Caligula: The Ultimate Cut

This is truly a lost opportunity. After a massive search, a film scholar tracked down all of the original film shot by director Tinto Brass, who is still alive, and he wante4d to work with Brass to finally make a director's cut.

Penthouse, which own the rights, changed management and the new management instead turned the footage over to some people with absolutely no background in film restoration. This new team said they wanted to restore the film to the intentions of Gore Vidal's script. The main problem with that is Tinto Brass was not filming Vidal's script as it was written, as he thought it was terrible. He and actor Malcolm McDowell reworked the script into something more of an art film.

The result of this restoration is that the scenes are finally in the right order but put together with with no sense of style or pacing. Tinto Brass envisioned lots of close up and fast editing, and completed about half of the film this way. Instead we get long takes that emphasize the lavish sets and obscure the action. It looks like a rough cut that is waiting for someone to add closeups and quicken the pace. A few individual scenes work much better in the original due to better editing.

Another drawback is the overly modern score, which doesn't reflect musical trends of the 1970s, when the film was shot.

On the plus side, all of the incongruous hardcore scenes shot by Penthouse chief Bob Guccione are gone. A more coherent performance by Malcolm McDowell can be seen, though at times some of the more manic takes might have worked better to emphasize his deteriorating mental state.

They've recut Caligula. They could've made it shorter, but it's longer, clocking 3 hours. The point is, is it better? Surely it is, I mean everyone hated the original. There's still sex, blood and violence, but some of the OTT porn is gone and in fact I'm lead to believe that nothing from the original remains, this is all edited from scratch, from the original rushes, with additional CGI trickery to cover some of the many issues from the '79 version. Rome A. D. 37, a young Caligula (Malcolm McDowell) is a paranoid type. Protected by privilege and decadence, he's too much time on his hands. Time to fret about those who may try to harm him and time to sleep with his sister Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy). It's still not a particularly easy film to watch. Caligula is mocked by his aging and dying grandfather, the emperor Tiberius (Peter O'Toole) while he swims with dozens of naked people. He's a terrible role model, showing the impressionable youngster a world of vice. Considering this was panned due to its gratuitous sex scenes, this recut really doesn't fix that. It's clear that although most of the cast and crew disowned it, they knew what they were shooting. Caligula is hungry for power, hungry to see the back of the old guard like Nerva (John Gielgud). He see's what's coming, the sadistic nature of the powers that be and future of Rome. Not that we see an awful lot of Rome. This all largely takes place in carefully crafted mostly internal darkly lit sets. Which is probably just as well with the cast naked half the time. Wresting the emperors ring from his thought to be dead hand, Caligula finally tastes what he's been chasing, but is too cowardly to see the job through. That is left to the muscle, Macro (Guido Mannari). Setting forth a new era, hailed by the ominous early synth score. There's some arrestingly iconic shots for sure and McDowell conveys an entire world in that expressive face, but bloody hell this is still a slog. If it weren't for McDowell carrying this it would be excruciating. The best thing I can say about this is, watching McDowell's performance convey the power that begins to corse through Caligula. From his childlike cowardice to full blown corrupt madman, it's quite a transformation and he's quite mesmeric. For all its pomposity, there's some scenes that really ought to have been cut completely though. They serve little to the story but to shock. It shows no nuance at all, it's one very long decent into cinematic debauchery. Any film that reduces Helen Mirren (as Caesonia) into little more than yet another naked body, is pretty inexcusable. The only particularly likeable character is Longinus (John Steiner), he's the only one with anything close to a reasonable IQ. There's one shot, around the 2 and a half hour mark where he exchanges a quiet look with Chaerea (Paolo Bonacelli), as if to say, can you believe they're actually filming this!? So, is it an improvement? Well I can't recall much of its predecessor, it's been mercifully erased from memory, so yes. It's still indulgent though. Often dull. Occasionally shocking and seldom entertaining, but that doesn't make it a bad film. It doesn't make it a great film either, but it's better than mere porn it's excused of. I can't decide if I like it, it has too much of an air of foley, mimicking Caligula's. I don't hate it though and if you're so inclined it's worth a watch.

Caligula is a film with a storied history. What began as a sprawling historical epic saw much of the film land on the cutting room floor. In its place, a violent and pornographic cash-grab that bore little resemblance to the script by Gore Vidal. Though a box office success, thanks to the controversy surrounding the film, critics derided it, and the cast disowned it. Now, forty-four years later, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut intends to showcase the film's original vision-a riveting and complex historical drama showcasing the intoxicating allure of sexuality and power. The film runs nearly three hours, is entirely fascinating, and delivers a triumphant expose on how 'absolute power corrupts absolutely.' In an era of director's cuts and alternate versions, Caligula is a magnificent restoration with a triumphant zeal.

Full Review: Geek Vibes Nation.

As a huge caligula fan i own all there is to own about my fav roman emperor and so when i heard there is a new extended edition of the beloved 1979 film with around 20 or so new footage scenes i was excited and i immediately bought the new spanish blu ray release.

Sadly things did not went well with this.

This cut has a lot of flaws. In fact all went wrong if u exclude some new deleted scenes.

Those deleted scenes were the only worthy part of the film.

U get to see how caligula orders other people to worship his own statues which replaced those of the gods. This scene was great and there are a few more but the good things end here.

Unfortunately this is NOT the original take of the film and everything was changed.

What i mean is even the voices the way the actors performed was different than the theatrical version and that was not good.

More important the divine music which made the original film so much better was not here.

The music used here was boring and added nothing to the film.

I was tired watching this.

I will only keep this cut cause of the new footage and that's that.

I'm very disappointed of this new extended cut.

So i advise you to stick to the imperial edition of the film and the original 155 minutes long version.

I watched Caligula for the first time in July 2023. Shortly after, I found out about a new version that had premiered at Cannes, but wasn't available to stream or purchase.

I did my research, found out about the man in charge of this restoration, Thomas Negovan, subscribed to his youtube and Patreon and just kept checking from time to time to see when I would finally be able to watch this.

The time finally came. This is a much better movie. It flows a lot better. Caligula's descend into madness and fear is far far better shown.

All of the new scenes are excellent. When you watch them, you realize how so many of the scenes in the original version were cut short.

For example, near the end, at the dinner after Britain's ''conquer'', in the original version he suddenly yells ''CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL!'', doesn't make a lot of sense. But in this new cut, they added the entire scene in which Caligula was playing ''Caesar says'' and commanding the people there to do different things. Such as ''Caesar says turn right, caesar says hop'' He finally snaps and that's when he screams ''CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL'' Just one of many examples.

There are however, a few things I liked more in the original. The final shot for example. It showed the blood dripping down the stairs with the dead bodies lying there, I think it is a great final shot. In this new cut they removed that.

I also miss the music from the original opening and the phrase that appears :''For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?''

The music in this new version was a bit tame in my opinion.

All the long porn scenes have been removed, no more 10 minute long blowjobs. However, I believe there were a few highly explicit very short scenes that I believe should have been left in. I think that explicitness added a lot.

I don't think it is a perfect film, but it is definitely superior to the original. You get a lot a lot more character development, overall, it just flows better.