


AMY GOODMAN: A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. Disturbingly, she writes that they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control as well. The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced sea-smurf. These sea-smurfs, Cavallaro reports, have spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month dwell time time troops are required to spend to reset and regenerate after a deployment armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets....
FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.
It gets worse:
NAOMI WOLF: On October 1, 2008, President Bush deployed a brigade which means three to four thousand warriors somewhere in America. We do not know where they are deployed though citizens have informally reported to me having seen military vehicles and troops in Georgia and Alabama. We do know that their official mandate according to the first report is crowd control as well as action in the event of a mass civilian catastrophe. Initial reports described their technology module package as involving Tasers and rubber bullets.... The First Brigade is Bushs force: they are not answerable to Congress or to the Governors of states: they are answerable to the Commander in Chief. In an Alternet posting, I interviewed Air Force Colonel (retired) David Antoon who noted that the troops must obey the president, even if he asks them to arrest Congress or fire on civilians or attack media outlets. If they do not obey orders, he notes, they face five years in prison.... Antoon himself calls the deployment ominous. Troops on our streets makes us something less than a democracy: one definition of a police state is when a leader sends his own military units into civilian streets. Meanwhile the civilian policing of citizens is becoming more brutal. Hundreds of preemptive arrests took place in St Paul, dozens of journalists were arrested.... In St. Paul, funds were sent in advance to pay off the lawsuits against police forces that were guaranteed to arise from the planned abuse of citizens. This sort of thing is happening across the country. The tactic has established a closed circle that has turned citizens law enforcement agencies into contractors of a state that is directing acts of increasing severity against US citizens. Now a military brigade is being deployed....
FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.
Click here to see an interview with Naomi Wolf conducted in early October 2008.
For the past five years or so I hve been hearing rumors that Halliburton has been building (and has now finished building) 800 prisons throughout the USA, not yet functioning, but just waiting for the right crisis. I have not found reliable evidence for the specific quantity, readiness, functionality, locations, or details, but you might be interested in taking a look at page 5 of this Halliburton press release dated 26 January 2006: KBR has been awarded a contract announced by the Department of Homeland Securitys United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component. The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contingency contract is to support ICE facilities and has a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term. The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States, or to support the rapid development of new programs.... Now, really, what are the chances of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States? And what are the new programs that could come under rapid development?
FOR THE FULL PRESS RELEASE, CLICK HERE.
FRIDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2008 TRAGIC NEWS. EDUARDO GUSTAVO BERGARA LEUMANN PASSED AWAY AFTER A LONG ILLNESS.
I OFFER TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS MY MOST SORROWFUL CONDOLENCES. MAY HIS MEMORY LIVE ON.

IN BUENOS AIRES HE RAN THE FAMED LA BOTICA DEL ANGEL, AND IN CALIGULA HE PLAYED THE PART OF THE HIGH PRIEST BERGARIUS, A PART THAT WAS NEARLY DELETED FROM THE FINAL CUT OF THE FILM. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT LITTLE REMAINS OF HIS FOOTAGE. HE WAS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER IN THE STORY.
(Who has the rights to these photos? I would like to license them. Please write to me if you can help. Thank you.)
Well, live and learn. The more I learn, the more I discover that many of my conclusions are mistaken. There is time to repair only the most egregious errors right now. So take the below essay with a little dose of scepticism, for it was based largely on the published record, and the published record is far from perfect. On the contrary! (No. Im lying. The published record is perfect perfect fiction! The events, dates, situations, monetary amounts, are all fictional. Even many of the quotes from Vidal, Brass, et alia, which we read in the press, were invented by journalists and publicists. The published record is a complete fiction. My heartfelt apologies to the entire world for uncritically having based previous versions of this essay in large part on those sources. I hope that the present version can begin to compensate for all the damage I have caused over the past five years or so. Dare I hope that those who worked on the film will choose not to hold my previous editions against me? And dearest Mazoukus, please write to me. I need to redeem myself and my friends especially to you.) RJB
HELP? If you are a scholar of Roman art and architecture and you wish to make any brilliant and incisive comments about the design of this movie, please write to me. Im all ears! As wild as the design is, Danilo Donati didnt invent it out of whole cloth. He was inspired by actual artifacts and paintings and frescoes and sculpture and buildings. And I want to know more. RJB
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Caligula, held in such justifiably low regard, was the work primarily of three great artists: Gore Vidal, Tinto Brass, and Danilo Donati. Vidal and Brass had their fallings out with producers Franco Rossellini and Bob Guccione. And, sadly and surprisingly, Vidal and Brass could not get along with each other either. Vidal had wanted historically accurate visuals, along with a believable fantasy based upon Suetonius, by which he would obliquely comment on Richard Nixon, Ted Kennedy, and others of their ilk. Unfortunately, Vidal had signed a contract that gave him no control over the production. Guccione, on the other hand, wanted a luxurious and scandalous film. Brass agreed and signed a contract that made him answerable only to Bob Guccione. Vidal, after reading the rewritten shooting script, resigned from the production, recognizing that the case was hopeless. Then, upon completion of the filming, Brass was tossed out of the editing suite, and the film was transformed into something that none of its creators ever had in mind.
During the filming, Tinto Brass obeyed his employers desire to fill the movie with as much sex as possible. But with the exception of the brief fellatio scene between two homosexual guards in a spy room, all the sex in the movie was faked. It looks real now, due to overly manipulative editing. For instance, if a shot lasted 20 seconds and the fakery was hilariously obvious, the editors chose only maybe the one-half of a second in which it looked fairly convincing. (NOTE ADDED ON SATURDAY, 1 SEPTEMBER 2007: Malcolm McDowell insists that the brief bit with Ennias slave boys was also for-real. Considering that he also insists that the on-screen birth of Julia was all done with unconvincing prosthetics, I feel justified in maintaining my doubts about his claim, and still strongly suspect that Ennias slave boys used rather realistic-looking props. Further, during the orgy scenes a few of the background extras, without having been asked and without warning, did a few things for-real, but their impromptu actions were probably not included in the final film.) Co-producer Bob Guccione of Penthouse magazine, a month or so after shooting had begun, decided that he wanted primarily to showcase his magazines models. Little did it matter the script was not structured to do this in any way whatsoever. Though Brass had staged Vidals script in a fantastically surreal manner in order to make room for the required sex, Guccione wanted more, and he wanted it to be real and to look more visually similar to his magazines pictorials. This decision led to the single most notorious aspect of the production of Caligula, which is surely the decision of producer Bob Guccione to film footage behind the back of director Brass, something without precedent or parallel in film history.
