Caligula - Aufstieg und Fall eines Tyrannen

Maybe it helps to be familiar with the history, Art, and literature of the Ancient Rome because "Caligula" is surprisingly truthful adaptation of the chapter about Caligula in "The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquillus, the Roman Historian. If you read the chapter dedicated to Nero, you'll be even more shocked because Nero was always fascinated by his uncle Caligula (he was a son of Caligula's sister Agrippina who later became a wife of Claudius who adopted Nero and made him the heir for the title and the power of Roman Emperor). Anyway, Nero made Caligula his role model and managed to surpass his uncle's' notorious fame.

The movie is notoriously famous for the plentiful scenes of real sex, including incest, necrophilia, rape, and orgies. The movie also includes quite nasty and gruesome scenes of torture, executions, murders, and humiliations but all of the events have been documented in the historical documents that still exist.

I don't think of the movie as a masterpiece or even a good movie for all of its 2.5 hours. It actually reminds the life of real Caligula. In his childhood and youth, he was adored by Roman people and especially by the army and he was a promising young man. When he grew up as a heir to the cruel and suspicious Tiberius, he had to hide his feelings and go through many humiliations in order to survive. Shrewd Tiberius said about his adopted grandson that "never humankind knew the better slave and the worse ruler than Caligula" and that he was rearing "a viper for the Roman people and a Phaethon for the world."

When the young man finally received an access to the absolute power it had absolutely corrupted him. It is also known that soon after becoming head of Roman Empire, Caligula suffered an illness and as the result of it, he became incredibly nasty, cruel, and suspicious man who had indulged in the worst acts of debauchery, cruelty, and sadism. The movie follows this pattern. I still think that it is an interesting movie with very good actors. Not every day you can see porn with Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole, Sir John Gielgud, and of course, Mr. Clockwork Orange himself, Malcolm McDowell.

This movie gets way too much hate. It is not even close to being one of the worst movies I've seen.

Malcolm Mcdowell is fantastic as always. It is worth seeing just for his performance alone.

I was also really impressed by the costumes, I thought they were gorgeous. My favorite was the one Caligula wears near the end which is a gorgeous metallic green. You can tell the effort put behind not only the wardrobe but the hairstyles and the sets, they are some of the best aspects of the film. The costume designer Danilo Donati actually won some Oscars because of his work in other films.

Now, everybody who dislikes the film do so because of the very explicit porn. I agree most of the time is excessive and goes on for way too long, I think because of the nature of the story and character a certain amount of explicitness works, but for the most part I find it too be too much and too long.

If you take away the porn, this movie would be far better received. There's an actual story and it has great performances for the most part.

It is not perfect however, I do feel the movie stayed one note from beginning to end, doesnt feel like a 3 act story but it was worth it in the end. I am really looking forward to watching the new version that premiered at Cannes this year, hoping it becomes available to the general public very soon.

Excuse the title of this review however the bottom line is, it has to be seen to be believed. The purely supreme cast is more than likely the only thing keeping the film from being well and truly buried in a basement. Historical revelations indicate that the content of this film probably does in fact (to a degree) reflect the lunacy rampant at the time and yes that means....meaningless executions, wild paranoia, incest and of course the gratuitous sex which could probably leave some soft porn movies looking very average (provided you get the right version). No its not a true classic but it dabbles with taboo, and dares go where other films draw the line. Its one i'll watch again and one you'd have to see merely to say you saw it. 6/10 scorpio

This is the sort of film that I would have enjoyed stumbling upon as a 15 year old switching through late night BBC 2 and channel 4 at 3am in the morning.

I think I watched the 'Uncut version' of this film. I found it somewhat hard to follow or to understand every motive or decision other that the overlying top most story.

It was just wild decisions of mad man in my opinion. However, now reading details about the film, there would have been cuts and edits here and there that broke up the flow.

It did provoke some thoughts about what it might have been like to live in those times. How life had little value and could be taken away for very minor issues.

It also highlighted how certain types of entertainment media still existed, it just wasn't in the mainstream. As humans, we haven't progressed as much as we would like to think.

I have access to the Ultimate Cut version and watched about 5 mins of it so far. This version has 20 mins more in the run time, missing scenes and some rearranged, different angles and different audio/script.

In those 5 mins, I was able to get a better understanding of the story compared to the uncut version. It even briefly explained initial history of the making of the film. What I will do is probably revisit it in a month.

It was interesting to see Dame Helen Mirren in her physical prime. I've only ever seen her acting over the age of 45.

The film is gory in a low tech way. I don't think I know anyone that I could recommend this to.

Where to start..... First off, the sets are wonderful. They are lavish and look authentic of the time, except as if a madman on acid was given a gigantic budget and told to "go at it!" Peter O'Toole is wonderful as the aging Tiberius. Malcolm McDowell gives a great performance as the young Caligula who kills his way to the throne of the Roman Emperor and then soon leads a legacy of terror. The supporting actors do a fine job yet, most of the young ladies were actually Penthouse Pets and were there for eye candy and irrelevant sex scenes. Depending on which film you are watching, the uncut or the R-version, some scenes are extremely graphic. I would usually always recommend the uncut version as opposed to the chopped one, but in this instance, the full length film is purely indulgent. Scenes of sex and gore were added to satisfy the producers (Penthouse) and the expected audience, not to add anything to the story. However, I am and will always be a fan of excess, so get the full version! The story is strong and keeps you interested. McDowell is charming throughout, which is quite the feat considering he murders family members, rapes and molests men and women, and sleeps with his sister. For fans of excess and sleaze, i highly recommend. Viewers who are purely interested in the reign of the notorious ruler might want to skip this one.