helen Mirren (as Caligula's wife, Caesonia), all of whom were apparently blind-sided by the pornographic scenes that were inserted by Guccione. Suffice it to say, this is not the project that any of them had signed up for, and so the film fell into infamy, where it's been ever since.
The actual original version of the film was thought to be lost, that is until the original camera negatives were discovered, from which this "Ultimate Cut" was assembled using different takes & angles of existing scenes, while reinserting missing pieces & entire sequences, and yes, throwing out almost all of the pointless pornographic elements that had plagued the theatrical version. Throw in a new scrolling introduction & a new animated opening credits sequence, and you have a completely different version of the material that runs about three hours and actually somewhat resembles a respectable historical epic.
Circling back now to the question posed in the synopsis, did all of the hard work put into cleaning up the damage that Guccione & his cohorts did to the project actually result in a good film? Sadly, the answer is a rather definitive no. It's certainly a much-improved version of the material, and this cut is most definitely more watchable than the original, but one problem with the original that I didn't mention is that, putting aside all of the problematic material, there just isn't much of a story there in the first place.
Everyone is aware that Caligula was mad and that he did a lot of crazy things, and that's really all that the film has to say about him. In both versions, he becomes emperor about 40-some minutes into the film, and then for the remain two-ish hours, his madness causes him to do many crazy things. It was hoped that the new scenes added back into the film might help expand upon his story, but unfortunately it's just more of the same, ultimately making this a rather plodding, superficial look at the notorious emperor.
Again, this is easily a far-superior version to the original cut that fixes many of its problems, but the one thing that they couldn't really fix was the story itself, due to the simple fact that there just isn't much of a story to be told about the man by himself (though his tale did work great as a part of the novel & masterful miniseries "I, Claudius"). It's incredible to finally see what the film was supposed to look like all those years ago before its butchering, but its fundamental narrative flaws still hold it back too much from being the engaging biopic the original filmmakers wanted it to be.
Video/Audio:
"Caligula: The Ultimate Cut" comes with two different versions of the film. On the first disc, "The Ultimate Cut" is presented in a 2:1, 1080p High Definition transfer that looks absolutely stunning. The new version has been beautifully restored, making the image amazingly sharp & clear throughout the three-hour runtime. This cut features 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio that sounds fantastic, giving you all of the dialogue, sound effects, and music in excellent quality.
On the second disc, the Restored 1980 UK Theatrical Version (*See Special Note in the Special Features section) is presented in a 1.78:1, 1080p High Definition transfer of significantly lower quality. The image contains quite a lot of scratches and grain in the image, strangely looking like it was taken from a low-grade VHS, though it's quite possible that the print used was heavily damaged and was cleaned up as best as could be done. It's still watchable, but it will definitely leave you wishing that more could've been done to fix it. That said, the 2.1 DTS-HD Master Audio is quite good, presenting all elements in decent quality.
Special Features:
Disc 1 - The Ultimate Cut (178 Minutes)
Audio Commentary with Editor Aaron Shaps and Producer & Reconstructionist Thomas Negovan
Audio Commentary with Author Grant Morrison and Producer & Reconstructionist Thomas Negovan
A pair of informative commentary tracks that examine the film's history and its new iteration.
Disc 2 - Restored 1980 UK Theatrical Version (149 Minutes)
*Special Note: The Blu-ray says this print was found in a Boston warehouse and was believed to be the version show in theaters at the time. However, after researching this, it is my best determination that this print is actually the original edited UK theatrical release. It matches the runtime of that version, and the sample scenes in the below featurette are on the list of the small handful of scenes that were altered for that version. Furthermore, IMDb states that there were no theatrical versions of this length shown in the US (the original unedited US Theatrical Cut ran 156 minutes, and was later cut down to 105 minutes to achieve an R rating). It's still very much a legitimate version of the film, one that's certainly more rare than the original US Theatrical Version, but for full disclosure, it should be noted that it's a version that has been edited from that original form (as seen in the featurette). In closing, it can actually be said that this version is something of a precursor to "The Ultimate Cut" in that it attempts to clean up some of the gratuitous pornography using alternate footage/angles, and for that alone, you could also say it's better.
The Guccione Scandal (19 Minutes): A featurette that tells a little about Guccione's infamous "contributions" to the film, featuring multiple scene comparisons between the original UK theatrical cut and the original unrated cut.
Conclusion:
"Caligula: The Ultimate Cut" makes for a remarkable improvement upon the disastrous original version of the film, removing most of its pointless pornographic elements, restoring several missing pieces, and bringing it much closer to the respectable historical epic that screenwriter Gore Vidal originally intended. However, while many problems were fixed, its fundamental narrative flaws remain, making this a rather plodding, superficial look at the notorious Roman emperor that ultimately has very little to say about the man.
Score: 2.5/5
Now available on Blu-ray.
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