Shortly after filming was completed, Guccione, his friend Giancarlo Lui, some Penthouse models (most of whom had no idea at all what they were getting into), and a skeleton crew snuck back into Dear Studios in Rome and did some retakes of the Imperial Bordello (with real sex to replace the simulated sex of Brasss footage) and shot a new lesbian scene. The bordello sequences for the most part do not match in costuming, color, framing, lighting, or style what Brass had shot, and they were filmed with far fewer performers. The lesbian scene was an even greater departure from continuity. The small, dark, stark cubbyhole, through which court spies surreptitiously eavesdrop upon Caligula, suddenly becomes a luxurious, brightly lit, and fully furnished bedroom. More importantly, it has no place in the story. These inept additions, totaling about six minutes, seem to be what the film has come to be best known for.
Penthouse had initially promised to have the film ready for release by the spring of 1977. The date was unrealistic, for Brass could not begin editing the film until mid-March 1977, and he continued on for about four weeks, assembling about 38 minutes of footage. At that rate, he would have had a rough cut ready by about mid or late June 1977. Then suddenly he was fired.
Brasss dismissal was allegedly for for excessive expenditures and for multicam, which Penthouse surprisingly insisted had never been done in a film before and had been an unconscionable waste of film. Worst of all, he used not three hours of film, but about 120 hours of film. Actually, 120 hours is reasonable, considering that the film was shot with three cameras. Factoring in retakes, leaders, slates and short ends, a film that will run about three hours in the cinema will generally use up 15 to 30 hours of film per camera. Caligula did not much exceed that average.
Mario Bregni, head of PAC (Produzioni Atlas Cinematografica, which had contracted to release Caligula in Italy in the spring of 1977), explained things to Variety, which reported :
He attributes difficulties to the inexperience of Penthouse chiefs Bob Guccione and Jack Silverman. The PAC topper said he saw the partial cut of 40 minutes Brass had assembled before being fired last April and thought the filmmaker was on the right track. Instead of dismissing Brass, he added, the Penthouse people should have encouraged him to get the editing over with as soon as possible. Once that was done, they were free and clear contractually and could have avoided delays.
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| Tiberius wants to kill Caligula. | Tiberius always keeps healthy. |
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Giancarlo Lui, an independent documentary filmmaker, had originally been hired by his close friend Bob Guccione to film a 16mm featurette about the making of Caligula. Like Peter OToole, Lui had been deeply impressed by Gore Vidals script but Guccione had neglected to tell him that he had instructed McDowell and Brass to alter the style. He complained that Brass was meddling with the storyline, spoiling Vidals screenplay. Privately, he expressed the hope to his wife that these faults could be rectified at the editing stage, fearing that if Brass were to edit the film, the result would be unhistorical and would not even have a concrete story.
In the spring of 1977 Lui moved with his wife Pola Muzyka from Rome to Primrose Hill, London, to take up his new post. Russell Lloyd had completed his rough cut, without any interference from production, but Guccione was dissatisfied, and so Lui set about hiring a new editor. He hired one of the best, Nino Baragli, and he must have dropped hints about how the film should be restructured. Luis personal wish was to create a cut of the film more in keeping with Vidals original intentions. Of course, a fantasy film cannot be edited into a history film. But this didnt stop Lui from trying.
To work around the elaborations upon and
changes to the script, Lui had Baragli employ a number of unorthodox
editing devices, among them scrambling, trimming, and using incorrect
footage. By incorrect footage (not the best term, but I cant
think of a better one at the moment), I refer to the use of footage in such a way as
to deceive or change the focus of a scene. Rather than use the footage from the camera
that was capturing the most significant portions of the
action at any given time, there was a frequent decision
to use footage from one of the other cameras, or even from a different scene. The
Tragically, in creating this new version of the film, Baragli largely dismantled Lloyds rough cut, which was probably quite creditable; but well never know for sure, will we? You see, no copy of Lloyds version is known to survive. IF YOU KNOW WHERE A COPY IS LOCATED, PLEASE WRITE TO ME IMMEDIATELY!!!!!! THE VALUE OF THIS LOST FILM IS RECOGNIZED. IF FOUND, THE FILM WILL BE PROPERLY PRESERVED.
The editing process under Russell Lloyd, Nino Baragli, Peter Krook, and finally Patrick Moore lasted two full years. The delay forced that production to repay millions in guarantees.
In the editing sessions, Giancarlo Lui ordered the excision of as many of Brasss and McDowells inventions that could feasibly be cut without totally destroying the continuity. Further, much of the film was scrambled, and some (not all) of this scrambling seems to have been done in order chisel away at the embellishments upon Vidals original script. And since Guccione had objected to Brass using the film to express his political views, Lui ordered the deletion of nearly every hint of those views.
When British journalist Iain McAsh mentioned that Caligula was Tinto Brasss best-known work, the director snorted:
My most popular film? I do not consider Caligula as mine. I directed but did not edit it; the film was taken out of my hands. Editing must form part of the directors work. Why? Very simple. My shooting and directing of the film is like the first draft of a novel when the writer gives the book to a typist. He cannot recognise his own work. In consequence, I shoot with three cameras at the same time and when I look at it on the Movieola then I decide which scene to use which makes the emotion flow.
In the final version(s) of the film, the emotions certainly do not flow and neither does the continuity. Despite the technical assistance of the brilliant Nino Baragli, the result was perhaps the worst travesty of editing in cinema history. People who complain that Caligula is terribly scripted and terribly photographed are actually complaining about the editing, which simply makes the film look as though it had been terribly scripted and photographed. The complaint of poor photography stems largely from the overuse of zooms. More often than not, these zooms were simply the result of four camera operators adjusting to set up for the next close up, the next long shot and so forth. Usually, when a camera zooms the editor should delete the zoom and cut in the footage from one of the other three cameras. But for Caligula the zooms were retained, and that was a terrible mistake. (For the record, may I state that I completely absolve Baragli of all blame. He was working under trying and confusing circumstances, and did the best job he could to transform a comedy into a melodrama. He was successful in his endeavor an endeavor that was probably unique, for I know of no other movie in all cinema history for which such a transformation has been attempted so methodically. While the result is ghastly, Baraglis skill as an editor is proved beyond question.)
