Caligula

I've got this Ultimate cut as well as a big box set from Australia with two books, and a lot of other stuff. And find this new edited and longer version interesting. Because, evidently, the Italian actors thought this was to be a comedy and acted thus. The english speaking actors thought this to be a Drama and they then acted thus. While Bob Guccione secretly filmed X rated scenes and inserted them in the movie. And that changed everything.Being into movies as I am and watching it with all this in mind was somewhat fascinating. I watched the longer version in two sittings as some of it is very violent and intense and not always my 'cup-of-tea' but I wanted this controversial movie in my collection (the big box-set is already worth 300bucks).

Last night I watched CALIGULA - THE ULTIMATE CUT. Coming in at just under three hours, the film is undeniably epic in its narrative scope. It has an entirely new look - the color values are, to my eye, far less gaudy than in the 1980 release, and the pacing is far less hurried, less frantic. It's as if the people involved in this restoration actually seem interested in telling a story, however deranged that story may be and to that end, not a single frame of footage from the 1980 version is used in this edit. The result is that the performances of Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud, Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell work on an entirely new level, one worthy of their talents. McDowell's performance of Caligula is particularly vivid and terrifying as he descends into a madness that can only be overcome by his inevitable execution. And Gore Vidal's screenplay provides the artistic integrity so sorely lacking in the 1980 version. It's still strong stuff, in terms of onscreen nudity and violence. But in the final analysis, this new version of CALIGULA manages to pass the smell test.

So the "Ultimate Cut" of Caligula is pretty interesting as it seems the good people at Drafthouse were able to uncover and restore several previously "lost" scenes and footage and edited & restored it back into the film while also removing the "Hardcore" pornographic footage that made the film so infamous. The ultimate cut is meant to present the movie more in line with what the director's original vision was meant to be. This release does also comes with the original theatrical cut of the movie which contains the "Hardcore" footage, so people who liked that version can still view it on this release as well.How is this new cut of the movie? Well, while I do think it is better than the theatrical cut from a technical point, it's only marginally so. Definitely don't go into this expecting it to be a completely different movie. It's not. While there is new restored footage edited in and other footage edited out, it's mostly the exact same film, and it still has the same strength and weaknesses of the previous version. The new footage is cool to see, but none of it really added anything significant to the story. A lot of it honestly felt like it was just repeating what we already knew(like how much Caligula hates the Roman empire and just wants to make a fool of it) and I dare say this extra footage drags the movie's pacing down a lot. None of the new footage is particularly memorable but it does show off more of Malcolm Mcdowell's great acting performance in this. I will say that the ultimate cut is better edited in terms of the story. The story itself still isn't that good with none of the side characters being given any real depth and Caligula's motivation for his actions still being pretty surface level, but the way in which scenes are arranged and edited around does seem to have a bit more of a structure to it compared to the theatrical cut. They also added in a new score to the film which is way better and far more haunting than it's original cut; definitely elevates the impact of a lot of scenes. Honestly though, beyond the new score and some of the editing of certain scenes, I think I still kind of prefer the theatrical cut. The original theatrical cut, while far more gratuitous and trashy, is shorter and better paced, and really the more entertaining of the 2 cuts. Like yes, I get that a lot of people don't like the hardcore pornography inserts in the theatrical cut, but lets be real, that's kind of what made this movie so unique. It's one of the only big budget Hollywood historical epics to have such lavish production values and Oscar-worthy acting mixed in with hardcore pornography shots. It was a film like no other. And while all the actors do a great job in this, it', it's story is really not that interesting. Some people might say that the theatrical cut focuses more on the story, but if we're being honest there still isn't much of a story to focus on. The story presented in both cuts of the film basically amounts to "Caligula hates the Roman empire and wants to make a mockery of it by just being an anarchist and doing every deplorable thing he can think of until his peers decide to assassinate him". It's 3 hours of Caligula being evil without much substance. Sure, Malcolm Mcdowell does add a lot of nuance to his character with some great acting, but his character's motivation is just too surface level. Whatever artistic value this movie might have, it ultimately just feels like your just watching an unlikable tyrant doing unlikable things for 3 hours without any real character growth or development. The performances only work because the actors involved do such a good job with so little. The hardcore footage in the theatrical cut, if nothing else, at least added to the theme of the perversion of the roman empire and gave the film a twisted morbid fascination to it. I mean even if you take out all the pornographic footage, the movie still isn't any less sleazy or perverted in the ultimate cut. It's still not a "Safe for work" kind of film. Like, they edited out all the hardcore inserts but still left in the super messed up r*pe sequence which is undoubtedly the most disturbing part of the whole movie and is way more uncomfortable to watch than any of the pornographic stuff in the film. And that whole sequence really had nothing to do with anything in the story, other than to just show off how evil a character Caligula was, which the rest of the movie shows off anyway. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Ultimate cut is still a very deplorable and unsightly film even with all the hardcore porn edited out, but the theatrical cut was shorter and ultimately more entertaining for just how sleazy it was, despite the ultimate cut being a "Technically" better film. I don't know, you be the judge. If you've already seen the theatrical cut, then this new cut isn't much different but it is interesting to watch just from a filmmaking standpoint and to see how they re-edited certain parts of the film. Regardless of the matter, the Ultimate cut is certainly the best looking version of this film we've seen thus far with some really great restoration and cleanup of the footage. Remastered in high definition, this movie looks better visually than it's ever had. Unfortunately while the ultimate cut is remastered in high definition, it seems like no care or thought was put into restoring the theatrical cut included in this set. The theatrical cut still has the picture quality of a VHS tape with lots of grain and picture defects. It's not terrible. It's perfectly watchable, but I was really hoping that they would have gone through the effort to restoring the theatrical cut as well, especially considering that the theatrical cut and ultimate cut use most of the same footage. At the end of the day, this is still a good release and the ultimate cut is definitely worth watching for anyone who was interested in this film; just don't be expecting anything too different.

