by Allan Fish
(US/Italy 1979 156m) DVD1/2
Aka. Caligola; Gore Vidal’s Caligula
I have existed from the morning of the world
p Bob Guccione, Franco Rossellini d Tinto Brass, Giancarlo Lui w Bob Guccione, Gore Vidal ph Silvano Ippoliti, Tinto Brass ed Nino Baragli md Paul Clemente m Aram Khachaturian, Sergei Prokofiev art Danilo Donati cos Danilo Donati, Gregorio Simili
Malcolm McDowell (Caligula), Peter O’Toole (Tiberius), Helen Mirren (Cæsonia), John Gielgud (Nerva), Teresa Ann Savoy (Drusilla), John Steiner (Longinus), Adriana Asti (Ennia), Lori Wagner (Agrippina), Anneka di Lorenzo (Messalina), Mirella d’Angelo (Livia), Donato Placido (Proculus), Guido Mannari (Macro), Giancarlo Badessi (Claudius), Paolo Bonacelli (Cassius Chaerea), Leopoldo Trieste (Charicles), Bruno Brive (Gemellus),
As my countdown is slowly coming to an end I thought it was about time I redressed the balance. All this eulogising about the masterpieces of each given decade, yet not a word about the trash, the absolute nadir of the decade. And as we’re moving into the 1980s in a matter of weeks, it seems only fair to concentrate on the most notorious film of the 1970s, whose saga lasted several years before its first sighting in 1979, and whose controversy lasted into the early eighties; so much so that we now forget that there was a time when it was taken quite seriously in certain quarters (at least at the announcement stage). Gore Vidal had apparently gone back to the sources, to Lucretius and Tacitus, and the backing of Bob Guccione was seen as necessary funding. Perhaps they were recalling Hugh Hefner’s Playboy financed Macbeth with Roman Polanski. There was one major difference; Hefner, in addition to peddling flesh, was a film buff. Guccione was a pornographer with as much interest in the real Roman Empire as the writers of Up Pompeii. It went into production in 1977, and there were those who thought that it would cash in on the literacy of the BBC’s I, Claudius a year earlier.
This was never going to be I, Claudius, as anyone would know who had seen Brass’ earlier cult hit Salon Kitty, which had done the same for Nazi Germany and also featured the uniquely featured Teresa Ann Savoy, a girl in her late twenties but with a face that, had we not seen every inch of her admirable physique, would assume to be about twelve. And after playing a hermaphrodite in Jancsó’s Private Vices, Public Virtues, she was game for anything and knew what Tinto expected – get em out, get em out often and act like you love it. Helen Mirren was never shy of going au naturel, and she was brought in to play Caesonia and add some class to the distaff cast, while John Gielgud played the old stoic Nerva and Peter O’Toole played a truly degenerate Tiberius, 45 at the time but playing a man pushing eighty and with enough diseases to make him seem like a refugee from the Valley of the Lepers in Ben Hur. Not forgetting poor Adriana Asti, famed for her work with Pasolini, whose entire reprehensible part consists of lying naked on a divan and having servants jerk off into bowls to rub the contents into her skin. And as the emperor, going in on blind faith, was Malcolm McDowell, but old Malc was ageing prematurely from high living and he couldn’t really pass as a man in his twenties, so his performance, like John Hurt’s before him would be flawed accordingly. He needn’t have worried on that front, however, as just about the last thing anyone would be discussing was his age compatibility. It would become a thing of horror on anyone’s CV (and Malc has, by his own admission, appeared in his fair share of utter bilge). Gielgud enjoyed himself – “I’ve never seen so much cock in all my life…they’re frightfully handsome” he enthusiastically told Malcolm on arriving on set – and O’Toole did, too, revelling in each degenerate sequence. Everyone else tried to pretend it didn’t happen.
Where it went wrong is simple; anyone wanting a serious picture of the hedonism of ancient Rome should never have hired Brass, but having hired him, taking the picture out of his hands because it wasn’t extreme enough was tantamount to lunacy. His original version was ripped up and into it was inserted several sequences and shots of full hardcore censorable action, ranging from penetration, fellatio (from Anneka di Lorenzo especially) and ejaculations in the Imperial Bordello extravaganza, cunnilingus performed between a 69-ing Wagner and di Lorenzo and a golden shower given to the just-that-moment deceased Proculus’ corpse by Wagner. Brass, McDowell, Vidal, et al were horrified. Law-suits were served, delays were resultant and it finally only showed in 1979 at Cannes.