With many of his previous films, Brass had been happy to use scripts, especially his own scripts, as departure points, inventing new situations and dialogue on the set. Then, when in the editing suite, he would regard the film he had shot as another departure point, as raw material from which to fashion something new and fresh, putting footage together in ways that he had not even imagined during filming.
• TRIMMING: SCENE 9. Among the entourage escorting Caligula to Tiberiuss palace at Capri is a slender young fellow with long curly blond hair. He is present throughout much of the remainder of the film, but we never know why. (He is not in Vidals script.) |
• SCRAMBLING AND TRIMMING: SCENE 10. Nerva and Caligula walk down the corridor toward Tiberiuss lair. Behind the curtains are the sounds of beatings and wailings. Caligula takes a brief peek, but we dont see what he sees. Then, several scenes later, we are presented with fragments of the tortures that Caligula peeked at several scenes previously. Later we see servants cleaning and clearing the hall early one morning before their masters have gotten out of bed. But in actuality it seems that some of that footage belong here, as at least a few of these slaves are clearing the path for Nerva and Caligula several scenes ago. (Much of this material was not in Vidals script. AND MUCH OF THIS FOOTAGE IS MISSING FROM THE VAULTS. IF YOU KNOW WHERE IT WENT, PLEASE WRITE TO ME IMMEDIATELY. IF WE CAN FIND IT, ILL MAKE CERTAIN IT IS PRESERVED AND MADE AVAILABLE. THANKS!) |
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The wine slave with his back to the camera. |
![]() Wine Slave out of shot |
![]() Wine Slave almost out of shot |
![]() At last we can see the Wine Slaves face, in medium long shot. Hes in purple on the right of the screen. |
![]() Momentary glimpse of the Pooper-Scooper Slave. |
![]() Another momentary glimpse. This time we can almost see the instruments of his trade. |
• SCRAMBLING: SCENE 12. Tiberiuss Machiavellian monologue is interspersed with fragments of an orgy shot partly through distorting mirrors. This orgy certainly took place in Tiberiuss hideout, but in a cushioned room, not on the three-tiered structure that Caligula and Tiberius are exploring, but theres no other remaining hint of its meaning or context. (This particular orgy is not in Vidals script.) |
![]() As soon as we see the Wine Slave appear behind Tiberius, we cut to the shot below. |
![]() And before we can really realize that Tiberius is again drinking from his favorite goblet, we skip ahead and cut away to the shot below. |
![]() The Wine Slave has already started to walk toward his next station. |
![]() Marcello Di Falco (who played the lead rôle in Roberto Rossellinis three-part TV series, Letà di Cosimo de Medici) here portrays the orgy master. |
• INCORRECT FOOTAGE:
SCENE 14. In one atypical instance, a bit of
action was not |
• TRIMMING: SCENE 15. The beginning of Caligulas shave is deleted, depriving the scene of its context. The shave is not in Vidals script, but it was in Suetonius and it was also in Roberto Rossellinis original treatment: Caligulas ritual first shave and the sacrificial offering of his beard is ordered by Tiberius so that he will be symbolically a man, ready to take the throne but Caligula feels humiliated when the ritual is performed without the traditional ceremony or celebrants. What Brass and McDowell did with these ideas remains, for now, a mystery. |
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AT LAST, THE ACTUAL DIALOGUE:
SLAVE 1: Nervas death was terrible for Tiberius. SLAVE 2: The old bastard was left half-paralyzed. SLAVE 3: What's going to happen if he dies? SLAVE 2: Well get drunk as lords! SLAVE 3: Tiberius has been good to us. SLAVE 2: Hes been a bastard. SLAVE 3: The bigger the bastard, the better for us. SLAVE 2: You slave! SLAVE 3: Take that back! (Some of the footage is now missing, and it seems that someone walked off with most of the scene and hid it in a Tibetan mountaintop or in an abandoned coal-mine shaft in Siberia where the Penthouse people would never find it. IF YOU KNOW WHERE THIS FOOTAGE WENT, PLEASE WRITE TO ME IMMEDIATELY. IF WE CAN FIND IT, ILL MAKE CERTAIN IT IS PRESERVED AND MADE AVAILABLE. THANKS!) |
![]() They all freeze when they see that someone has unexpectedly gotten out of bed early: |
![]() He has heard, but does nothing, for he is immediately approached by... |
![]() ...Macro, who cautiously makes his appearance... |
![]() ...in the hall below the Mount Rushmore staircase (realistic, this depiction of Rome, yes?), to introduce Caligula to... |
![]() ...Charicles, the Court Physician. |
![]() The Phenomenal Marcello Di Falco again, in green. |
• TRIMMING: SCENE 19. Giuseppe Maffioli portrays a priest who prays over Tiberiuss masked corpse and names Caligula new emperor. (In other scenes Maffioli, in the same get-up, plays Proculuss butler and Caligulas butler.) Among the entourage on Caligulas dais is the High Priest Bergarius, with a band across his forehead and a tall cap with a golden emblem. Played by well-known Argentinian artist Eduardo Bergara Leumann, this was once an important though minor character in the story, but now he appears only in the background of this and numerous subsequent scenes. He is almost unnoticeable on a casual first viewing of the film. But once he is noticed, he fascinates us with his all-knowing stillness. (Bergarius is not in Vidals script.) |
• TRIMMING: SCENE 21. Another scene that was chopped in two originally opened with Drusilla feeding her leopard cub. She and Caligula hear a noise from behind the moon mask on the wall, indicating that they are not alone. But the sound is now entirely removed from the audio track. Caligula discovers two homosexual guards in the heat of passion in the secret listening room and chases them away. The scene is cut impossibly short, and seems to include a few frames from a different take. (A single spy, who actually is spying through the listening hole, occurs in a different place in Vidals script.) The conversation through the moon masks mouth is also cut short, and then the scene cuts away altogether. The second part of this scene wrongly appears later in the film. After Caligula and Drusilla discuss, through the Moon mask, the dangers that Macro poses, Chærea and the quarreling senators enter. Caligula judges their dispute, and once they are sent away, he and Drusilla laugh delightedly. (The transposed portion of this scene was not in Vidals script, but was apparently retained in the final cut of the film as it serves to introduce the disputatious senators. The transposition was a poor decision. In its proper sequence, this incident would reveal why Caligula would shortly thereafter choose the docile Chærea to succeed the domineering Macro.) Heres how the scene is supposed to play: |