If Marvel Comics had wanted to remake Caligula in CGI, this would be it. I am surprised they didn't put in shots of Caligula flying around the sets and shooting lasers at people.The producers say they found 90 hours of discarded footage and decided to remake it. They stated they were trying to make a version that didn't use anything from the original, so they took all the scenes that the original editors cut for being bad (you know, there is a reason why the editors cut those shots), took out all the previously used good shots and made a "movie" that is the same story but made like it was all done by a second camera that was always in the wrong location. This is nothing but trash.Some of the worst things they did wrong :1. They claimed to be trying to "fix" the 1980 version by removing the porn, however, they seemed to have had a bit of a Schizophrenic moment about the porn scenes, because they used some and cut others out.2. The old version was filmed in basically beautifully detailed deep Roman red sets and lighting, but they decided to replace it all with pastel blue and white CGI sets which are dull and plain.3. They changed the aspect ratio of the movie and severely cropped a lot of scenes.4. Basically this is a CGI cartoon of Caligula with the people planted into the new backgrounds, like Mary Poppins on meth.5. They deleted entire scenes and replaced them with other scenes and put them in different sequences, and the wrong order, making the movie difficult to follow.6. Using the discarded "B" shots, many of the scenes are views from behind, or are out of focus or so cropped you can't see what is going on.I can't believe they did such a poor job. I saw the 1980 version in a theater I saw the 1980 version when it first came out (before it was banned in the original X-rated version) and I always thought that if they had not put all the hard porn into it, it would have been a really good and accurate historical depiction of the early Roman Empire, especially about Caligula, but this was NOT how to do it.

Pour tous ceux qui auraient vu la première version, c’est un grand changement, plus une reconstruction qu’autres choses… nouvelle trame musicale…. certains moments « inutiles » supprimés…certains « footages » retrouvés et ajoutés….. personnellement les deux versions se doivent d’être vues…. mais pour la plupart des gens, ils vont apprécier de travail de moine cinématographique…..!Je le recommande, pour amateur du genre et cœur solide…. Le côté historique est aussi très intéressant, décors somptueux et les vêtements, magnifiques….!

