CALIGULA
Italy, 1979, 145 minutes, Colour.
Malcolm Mc Dowell, Teresa Ann Savoy, Helen Mirren, Peter O’ Toole, John Gielgud, John Steiner, Adriana Asti, Donato Placido.
Directed by Tinto Brass.
Caligula is often described as one of the most controversial films for public release. It was finished in 1979 but work continued on the film, especially by its producer, Bob Guccione from Penthouse, and there was some years before it was released worldwide.
There was a strong response at the time of its release to Bob Guccione and his Penthouse background, especially when it became known that he and an Italian associate had directed some more explicit sequences with some hard-core touches which were inserted into the film. Director Tinto Brass had a reputation for explicit sexuality in films, with the touch of the pornographic. His films include Salon Kitty and The Key. However, he was fired from this film and, while the majority of the film is his, its impact is affected by the contribution of Guccione and his associates.
On its release, the principal cast wanted to be dissociated from the film and made protests. There was a credit that the film was based on an original screenplay by Gore Vidal. Vidal asked that his name be removed and sued the company for some damages. Nevertheless, the principal stars are to be seen in some graphic sequences and explicit sequences.
For video release, the film was edited, with a lot of the explicit material being taken out – with the result that the standard video and early DVD release ran with an hour taken out of the film.
Watching the film in the 21st century is probably quite a different experience from watching it in the 1980s, given the changes in community standards, what is permissible on screen and what is not, and audience ability to deal with this kind of material rather than being apprehensive as so many were when the film was released. With so much pornography and violence easily available on the Internet, Caligula is certainly much less in depiction and impact than much of that material more readily available than before. Which means that audiences might be able to leave aside the Penthouse excesses, even the excesses of Tinto Brass, and appreciate some of the more serious strands and performances as well as explorations of Roman history. Not that this is the last word on the era – the BBC’s famous series, I, Claudius, would still be a standard – with Derek Jacobi as Claudius and John Hurt as Caligula.
The film begins with a statement is this pagan Rome – although some commentators say that adultery was a punishable crime and that orgies were not as prevalent as this film seems to make out. Nevertheless, it was a time of some decadence, a great deal of violent cruelty, especially the internecine killings within the ruling families. There is also a quotation from the gospel of Saint Mark about what does it profit to gain the whole world to lose one’s soul…
The film opens with a coin image of Caligula, eventually with blood coming from his eye. And the date of the action is 37 A.D. – 41 A.D.
The film shows Caligula as mad, crude, cruel, sexually voracious, of both nymphs and satyrs as he says. He is played by Malcolm Mc Dowell, more than a decade after his pivotal role in if… and eight years after A Clockwork Orange. He seems an exact piece of casting, relishing his excesses on screen, proclaiming that he was a God, killing discriminately and indiscriminately to be rid of rivals, eventually suffering the inevitable coup and death by an army general.
The film opens with Caligula and the relationship, sexual, with his sister Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy) – something which continues throughout the film, she having quite an influence on him as well as the passionate and explicit encounters, including a birth sequence. While Caligula has his eye on a range of women, especially on the wife of his trusted lieutenant, Macro – who eventually does fall foul of him and is cruelly executed – his eye is on Caesonia, Helen Mirren, who shares in his erotic and bloodthirsty desires.
Where the film is interesting is in its rendition of the history. In the first third of the film, there is a focus on the Emperor, Tiberius, played to effect by Peter O’ Toole, with make up indicating that physically as well as morally, he was rotting. There is also a typically dignified performance by John Gielgud as Nerva, enemy of the Emperor who chooses a dignified suicide, at his own time, for his death defiance of the Emperor.
There is a prolonged sequence where Caligula chooses the right of the bed to disrupt and destroy a virginal couple, callously tormenting and raping the bride, taunting and raping the bridegroom – whom he later murders in a scene of some sadism.
There is a continual atmosphere of orgies – whether the intention of Tinto Brass or the intention of the Penthouse directors, interspersed with scenes which are obviously edited in, especially several woman on woman sequences for Penthouse titillation. There is also an extended sequence where Caligula wanders the city disguised and views the ugliness.
Of interest are the sets, highly stylised, limited to sound stages, filmed with striking colours.which give the film a lot of atmosphere. Atmosphere is also provided by the musical background from familiar themes from Katchaturian and Prokofiev.
Sometimes there are scenes of state, the signing of documents, a visit to the Senate – which ends in the senators agreeing to Caligula being a God, with status for his favoured horse, and Caligula taunting the senators by baahing and their following suit, a cloth coming down on them and an extended sequence where he turns the Senate into a brothel, gathering the wives of the senators and acting as the master of the brothel urging customers on.
Caligula cannot necessarily be recommended for viewing – but it would seem that several decades after its initial release controversy, many audiences could deal with it and note the sections which are of value.