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| CALIGULA: Did you see their faces when I told them that they had to swear not only to me but to you? DRUSILLA: They must have been appalled. CALIGULA: I do hope so. |
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| DRUSILLA: But is it wise? CALIGULA (kissing her repeatedly): I can do... anything... I like... to anyone. DRUSILLA: Well dont start with me. CALIGULA: Who would you suggest? (Hears noise. Approaches listening room. Catches two guards in flagrante delicto and chases them away.) |
![]() The Prætorian Guards are not spying, like they should be; they are fooling around with one another. Nonetheless, Caligula chases them away. |
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| CALIGULA: Who? |
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| DRUSILLA: Do you trust Macro? CALIGULA: Macro? After all, he did kill Tiberius. I must appoint a new commander of my own choice. |
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| (Chærea enters, with company) |
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| CALIGULA: Ah... Chærea. |
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| Chærea introduces two senators who have a dispute over real-estate development. |
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| Caligula is delighted to make himself useful to his Republic. | ![]() |
| Despite being overfed, Senator Acesius (in the foreground) takes the side of the lower- and middle-class residents, favoring |
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| The impartial scales of justice. |
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| The worried senator who is being paid handsomely to demolish the historical |
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| For the curtain call, a brief encore performed in front of a giant painting of a Roman cityscape because the budget wouldnt
allow for the real thing, or even for a scale model. DRUSILLA: That is your man. CALIGULA: Chærea? No. Hes boring... boring... boring... DRUSILLA: Hes perfect. CALIGULA: Ill do it for Rome. Ill do anything for Rome. DRUSILLA: Youll make a memorable emperor. CALIGULA: I know. Isnt Rome lucky? They start playing as two children. |
• TRIMMING:
SCENE 22. When Chærea orders the arrest of Macro, High Priest Bergarius taps him on the back,
but this is almost unnoticeable in the extreme long shot, and there is no |
• TRIMMING: SCENE 24. (There is a gap in the shooting script, as Scene 23 was deleted prior to filming.) After Caligula orders Ennias exile, there is a cut to a seemingly later scene in which he happily announces to Drusilla, At least now she doesnt have to get a divorce! But that was not a new scene. After he orders Ennias exile, he actually just walks out onto the veranda because he sees Drusilla approaching, and exclaims: At least now she doesnt have to get a divorce! The tiniest little snip can turn one scene into two. Amazing, isnt it? |
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| Buzby Berkeley to the rescue, with a rotating overhead camera. [Frame capture stolen from Maarten Van Druten] |
• TRIMMING: SCENE 25. When we first see Caligula and Drusilla enter the sanctuary of the Isis pool, they momentarily suppress a giggle. Something has just happened, and it was more than merely amusement at the emperors feminine disguise. What did we miss? (The giggle and its motivation were not in Vidals script.) Nearly every shot in this scene is out of sequence, and some are rejects that should never have been included. In original intention, there is no lesbian orgy until Caligula spots Cæsonia, and it doesnt go into full gear until he leaves the room. Note that a close shot of the high priestess fails to match her medium shot. Two takes of the same action are also included. Caligula walks up behind a burning brazier as Cæsonia, with her back to the camera, is ritually pouring incense into a censer. Just as he notices her, there is a cut to a different shot. Brass had clearly rejected that take. Half a minute later is a superior retake, with Caligula already behind the brazier as Cæsonia approaches the censer and catches his eye. Frustratingly, we never get a good look at the important sculpture in the pool; it is a giant reclining image of Isis. Another problem with this scene is the editors insistence on highlighting the three Penthouse models Anneka di Lorenzo, Lori Wagner, and Jane Hargrave to the detriment of all the other extras. |
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| Nothing to liven up a party like a mass execution, yes? | |
• TRIMMING:
SCENE 27. When Caligula first sees Proculus at the stadium, he whispers something to Longinus, who bursts out laughing.
Then the scene ends abruptly. In actuality, this is out
of sequence and the scene went on. In proper sequence, as the head-mower approaches Macro,
Caligula whispers to Longinus to order Proculus tossed in front of the oncoming machine.
The crowd enthusiastically pelt both Macro and Proculus with eggs and rotten fruit.
Macro is beheaded, and the beleaguered Proculus overpowers a guard
to seek salvation by leaping onto the oncoming killing-machine rather than get ground to bits underneath it.
Caligula crowns him a Roman hero.
And then the scene ends with a brief visual joke.
Tinto Brass had actually begun to edit this scene himself,
but he was fired before he could incorporate all the inserts and before he could perform any sort of polish.
