`I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the heavens. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula I am all men as I am no man, and so - I am a God!'
Bob Guccione's Penthouse International invested 17.5 million dollars into the production of Caligula, and in doing so created one of the wildest exploitation films ever made.
The film, which chronicles the terrifying reign of the tyrant Gaius Caligula Caesar, Rome's fourth and most notorious emperor, who ruled from A.D. 37 to A.D. 41, took eleven months to film and attracted a multitude of talented artists into its creative team. These included renowned novelist, essayist, playwright and historian Gore Vidal, who wrote the initial screenplay the final film was based on, and Danilo Donati, four time Academy award winning designer, and frequent Fellini collaborator, who created the lavish sets, 64 all up, and costumes. The Emperor himself had 26 costume changes alone. 3,592 costumes in all were created. Actors of the calibre and stature of Malcolm McDowell, Sir John Gielgud, Helen Mirren and Peter O'Toole flew to Rome for what promised to be one hell of an experience, and it proved to be just that.
Ever since its release in 1979 Caligula has been resoundly lambasted by not only the critics but by most of the participants in the production. It is well known that the production of the film degenerated into a huge slagging match between the main talents and the money men and that the director, Tinto Brass, was removed from the production after he had edited the first twenty minutes of the film. The rest of the film was edited by Guccione and a freelance editor, and if you look at the film from the moment when dawn arrives and all the freaks awake in Tiberius' grotto, they had no idea what they were doing. They probably even used the wrong takes most of the time. The blame for the films failure has been placed mainly at the feet of Brass. Brass reportedly used three to five cameras all rolling at the same time to capture the action. This was one of the reasons used by Penthouse to fire him. They claimed that he wasted film shooting this way. Yet, if you look at the first twenty minutes the film is a sharply edited piece of work, excluding the opening sequence in the forest, which is pretty dire, and which probably was never shot to open the film anyway. It's a shame Brass wasn't left in control, as I believe he would have produced an intelligent movie. Sure, it wasn't going to be the erotic/todger pulling classic Guccione wanted, but who cares. One of the really bad aspects of the film are the stupid porno inserts featuring the pets. I believe Brass was on his way to creating a masterpiece, well, maybe not, but certainly a film of much merit. Piernico Solinas, author of The Ultimate Porno: The Making of a sex Colossal, certainly believed this to be true. It would be interesting to see the film totally re-edited from start to finish again. There is certainly a lot of footage that was shot that never ended up in the final cut.
Caligula is an easy film to knock. People don't like it because of its frankness. People claim it is badly acted. People claim it is badly written. People claim it is badly photographed. People claim it is just bad. Well they are wrong. What it is is a prime example of how to ruin a film in the editing stage. Anyone claiming it to be badly photographed need look no further than the Dutch Filmworks release of it on DVD. This is a beautiful, not completely blemish free, print that shows just how well filmed Caligula was. It is far superior to the Penthouse DVD. Sure, Caligula is not a perfect film, and sure it is in your face filmmaking, but at least the filmmakers had the guts to make something different, something challenging. What went wrong with Caligula was that there were too many chiefs. What Caligula was was a brave and interesting experiment that didn't quite come off. Caligula could have been powerful, intelligent and stunning. Instead, it is one of the best exploitation films ever made. And, anyway, who could hate a movie that has a giant head lopping machine in it.
Bob Guccione's Penthouse International invested 17.5 million dollars into the production of Caligula, and in doing so created one of the wildest exploitation films ever made.
The film, which chronicles the terrifying reign of the tyrant Gaius Caligula Caesar, Rome's fourth and most notorious emperor, who ruled from A.D. 37 to A.D. 41, took eleven months to film and attracted a multitude of talented artists into its creative team. These included renowned novelist, essayist, playwright and historian Gore Vidal, who wrote the initial screenplay the final film was based on, and Danilo Donati, four time Academy award winning designer, and frequent Fellini collaborator, who created the lavish sets, 64 all up, and costumes. The Emperor himself had 26 costume changes alone. 3,592 costumes in all were created. Actors of the calibre and stature of Malcolm McDowell, Sir John Gielgud, Helen Mirren and Peter O'Toole flew to Rome for what promised to be one hell of an experience, and it proved to be just that.
Ever since its release in 1979 Caligula has been resoundly lambasted by not only the critics but by most of the participants in the production. It is well known that the production of the film degenerated into a huge slagging match between the main talents and the money men and that the director, Tinto Brass, was removed from the production after he had edited the first twenty minutes of the film. The rest of the film was edited by Guccione and a freelance editor, and if you look at the film from the moment when dawn arrives and all the freaks awake in Tiberius' grotto, they had no idea what they were doing. They probably even used the wrong takes most of the time. The blame for the films failure has been placed mainly at the feet of Brass. Brass reportedly used three to five cameras all rolling at the same time to capture the action. This was one of the reasons used by Penthouse to fire him. They claimed that he wasted film shooting this way. Yet, if you look at the first twenty minutes the film is a sharply edited piece of work, excluding the opening sequence in the forest, which is pretty dire, and which probably was never shot to open the film anyway. It's a shame Brass wasn't left in control, as I believe he would have produced an intelligent movie. Sure, it wasn't going to be the erotic/todger pulling classic Guccione wanted, but who cares. One of the really bad aspects of the film are the stupid porno inserts featuring the pets. I believe Brass was on his way to creating a masterpiece, well, maybe not, but certainly a film of much merit. Piernico Solinas, author of The Ultimate Porno: The Making of a sex Colossal, certainly believed this to be true. It would be interesting to see the film totally re-edited from start to finish again. There is certainly a lot of footage that was shot that never ended up in the final cut.
Caligula is an easy film to knock. People don't like it because of its frankness. People claim it is badly acted. People claim it is badly written. People claim it is badly photographed. People claim it is just bad. Well they are wrong. What it is is a prime example of how to ruin a film in the editing stage. Anyone claiming it to be badly photographed need look no further than the Dutch Filmworks release of it on DVD. This is a beautiful, not completely blemish free, print that shows just how well filmed Caligula was. It is far superior to the Penthouse DVD. Sure, Caligula is not a perfect film, and sure it is in your face filmmaking, but at least the filmmakers had the guts to make something different, something challenging. What went wrong with Caligula was that there were too many chiefs. What Caligula was was a brave and interesting experiment that didn't quite come off. Caligula could have been powerful, intelligent and stunning. Instead, it is one of the best exploitation films ever made. And, anyway, who could hate a movie that has a giant head lopping machine in it.