Calígula es conocida por ser una versión elaborada del mítico gobernador de Roma con mucho contenido elevado y sin duda lo entrega con honores.El DVD llegó en excelentes condiciones y rápido. Incluye subtítulos en español para poder disfrutar sin censura su adaptación estrella.

Un film culte de très Bonne qualité. Pour adultes vu certaines scènes pour adultes et avec une violence trop accessible aux jeunes de nos jours.

Ser a versão integral e em bluray!

Spanische Blu-ray mit ausschließlich englischem Ton in 5.1 und 2.0 Sound. Optionale spanische Untertitel. Achtung: kein deutscher Ton! Laufzeit: 172 Min.Bonus: Trailer und kleine, aber unspektakuläre Bildergalerie. 32 seitiges Booklet mit Informationen zur Entstehung des Ultimate Cut in spanischer Sprache.Besonderheiten gegenüber der Originalfassung: Deutliche Entschärfung bis komplette Entfernung der Sex- und Tabubruch-Szenen, komplett neue Takes, neuer Vorspann, Original Dialogaufnahmen (kein Looping), einige neue Szenen und Szenenverlängerungen, neue Filmmusik.Diese neue Schnittfassung des Films ist für alle, welche die unzensierte Kinofassung von 1979/1980 kennen und nicht nur wegen ihrer "skandalösen" Szenen mögen, eine lohnenswerte Alternativversion von"Caligula". Man bekommt einen völlig neuen Film zu sehen, der aus gänzlich anderen Takes und einigen bis dahin unbekannten Szenen montiert. Man sieht deutlicher, welch ein irrer Aufwand bei den Studiokulissen betrieben wurde und wie grandios die Leistung der Schauspieler ist. Und hier liegt auch der deutliche Unterschied zur Orginalversion: keine Hardcore Sex-Szenen, weniger provokante Tabubrüche, dafür echte Film- und Schauspielkunst, die sich nicht in der Schmuddelecke zu verstecken braucht. Helen Mirren hat hier übrigens deutlich mehr Screen Time. Freilich sollte man keine modernisierte, auf Hèktik getrimmte Version erwarten. Der Ultimate Cut ist ein dialoglastiges Drama geblieben, das einem Mainstream-Publikum von heute viel zu zähflüssig vorkommen wird. Der Film ist wie ein aufwändig inszeniertes Theaterstück für die große Leinwand zu sehen. Was mir persönlich an der neuen Fassung aber nicht gefällt ist die Musik, die, wie seit Jahren üblich, eher belangloses Synthesizèr-Sounddesign ist. Da ist Bruno Nicolais (Pseudonym: Paul Clemente) orchestrale Arbeit für die alte Version weitaus besser, was deŕ Cue "Isis Pool" für die Untermalung der lesbischen Isis-Orgie in Drusillas Haus beispielhaft zeigt. Auch der neue Main Title-Vorspann, ein CGI-animierter Alptraum Caligulss, wirkt stilistisch einfach deplatziert. Da war das Original mit der Münze doch besser. Ich freue mich jedenfalls, dass es den Ultimate Cut von "Caligula" 44 Jahre nach der Kinopremiere der Originalversion gibt, auch wenn es sich dabei nicht um Tinto Brass' Version handelt. ,"The Ultimate Cut " stellt eine lohnenswerte Ergänzung zur alten Fassung dar, auch aufgrund der neuen Szenen. Nicht zuletzt gibt er den Schauspielern, von denen mittlerweile schon viele gestorben sind, ihre Würde zurück. Der Ultimate Cut ersetzt die unzensierte Version jedoch nicht. Um es mit Tiberius' Worten zu sagen: "One needs both. For health."