The |
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As the head-mower is approaching Macro, Caligula has fun by ordering Proculus tossed in front it as well. Proculus defeats the machine, and Caligula crowns him a Roman hero. There then follows a comical coda, which is now missing. If you know the whereabouts, please write to me. Thanks! |
• SCRAMBLING AND TRIMMING: SCENE 34. The scene in which Caligula reports for duty is severely trimmed and misplaced. It belongs earlier in the film, immediately after the Livia-Proculus wedding scene. The filming of a take is included in A Documentary on the Making of Gore Vidals Caligula and in this we can get a good idea of what were missing. (This dialogue is Vidals; so the cut is puzzling.) The final line, Lets see if Proculus can liven things up for us was obviously invented in the dubbing studio, to cover missing scenes and to mask the scrambling. |
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SCENE 34. INT. CLERKS OFFICE. After squandering his valuable time raping some newlyweds, Caligula reports back for duty, which consists of mindlessly placing his seal on each sheet of a huge ream of documents. He throws a tantrum, refuses to continue, and tells instead of his plans for an artificial famine, a conquest of Persia, a public library that would not include such boring old sods as Homer or Virgil, a bridge across the Bay of Naples, a ship with a garden, a flood in the amphitheatre so that the Greeks and Persians can conduct a sea battle, an edict that Romans no longer be so ugly. Longinuss response to every idea: Yes, Lord. Cant you ever say anything except Yes, Lord? No wonder lifes dull. He leaves the room giggling like Daffy Duck. (Romans of the time did not have a word for sods. And whos the dude with the hair?) The next scene is the storm at night when Caligula becomes convinced that Gemellus is trying to kill him. | |
• TRIMMING: SCENE 35. The threesome with Cæsonia, Caligula and Drusilla is an awkward mess because the important bits are missing. The editors (under Gucciones instructions) almost entirely deleted the ladies-in-waiting (rumored to have been a lesbian act). The ominous shots of the moon mask on the wall surely led to the revelation that a spy is lurking in the dark cubbyhole behind, watching and witnessing. But the editors deleted this court intrigue and impossibly replaced the spys small cubbyhole with another bedroom inhabited by two Penthouse models who cavort impossibly on Caligulas bed which magically replicated itself. (Caligula, Drusilla and Cæsonia are not spied upon in this scene in Vidals script.) |
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• TRIMMING: SCENE 36. Some establishing material is missing from the opening of the banquet which the emperor enters on horseback. Gemellus and Charicles are already scared out of their wits and the two priests direct glares of hatred toward the emperor when they are out of his field of vision. But since their motivation is largely missing, we probably wont notice on a first viewing. Most likely all would have been clear to us if only we could have seen the spy from the night before. A frame-by-frame examination reveals numerous details that Brass surely went to some pains to establish, but that are now elided over. What is the purpose of the banquet, who are these people, and why is that mysterious leopard cub in their midst again? (These details were not in Vidals script.) Though affectionate colleagues, Cæsonia and Drusilla also feel jealous of each other, but Cæsonias silent gloating over the quarrel between Caligula and Drusilla is here hinted at. Was it once more explicit? The unnamed Agrippina, who as we never learn is another of Caligulas sisters, starts petting Caligula. Messalina, who is never named, is, as we never learn, married to Claudius, joins in the fun. Finally Claudius also joins in by petting Agrippina. So little emphasis is placed upon this last action that it will likely pass the viewer by. This scene seems to end too abruptly, probably because the transition to Scene 36A was deleted. |
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• SCRAMBLING: SCENE 36A. This is the most confusing thing in the movie; it makes no sense at all. Gore Vidal had Caligula go on a rampage against pretty much anyone and everyone after Drusillas death, and thats when he topped all his previous cruelties with the sadistic torture and dismemberment of Proculus. Originally Brass and McDowell cut the torture/execution/castration of Proculus, but apparently the producers ordered them to reinstate it. Well, reinistate it they did, but why they put it here, in the second act rather than the third, is anybodys guess. Vidal wrote Proculus as a charismatic super-athlete who beamed self-confidence. Brass and McDowell changed him to a hapless nonentity. They completely rewrote this scene, too, entirely changing Caligulas motivation. And though Vidal ended the scene with Caligula ordering the castration of the corpse, the filmmakers decided actually to show it (with a deliberately unbelievable prop). When Vidal complained that the filmmakers had made Caligula a monster from the beginning, this is what he was talking about. The scene now discards Vidals terrifying realism, replacing it with a distancing surrealism. Caligula orders and oversees the torture and execution of Proculus, from which he takes great comical enjoyment. All the onlookers are delighted by the proceedings, and then Agrippina and Messalina (obviously added to the scene at the last moment) laughingly humiliate Proculuss corpse. Significantly, Caligulas trusted colleague Cæsonia is not witness to this atrocity. One can understand why the editors would want to move this scene; I would hazard a guess that Tinto Brass himself may have wanted to move it. But why did the editors move it from just before the fever to just after it, rather than to later in the story where Vidal had originally put it? Puzzling, to say the least. |
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| Caligula is
ill, and his horse is confused. Or is it the other way around? |
• INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 38. When Caligula is ill in bed, suffering from a plague, he asks for Longinus. Cæsonia looks out onto the veranda, and in a long shot we see what she sees: actors standing in place waiting for Tinto Brass to call out Action! |
• TRIMMING: SCENE 39 (continuous with above). We briefly see a shot of a crowd holding vigil outside Caligulas palace. There was obviously more to this. In Vidals (and Brasss) conception, Caligula had made himself immensely popular among the masses, not only by his amnesty but by restoring laws and public institutions that Tiberius had dismantled. But now we are left only with this momentary shot and we cant know what to make of it. (Oddly enough, this sequence actually is in Vidals script! So the cut is made even more inexplicable. Curiously, this was shot on the same location as SCENES 45 and 48.) |
• SCRAMBLING: Toward the end of the film we see Chærea, Longinus, High Priest Bergarius, and several other politicians who are plotting the emperors assassination. But no such scene was ever filmed! This was created entirely by Luis postproduction crew, who utilized discarded fragments of SCENE 39 and pasted deleted dialogue over them, and, beyond that, pasted newly invented dialogue on top of them. While Caligula was semi-delirious in bed, Chærea, Longinus, and several other government officials gathered outside on the veranda to discuss the implications of their emperors possible death. We already saw an abridgment of this sequence earlier on, in its proper place. But Lui and his crew had chopped out so many important scenes toward the end of the film that they had to cover the cuts by fabricating a new scene from deleted footage. Only two brief half-lines (...hes a tyrant! and ...if Caligula were to die) really belong here. All the rest of the dialogue is spurious. For instance, lip reading reveals that Bergariuss unscripted line, It could happen, is actually Never do that! (his close up doesnt match the main shot either). To help ensure that the audience wont catch on, the editors largely chose footage showing peoples backs to the camera, which allowed for more convincing voice-overs. The editors were careful, also, never to reveal the assassinated Senator Acesius who partakes in this discussion. (This portion of the illness scene is not in Vidals script.) |
