#CALIGULA 1979 FILM MOVIE#

DeMille is not such a stretch as you may think. Taste in such matters varies quite a bit. But is this decadence erotic? Maybe Bob Guccione thought so. There are even a couple of scenes that are borderline (or over the border) necrophilic. This latter goes together with the odd fetishization of death in the film. People have sex in these beds, lie around and talk in bed, get sick in bed, and die in bed. They look like DelacroixвЂ™s The Death of Sardanapalus on opium.

#CALIGULA 1979 FILM MOVIE#

Has there ever been another movie that spent so much time in bed? Though these are certainly amazing beds. And if anybody else had dared to call him Caligula they probably would have been killed on the spot. For example, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus would never have referred to himself as Caligula, which was a childhood nickname. In fact, much of this movie may be quite realistic. I like Peter OвЂ™Toole playing Tiberius as a syphilitic hulk, and the giggling, effeminate idiot Claudius may be just as close to reality as what we got from Derek Jacobi. I think it provides an interesting take on the emperors. The darkness of much of this film doesnвЂ™t help either. Sticking with the porn, NewsweekвЂs review said Caligula вЂњseems to have been photographed through a tub of Vaseline.вЂќ This was, in fact, the soft-focus Penthouse style at the time. Porn, I think, has gotten a lot better since the вЂ™70s. On screen they involve a lot of fake writhing around. I suspect even real orgies are dull, but movie orgies may be even worse. There are a number of porn scenes but most of these are orgies and they are very dull, explicit without being erotic. Hell, Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy) even has armpit hair. Immediately we are returned to those more natural days of yesteryear, when breast augmentation was virtually unheard of and pubic grooming not ubiquitous. I have to wonder if the thought was that Penthouse readers werenвЂ™t that good at handling text. It stays on the screen a suspiciously long time. An epigraph reminds us of how we profit not if we gain the whole world and lose our soul. Despite these examples of failure being an orphan, I do enjoy Caligula pretty much as it is. A figure such as Caligula, Vidal says, differs from us only in the fact of his power, which made it possible for him вЂњto act out his most recondite sexual fantasiesвЂќ: вЂњWhat will men so placed do? The answer, apparently, is anything and everything.вЂќ Though if you want a good summation of what Caligula is about, a line from VidalвЂ™s essay on Suetonius is as good as any. Gore Vidal wasnвЂ™t keen on having his name associated with the finished product either. To be honest, most of BrassвЂ™s movies give me a headache. I suspect if Brass had had more control Caligula would have been even less coherent. In Mission: Caligula Kelly Holland, CEO of Penthouse, has this to say about BrassвЂ™s loss of control over the film: вЂњit was as if Leonardo da Vinci was not able to finish the Mona Lisa, he only got three-quarters of the way through and then somebody took his paintbrushes away.вЂќ Hm. IвЂ™ve seen some of BrassвЂ™s other movies and donвЂ™t think thereвЂ™s any reason to believe that a masterpiece was ruined. Anyway, to go over some of the back story, most of the film was directed by Tinto Brass but was then recut by Bob Guccione, who also added some additional scenes. Something may come of these efforts, but from what IвЂ™ve seen of the material that was cut it just seems like more of the same, and wouldnвЂ™t add anything to the already obvious political satire. You can check out Alexander TuschinskiвЂ™s documentary Mission: Caligula for more on this. As I write these notes there is apparently an attempt being made to reconstruct an original version of the film thatвЂ™s nearly 90 minutes longer. When I say вЂњthe whole thingвЂќ I mean the 156-minute version. A necessary digression on the different versions of Caligula. Not just a few indelible scenes either - like the head harvester or the horse in the bed - but pretty much the whole thing. Ever since I first saw it at a rep cinema some thirty years ago itвЂ™s stayed in my head. Instead I give Caligula credit for being something of a mind worm. I donвЂ™t mean itвЂ™s a good-bad movie because itвЂ™s not the rotten or bad parts that I like. Personally, I donвЂ™t think Caligula is a good movie but I still like it. Roger Ebert, for example, began his review by stating вЂњ Caligula is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash.вЂќ Then he really started to unload on it. ItвЂ™s odd you donвЂ™t see Caligula on more вЂњworst movie everвЂќ lists, especially given how such lists are usually composed of вЂњgood-badвЂќ movies or involve censorious moral judgments.

Caligula 1979 film