It was there that one of the urban legends surrounding Caligula had its genesis, the legendary 210 minute cut that was shown in a private screening out of competition. If it ever existed is hard to clarify, but if it did, it was just with extended lesbian love scene and shots of the Imperial Bordello, nothing that wasn’t entirely redundant. In the UK the uncut version was unseen until the 2008 DVD release, in other countries it’s still banned. Gielgud, O’Toole and Mirren were able to escape the debacle, and McDowell had a canny hit in Time After Time around that time to draw some attention away from the Brass/Guccione farrago.
I first saw it in the late 1990s. Frustrated by the unavailability of a decent version in the UK, FilmFour cut their own print running around 148m (when PAL speed-up is taken into account) and it was introduced by resident extreme-expert Mark Kermode. Even he struggled to justify the sorry beast, but the more I see Caligula – and I have sat through it as penance several times now – the more I catch flashes of what might have been. Inside the mutilated rotting carcass we see there’s an intelligent film buried deep down within suffocated by the writhing naked bodies of the Imperial Bordello and having all chance of respectability extinguished like a spear stuck up into the bowels of good taste. Yet through the incessant orgies and excesses there’s the little details, the famous lines associated with Caligula, the viper nursed in Rome’s bosom, the scenes like Nerva’s suicide in a bath and Caligula’s experiences in the outside world of Roman poverty. And, last but not least, the outré designs of Danilo Donati, which remain pillars in the portico of the Temple of Venus, taking his spectacular work for Fellini’s Satyricon up a notch or ten. Literal pleasure palaces for the privileged to fuck in.
Yet we keep coming back to the sheer crassness of the thing, exemplified in the very opening scene of Caligula casually fucking his sister by a tree like a satyr and nymph frolicking at the foot of Olympus. Sacrilege, you think, until the soundtrack blares poor Khachaturian over it and redefines the very world sacrilege (they crucified people for less in Caligula’s day) and leaves him rolling in his grave like an Italian footballer on the ground after the slightest contact from a centre-back. And he wouldn’t be alone digging up the soil, as Prokofiev is awoken from his eternal sleep by a desecration of one of his most famous pieces. We first hear McDowell over the credits, and his speech is so near to copying Richard Burton’s in Alexander the Great as to be insulting, were it also not an indictment of the film’s ambition, choosing such an inert Hollywood epic from which to pilfer ideas.
Much was made of the sex, and there was a fear that, hard on the back of the rise of pornography in theatrical films earlier in the decade that more explicit erotica would erupt onto our screens like a cum-shot in the face of mainstream cinema. As it happened, porn went onto video and degenerated into the excesses of gonzo, losing any innocence it once had, and the eighties was the Reagan and Thatcher era, and somehow such films were never going to go hand in hand with those hard-line right-wing regimes. In truth, though, the sex wasn’t the issue, it was the sadism and cruelty, the truly barbaric detail that shocked, from a disembowelment of a drunken soldier to the Roman equivalent of Prima Nocte where Caligula not only takes the bride’s virginity at the ceremony but anally fists the groom, a weird and wonderful decapitating device like a giant combine harvester mopping up the heads of submerged prisoners on Mars Field. The sort of thing the Marquis de Sade and Tomas de Torquamada had wet dreams about Here’s a film that went Pasolini one better, and leaves one wondering what Pasolini himself might have done with it if given the chance (there certainly wouldn’t have been less penises!). Or Ken Russell, before his excesses became the film itself rather than its trappings. Well, it couldn’t have been worse.
Or so I thought, but actually it could, and for those who don’t think anything could be worse, I need only point them in the direction of Caligula: The Untold Story, a cash-in in which the still far from shy di Lorenzo reappeared as Messalina sans blowjob (by her at least, there were plenty of others to make up for it). It was made on a postage stamp budget, with atrocious contributions from everyone involved and numerous truly depraved sequences, from the stimulation of a horse by the sort of matronly woman so beloved by Fellini to a truly gruesome killing of a man by ramming a spear up his rectum and pushing it out through his chest.