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ACESIUS: Just listen to the crowds.... |
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Scene 40A was the sylvan idyll, fragments of which now wrongly open the movie. Marco Fornier perceptively pointed out that Tinto Brass later used this very location for the sylvan idyll in Capriccio. | |
• SCRAMBLING AND TRIMMING: SCENE 40A. The prologue of Caligula and Drusilla playing in the woods was to have occurred after Caligulas recovery from his fever. It is their (only?) bucolic fling, replete with a retinue of guards and three topless priestesses of Isis dancing in the woods who, nymphlike, start to explore a shepherd boy who is asleep under a tree as a flock of sheep are driven by. Since this scene was never scripted, it could conceivably have been plopped elsewhere in the movie. I had long thought this was supposed to come at the beginning of Caligulas reign. Nope. It was definitely Scene 40A. Anyway, this sylvan scene is now missing its beginning and ending and is thus rendered a meaningless fragment, with the priestesses barely noticeable. Production audio was recorded but has since been lost, this scene was never properly dubbed, and the opening seems to be missing, which is why it no longer synchronizes to the music that was originally written for it. (This scene was added almost surely because the scheduled sets and/or costumes and/or actors were not ready yet, and the crew were required to get film in the can.) |
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• SCRAMBLING AND TRIMMING: SCENE 42. For only a moment, we catch a glimpse of Caligula playing with an adorable little pet rat who is harnessed to a rather beautiful little toy chariot. Then he (Caligula, not the rat) looks with apprehension at a bird of ill omen which has just flown in. But we dont have any idea why on earth were seeing this. In the movie as currently assembled, this precedes the birth of Caligulas daughter. |
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Fortunately, this publicity still is taken from a little further back, and we can see some of the context. Thus can we see that there is simply no way this scene could possibly have preceded the birth of Caligulas daughter! |
The shooting script offers some clues. In SCENE 41, Drusilla collapsed from a plague immediately after Caligulas baby Julia is born. Then SCENE 42 takes place apparently some months later: |
Caligula paces restlessly as Cæsonia nurses the baby Julia. The bird flies in and beats around the walls and ceiling. Caligula stares at it in superstitious dread. It flies out. Caligula stands for a second transfixed. CÆSONIA: Caligula... CALIGULA: What does it mean? Cæsonia looks at him, confused. Suddenly he runs out. |
Then in SCENE 43 we see where he ran: Drusillas bedroom, where he witnesses her death.
So it appears that Drusillas illness lingered for at least half a year, for that infant is certainly no longer a |
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Having heeded the warning of the bird of ill omen, Caligula rushes in a panic to the bedside of his sister, who has been suffering for months with the plague. |
• TRIMMING AND INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 43. In Drusillas death scene the cameras linger on close shots of the main characters, with every attempt made in the editing to remove as much as possible of the peripheral characters. One shot pointlessly holds on Drusillas corpse as Caligula makes much commotion chasing away the off-screen extras. (These extras were not in Vidals script.) This is one of the most unmistakably mutilated sequences in the film. Anyone in the audience who has not fallen asleep by now will see that something is terribly wrong, but might assume only that the cinematographer himself fell asleep before he could turn his camera around to film the action. |
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| When beloved sister Drusilla dies, Longinus learns that life on Capitol Hill is a freak show. | ||
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Caligula carries his sisters body across the veranda to take her back to his Palatine palace. Note the anachronistic Roman ruins painted on the wall of the set and some gigantic studio lights blazing overhead. Much of this Eastmancolor movie was actually lit for black and white, as this still illustrates. This portion of the scene is deleted from most copies. | ||
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Back at the Palatine Palace. If you see a copy of the movie with this shot, youre missing the previous shot. If you see a copy of the movie with the previous shot, youre missing this shot. | ||
• INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 49. In the underground jail cell, a prisoner who is manacled to the wall bursts out laughing at Caligulas magic trick.
But he is confined to the background of the main shot, deprived of the |
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• TRIMMING AND INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 50. This shot is from Camera 1, and quite obviously either Camera 2 or Camera 3 would have concentrated on the little interaction on the left of the screen, consisting of a silent squabble between High Priest Bergarius and the Little Giant, which we can barely notice in the movie as it stands. (This action does not appear in Vidals script.) |
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After having returned from his flight to the Suburra, Caligula enters the Senate House to declare he is now a god. He announces, The period of mourning is over. He pulls down the black drapes. One month of free games and free food for every citizen of Rome. The senators hail Caligula the god. CUT TO a scene that Gore Vidal clearly did not write: | |
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• DELETION: SCENE 51. INT. CALIGULAS ROOM DAY |
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Caesonia chides Caligula for having the senators declare him a god. Caligula asks her, Yes, Im a god in human form. You believe that, dont you? Caesonia answers Yes, to which Caligula retorts, Then you are as stupid as the rest of them. Im surrounded by hypocrites! Monkeys! Forever chattering about love and service and loyalty! Monkeys! | |
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Caesonia cries that she doesnt want Caligula to die. Caligula replies, You must be unique.... We have our daughter... we could have a son. We could be happy.... Caligula is cynical: A happy family on the imperial throne? That would be a novelty! Caesonia is worried: But... do you have to make your contempt for the institutions... for everyone... so obvious? Yes. | |
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Caligula turns over on his back, points to his midsection, and instructs Caesonia to conclude with a sexual massage. | |
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• DELETION: SCENE 52. JUPITERS TEMPLE DAY | |
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| • DELETION: SCENE 53 (continuous with above). In speeded motion, Caligula raises funds for his war by accepting tithes from his Roman citizens. The Little Giant helps to collect the offerings in baskets, which Caligula pours down a chute to a room beneath Jupiters base. |
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In slow motion, he jumps in and revels in his new-found riches. This scene is deleted in its entirety (even though its close equivalent is in Vidals script). |
