FeedCaligula
May 29 2009, 8:30pm
We watched a 153-minute "pre-release cut" from the Caligula "Imperial Edition" 2-disc Blu-ray set, because that was the version that included Helen Mirren's commentary. So I should note that I have not actually watched *any* cut of Caligula with the original soundtrack.
Not that I think that would matter all that much; it's a profoundly visual movie. Though there are [I assume] plenty of complicated revenge & double-crossing plot twists, they all appear to take place among a tiny handful of characters, most of whom are played by fairly distinctive actors. And they all wind up the same way: dead, graphically so.
There is apparently still a fair amount of uncertainty over how much of the final product is attributable to director Tinto Brass, and how much to producer Bob Guccione, who fired Tinto & recut the thing himself (I should note that this Blu-ray cut, as well as all the other commercially available cuts, is the non-hardcore version from 1979).
I found many aspects of it fascinating, not least of which that (despite its reputation as a Guccione-style soft-porn romp) it's decidedly more on the side of art than of commerce. Sure, there seem to be naked people *everywhere*, in every scene . . . but it's still a 2.5-hour movie about ancient Rome which features, among other things, a sepulchral Peter O'Toole covered in syphilis sores; Malcom McDowell repeatedly performing a bizarre dance involving the thumbs-up gesture (as well as delivering an extended monologue while pissing on a marble column); and multiple instances of graphic penile mutilation.
Also fascinating: Tinto Brass's strategy of shooting everything from afar, with multiple cameras, some equipped with telephoto lenses. Helen Mirren remarks on it several times in her commentary, but it was fairly obvious even without her saying anything, as the closeups and two-shots achieved via telephoto from 80 yards away look pretty fucked-up. But, as Mirren says, it did allow for them to get whole scenes done in fewer takes, and provided ample coverage without continuity issues.
Which came in handy when Guccione locked Brass out of the editing suite, unfortunately before Brass was even able to brief the editors on what he'd done and why. There are times when they seem to be cutting at random between the different cameras, including cutting into the middle of zooms that weren't meant to wind up in the final cut. It lends another layer of anarchy to a film that's already plenty anarchic.
Numeric rating wise, I'm giving it a 5, due in large part to its incoherence, sloppy cinematography, and excessive length. (as well as the 70s Italian habit of shooting nothing with sync-sound and dubbing everything, badly, later). But I think a sub-2-hour cut, supervised by Brass, might earn an 8 or a 9 for sheer perversity.
Not that I think that would matter all that much; it's a profoundly visual movie. Though there are [I assume] plenty of complicated revenge & double-crossing plot twists, they all appear to take place among a tiny handful of characters, most of whom are played by fairly distinctive actors. And they all wind up the same way: dead, graphically so.
There is apparently still a fair amount of uncertainty over how much of the final product is attributable to director Tinto Brass, and how much to producer Bob Guccione, who fired Tinto & recut the thing himself (I should note that this Blu-ray cut, as well as all the other commercially available cuts, is the non-hardcore version from 1979).
I found many aspects of it fascinating, not least of which that (despite its reputation as a Guccione-style soft-porn romp) it's decidedly more on the side of art than of commerce. Sure, there seem to be naked people *everywhere*, in every scene . . . but it's still a 2.5-hour movie about ancient Rome which features, among other things, a sepulchral Peter O'Toole covered in syphilis sores; Malcom McDowell repeatedly performing a bizarre dance involving the thumbs-up gesture (as well as delivering an extended monologue while pissing on a marble column); and multiple instances of graphic penile mutilation.
Also fascinating: Tinto Brass's strategy of shooting everything from afar, with multiple cameras, some equipped with telephoto lenses. Helen Mirren remarks on it several times in her commentary, but it was fairly obvious even without her saying anything, as the closeups and two-shots achieved via telephoto from 80 yards away look pretty fucked-up. But, as Mirren says, it did allow for them to get whole scenes done in fewer takes, and provided ample coverage without continuity issues.
Which came in handy when Guccione locked Brass out of the editing suite, unfortunately before Brass was even able to brief the editors on what he'd done and why. There are times when they seem to be cutting at random between the different cameras, including cutting into the middle of zooms that weren't meant to wind up in the final cut. It lends another layer of anarchy to a film that's already plenty anarchic.
Numeric rating wise, I'm giving it a 5, due in large part to its incoherence, sloppy cinematography, and excessive length. (as well as the 70s Italian habit of shooting nothing with sync-sound and dubbing everything, badly, later). But I think a sub-2-hour cut, supervised by Brass, might earn an 8 or a 9 for sheer perversity.
