Caligula is several terrible films. The reputation of the 1979 exploitation epic is as a work that has been cut and cut and cut again into a notoriously nonsensical abomination, stuffed with hardcore porn by producer Bob Guccione, leaving Gore Vidal’s script ripped to incoherent tatters. There are literally dozens of edits, borne of arguments between Guccione and director Tinto Brass, censors, and rogue editors. All of them are fascinating. All of them are awful, compromised, bastardized.
Caligula: The Ultimate Cut cannot but acknowledge these failures in opening cards. But it also explains how it is a completely different film. Art historian Thomas Negovan has excavated countless hours of rushes and raw footage from the archives to assemble a new film, hewing as close as possible to Vidal’s original story. In doing so, the debauchery, majesty, and brutality are finally revealed in all their unhinged glory.
The bones of the story remain the same: Caligula (McDowell) murders his way to the throne of the Roman Empire, and rapes and pillages his way through those loyal to him. Eventually, his depravity becomes too great for Rome’s elites to bear, and he too is dispatched in favor of his more easily manipulated uncle, Claudius.
If there’s a tragedy in this new version, it’s that Vidal never got to see (and presumably grumble about) it. After all, he remained fascinated with the Roman Empire throughout his life, having already written Julian in 1964 and returning to the subject with 1992’s Live from Golgotha. Caligula should have been his greatest work on the topic, and now may be.
What Negovan’s reconstruction adds is logic. Vidal was undeniably one of the 20th century’s greatest writers. By contrast, Brass was a provocateur and visualist, while Guccione was a tasteless egotist, and neither comprehended Vidal’s cerebral, guttural, merciless vision of Rome’s most monstrous dictator. Yet by restoring Vidal’s narrative, their audacious work is made greater. Earlier versions put spectacle first: Here, spectacle serves story. As a result, the theatrical designs of art director Danilo Donati and the cinematography of Silvano Ippoliti have never looked better.
Everything is better, like Brass’ decision to cast the greatest British actors of the era as the imperial family. When Peter O’Toole as Emperor Tiberius – rotten inside and out – refers to himself as the setting sun and Caligula as the rising, it’s inevitably and implicitly a nod to the changing of the generational guard. O’Toole had become an institution, and there’s a frisson at seeing him share the screen with McDowell, the snarling scion of the Angry Young Men, as Sir John Gielgud looks on as Nerva, the last honest man in Rome. Their long-derided performances have been excavated from Guccione’s spoil heap, restored to rank among the finest in their filmographies. As a result, storylines become more coherent, most particularly the writhing oaths and betrayals between Caligula and his most loyal lieutenant, Macro (Mannari). In earlier versions, it’s just an excuse for one of those meaningless spectacles. Here, it’s a twisted thread that will remind you that the emperor was a monster among monsters.
Even the smut makes more sense. Brass blamed Guccione for the porn – a risible statement rendered absurd by this restoration. After all, this is a story of utter debauchery as an expression of power. It’s not just the copious nudity that earns Caligula its reputation for transgressive eroticism: It’s in the incestuous threesome between Caligula, his sister Drusilla (Savoy), and the power hungry Caesonia (Mirren); and Caligula’s rape of a bride and groom; and the endless bacchanals. Yet unlike Guccione’s cut, these scenes are never for titillation. When Tiberius shrieks “more conviction!” as he stumbles through an orgy mounted at his behest, it sums up Vidal’s underlying plot thrusts. His long-standing fixations with how absolute power corrupts absolutely, and with the farcical nature of morality in a world where a man can declare himself a god, have rarely been clearer or captivating. Directors, listen up: Always trust your writers.
This article appears in August 23 • 2024.