• DELETION: SCENE 54 (continuous with above). Caligula continues his rewriting of the rules by illustrating a political parable, sacrificing a priest rather than a bull to the gods, much to the priests surprise. Caligula proclaims that he is now king of the gods, outranking Jupiter. In the script, though maybe not in the film, the emperor then tosses out the other sacrifices to a hungry crowd. (A few moments of the filming of a take are included in the documentary.) MUCH OF THIS FOOTAGE OF THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER WENT MISSING YEARS AGO AND IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE FILM POSSIBLY FOR THE SIMPLE REASON THAT SOMEONE WALKED OFF WITH SO MUCH OF IT!!!!! BITS AND PIECES OF THE WORKPRINT ARE STILL AROUND, THOUGH THE SCRATCH TRACK HAS BEEN HORRENDOUSLY DEGRADED. BUT THE NEGATIVES ARE ALL GONE. IF YOU KNOW THE WHEREABOUTS OF THIS FOOTAGE, PLEASE CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY!!!!! I SHALL MAKE CERTAIN THAT IT IS PRESERVED AND MADE AVAILABLE. |
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After Caligula has his guards toss out the sacrifices to the hungry crowd, he poses as Jupiter with his thunderbolt, making childish buzzing noises as though his lightning were striking people in the crowd. | ||
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| The Little Giant suffers from an unseen blow. |
• TRIMMING: SCENES 55& 56 (continuous). Enough with gruesome murders. Time to go back to light comedy. Another instance of deletion is the scene in which Caligula reveals his plans for a brothel to Longinus. The beginning of this scene is missing. Caligula is making himself up in the mirror, and the Little Giant accidentally jabs him with a pin. Caligula gleefully punches him in the jaw. All that is gone now. Now we open with the Little Giant inexplicably rubbing his jaw as if in pain. Then a distinctively Brassian joke was lost. It appears that this scene ends as Caligula walks off, and that the next scene in the Imperial Brothel takes place some time later. A careful examination of the film reveals that this was not originally the case at all. After telling Longinus of his plan for a brothel, Caligula and his retinue walk into the next room where the brothel is already in full operation! Obviously, Giancarlo Lui found this absurdist humor too bizarre for his taste, deleted the transition shot from one room to the next, and added the sound of a gong to the first remaining shot in the brothel room to create the illusion of the passage of time. |
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| Caligula orders the
senators wives to prostitute themselves for
his new boat-shaped Imperial Bordello. | |
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| Typical behavior at a typical Roman victory banquet. (Lots of sex in Roman pop art, therefore lots of sex in Roman life, right? Right. When future historians, thousands of years from now, try to reconstruct social life in the USA, will they base it primarily upon Cotton Mathers and Jonathan Edwardss sermons, as we do, or will they base it primarily upon Internet porn, and conclude that Americans did nothing but party at orgies all the day long?) The orgies of simulated sex in this movie were supposed to be a preposterous and humorous running gag. But now with the movie so entirely altered, the humor is all gone. |
• TRIMMING:
SCENE 62. The scene of the celebration of the conquest of Britain concludes with Caligula
commenting on the secret plot against his life: A plot is always a secret. If
its not a secret then its not a plot but a plan, is it not Claudius? Even a
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• DELETION: SCENE 63. Caligula names his horse a consul. This scene is deleted in its entirety (even though its in Vidals script). (In case you didnt guess already, this scene is missing from the vaults. If you know the whereabouts, PLEASE WRITE TO ME RIGHT AWAY! Thanks!) A brief moment is included in the documentary. |
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If the unlikely legend of Caligula making his horse a consul is truthful, it could be counted as one of his few known sane acts. Gore Vidal and Anthony Barrett, separately, have argued that a horse would make a far finer politician, leader, and rôle model than any of its human rivals. I am in full agreement, and am deeply suspicious of anyone who would attempt to make the contrary case. | ||
![]() This still was probably never published prior to the latest DVD release (see below). It reveals the ceremonial beards. | ||
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Since this is impossible to see in the scan to the far left, here is an enlarged detail. Note that the Little Giant is also wearing a ceremonial beard on top of his real beard. |
| Dialogue from the never filmed Scene 57 was cannibalized and put to use here, as Caligula names his horse Consul in the name of the People of Rome, rather than the People and Senate of Rome. Chærea and Longinus grumble: The Senate count for nothing and He has mocked the gods and humiliated the Senate. | ||
• INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 70. During a break from the rehearsal of the religious drama, the Little Giant amuses Caligulas little daughter by clacking his finger coverings together. But since they are in long shot and obscured by another character, this charming little interaction is nearly unnoticeable. |
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| The assassination that
Caligula has been looking forward to. (There. I did it. I ended a sentence with a preposition.) | |
• TRIMMING: One of Brasss
assistant editors, Stuart Urban, recalls
numerous scenes of extreme (though simulated)
debauchery that Brass included but that ultimately never made
it to movie screens. Three examples: lengthier group-sex scenes as
John Gielgud and other actors stand amidst throngs of orgiasts, an
automatic spanking machine, a |
And throughout the film important dialogue was deleted. Granted, this amounts usually only to a few lines here and there, but they are essential lines, without which the entire film is rendered senseless. Only the vaguest hints of the original ideas remain, but they are unnoticeable on a first or even a second viewing. The most interesting bit of dialogue that remains in the film is the only clear indication of Brasss intentions:
Cæsonia: But they are senators and consuls. They are important men!
Caligula: So important that they approve all I do? They must be mad. I dont know what else to do to provoke them.
But now, with the film so sliced and
diced, these ideas are hidden, undeveloped, lost in the
tedious jumble. Even the enormously complicated plot gets
lost, as scenes and shots are badly trimmed in favor of
Further, the film includes embarrassing footage that Brass would obviously have considered outtakes and tossed into the rubbish bin; for instance, the shot of the killing machine not moving ahead toward Macro but just having its blade make a circular imprint on the ground, the three-eyed monster asleep with its fake eye open, Drusilla still breathing (though almost imperceptibly) moments after she has died, Cæsonia twitching her leg after being murdered.
Brass is a master at making his extras
come to life for us with strategically placed
There was another change as well, but
its difficult to determine exactly where the
Brass/McDowell changes end and the Lui/Guccione changes
begin. The dynamic between Chærea and Caligula was
The inclusion of scrap footage and wrong camera angles, the cuts, the trims, the scramblings,
the altered dialogue, the distortion of motivation, and the jarring mistimed edits
were all attempts to simplify the film.
The unintended effect, though, is to ruin the pace, sense and feel of the story,
making the film seem much longer than it actually is.
And these were not the extent of the changes.
The music score, written at least in part prior to filming, was by Fiorenzo Carpi,
who had also done the music for Lurlo, La vacanza, and Salon Kitty.