It’s enough to send one rushing back to the original, but not too fast. Some journeys are worth taking your time over – take in the silent Ben Hur, de Mille’s The Sign of the Cross, Kubrick’s Spartacus, Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire, Scott’s Gladiator or TV series like I, Claudius, The Caesars and Rome on the way. And, upon bidding goodbye to the iconic Titus Pullo, when you do finally get back to Caligula and there’s no means of escape, after watching the uncut version on disc one, watch disc two of the Imperial Edition and switch on Malc’s commentary. He sums it up in his first spoken words, introduced by Nick Redman and exclaiming “God help us!” Right there with you, Malc. Get me a stiff drink, I’ll need it.
Much was made of the sex, and there was a fear that, hard on the back of the rise of pornography in theatrical films earlier in the decade that more explicit erotica would erupt onto our screens like a cum-shot in the face of mainstream cinema.
That’s just a brilliant line. I’ve never seen the film, and really the only thing that drives my curiosity is the same thing that drove me to see so many of the “video nasties” of the 70’s and 80’s (especially a weird little Greek film called Island of Death, but that’s another story…) that had a reputation for gratuitous sex and violence. I’m curious Allan, seeing as how you live in the place that created the term “video nasty”, do these films’ reputations often make them seem like desirable rentals? I can’t imagine anyone wanting to watch some of the movies on the “video nasties” list except for the fact that they were on the list and people wanted to see why they were severley cut.
It sounds like Caligula definitely has more of reputation than just being a banned film on the list, but what other films like this would say are popular only because the censors thought people shouldn’t see the real version? The only example I can think of when I was a teenager was that here in the states you couldn’t get a decent copy of Lucio Fulci’s movies anywhere. I remember his great The Beyond being re-cut and released as The Seven Doors of Death. I guess the Friday the 13th sequels are pretty famous examples, too, as the violence on the back of the original video boxes was often more gruesome then what you found with horribly cut versions Paramount released on video.
Anyway, I’m always fascinated by stories of people who lived during the prime of the “video nasty” era, and what their experiences were trying to watch the real versions of these films.
Maybe someday I’ll get around to watching Caligula…you’ve definitely piqued my interest with this brilliant re-telling of the films storied production and infamous reputation upon release.
That is a brilliant comment there Kevin, just about as fascinating as Allan’s great review itself! I’ve seen CALIGULA and it’s every bit as decadent and infamous as this review relates. Interesting that Allan makes the obvious parallel to I, CLAUDIUS, which of course is a masterpiece. And yeah, Kevin that line you highlight is terrific.
Allan, what a wonderfully entertaining review. Your comment about this being the nadir of 70s movies is certainly true, and your review shows that it’s possible to write in as much detail (if not more) about a truly terrible movie as about a truly great one. Your vivid descriptions brought back to me all the pathetic/hilarious vulgarity of the movie, which I saw many years ago after a friend rented a VHS copy because of its notoriety. A nice bit of comic relief from all the greatness of the decade you’ve been covering.
Thanks – that was one of the intentions, Finchy, to write about utter dross.
Why write about utter dross? Entertaining? Brilliant? Give me a break. Allan, that gross metaphor is a new low…
Thanks, Tony, I can always rely on you to confirm my feelings of completely wasting my time. Don’t worry, it’s a one off. The people have spoken, it’ll just be countdown stuff from now on.
I, Claudius is one my my favorite works in any form. I also like this period, but there’s little doubt that this film is a debacle.
I was unaware this was considered drivel. I was always under the impression the review were impressive.
I enjoyed that review. But I’m curious as to why you’ve watched more than once!
As I said, Bobby, as penance! And for a laugh…
The bottom line here is that it’s a tremendous piece of writing, and I do agree that we need to see Allan with his scapel once in a while, especially when its not aimed at me.
I aim my scalpel when it is merited…you merit it often.
You merit it far more often.
No, sycophancy is a sickening blight on reality. It’s like being overrun by Uriah Heeps. I cannot stand it. It makes me want to be sick on Team America in the back alley levels of upchuck.
No, I’m afraid cynicism and heartlessness is a far worse blight. As far as “sycophancy” goes that it nothing more than your “intepretation” of my method of isseing compliments. What I say here is out of sincerity; I am neither getting paid nor receiving any special perks for expressing my true feelings.
Fascinationg essay.. Extremely well written.. Thank you, Dennis