Partially arranged fragments of working sketches of the original
music for the Isis pool dance and
Cæsonias dance can still be heard in the
There is every indication that, though it was a travesty of Vidals intentions, Caligula would have nonetheless been a good film in its own right had Brass been allowed to edit it. As it currently stands, Caligula is certainly quite bad. Even if all the important scenes had been retained, the productions strange editing style would still have rendered a poor film. And even with many important scenes deleted, the film could nonetheless have looked slick and engaging had the editing created an easy and pleasing visual flow. Many regard the end result as unwatchable trash. The opening scenes are butchered to focus more on genitalia than on characterization, and so from the start the film begins to alienate people. Then about fifteen minutes into the film we see the perpetual surreal freakshow in Tiberiuss hideaway, and its too painfully bad even to be laughable. Brass/Donati had changed Vidals frightening gallery of sex slaves into a jokingly surreal vision (copied from the erotic art found in Pompeii and elsewhere), but the editors then turned it into a pathetic absurdity. Before the end of the first reel, the film loses all its credibility with the audience. And thats what would happen if you took a comical work, chopped out all the humor, and then attempted to refashion the remaining fragments into a serious drama. The result would simply be unendurable, as this film proves. (Heres a comparison that maybe a few readers will be able to relate to: The best movie ever made is The General, a stirring silent adventure/drama by Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton. When a good-looking, uncut, print is presented with sensitive live musical accompaniment, and when the film is projected at a speed that is just a little above reality, its a showstopper, and its guaranteed to bring down the house and generate gales of uncontrollable screaming laughter. When slowed down to camera speed and presented with serious music, it is almost lethal; it becomes humorless, tedious, pretentious, and stupefyingly dull even though no image has been altered. When modern-day editors attempt to improve the film by reordering scenes, performing trims, and replacing the intertitles with subtitles, almost no one can sit through the result. The editors of Caligula took that experiment to the next level, by altering probably one-third or more of the images, and altering the sound track, the dialogue, and the story as well.)
Though editing cannot convert a fantasy into a history, it can easily convert a provocative Grand Guignol into an offensive sensationalism. Brass is comfortable and serene about sex, and he understands grotesque art as a political statement about power and its perennial abuse. Guccione, as demonstrated by his Penthouse magazine, is obsessed with sensationalism and has sometimes used his publications specifically to offend. Brass attempted a disturbing work of political art, which Guccione and his team found they could edit into a salacious exploitation film.
On the positive side, though, there are some wonderfully moody touches that give us an idea of what the film may have been had Brass been allowed to finish it: Nervas suicide, Caligulas romp through the slums and a few other little bits and pieces are strikingly beautiful and atmospheric. Also, the acting is first-rate and the lighting and the plush sets are second to none. Yet the mutilations visited upon the film make the positive qualities seem absolutely senseless. Vidals reputation survived unscathed, as no one believed he wrote the final shooting script, and thus gave him no credit or blame for the result. But the saddest irony was reserved for Brass, who should be known for such brilliant works as In capo al mondo, Lurlo, and La vacanza, but is instead known in the US only as the director of Caligula, with the general assumption being that he has only made porn.
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Do you enjoy solving mysteries? Hope so. Its my favorite hobby. Here we have a mystery. Pay attention to the clues: The divan on the left is distinctively 1970s imitation leather, a common office item. The lighting is not designed, but is simply office lighting with sunlight streaming in through Venetian blinds. So this is probably a test shot. But if so, what is it a test of? These extras are too well-costumed and made-up to be mere auditionees. They have already been cast. But who are they? Are they in the final cut of the film? I dont recognize any of them. And why was this shot taken? Whom did it help, and how and why? Was it just a souvenir? |
It seems that Nino Baragli had created several release versions, running 150 minutes, 153 minutes, 156 minutes and possibly also 160 minutes. In November 1978 Italian distributor PAC launched an advertising campaign announcing the Italian première of Caligola the following month. This was in all likelihood the 153-minute edition. Brass successfully sued to put a halt to the December 1978 release, as no settlement in the longstanding legal conflicts between him and the producers had yet been reached.
Roberto Rossellinis plagiarism suit
quickly fizzled and then he died on 3 June 1977, at the age of 71.
Nearly two years later, in May 1979,
Vidal, through his attorney Peter Morrison,
reached an out-of-court settlement with Penthouse, who
agreed to remove his name from the title in return
for canceling his royalties. (Originally
wanted his name entirely deleted, but a
compromise resulted in his being credited as
Adapted from an Original Screenplay by Gore Vidal.)
That led to a private screening of what was most likely
announced on screen as Caligula, a Film by Tinto
Brass allegedly
an extended edition running
exactly three and a half hours! which was
held in Cannes trade festival (not the simultaneous Cannes Film
Festival) in May 1979.
Unemployable for two years because of the
ongoing litigation, Tinto Brass in July 1979
finally surrendered final
cut, settling his suit in return for a cash award, the
deletion of his
With these cases concluded, Guccione and
Rossellini were free to open the
The US première was planned for
late 1979. Guccione had originally considered self-distributing
and opening the film at the
Gemini two-plex
in New York City, but changed his mind and sought an
established distributor.
No one would touch it. Finally he opened it
himself in New York City, renting the
It seems that a 160-minute version was shipped to England, where it was immediately sequestered. Laurence Myers, head of the GTO Group of Companies in the UK, had first seen Caligula at Cannes in May 1979, when he walked in, uninvited, to the screening in progress. He said he was shocked. Excited all the same, he talked to Alfred Crown, a veteran of the film industry whom he liked and respected. They made an informal agreement, and Nat Cohen of EMI Films, a mutual acquaintance of Crown and Myers, served as go-between during the negotiations. But much speculation about the distribution ensued in the following months. Independent distributor Brent Walker initially bid on it, but only on condition that the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) would clear it. He asked for a certification, and this was set in motion thanks to the Boards professional relationship with the customs authorities. When the Board insisted upon cuts, he bailed out.
Two conditions were imposed: first that the film would not be allowed to leave the Board and, second, that if cuts were made those cuts had to be carried out on the Boards premises; also the out-takes had to remain in the building. Gucciones lawyers oversaw the changes made to the film, in order to sidestep the Obscene Publications Act. These lawyers, together with BBFC director James Ferman and an editor (Nino Baragli?), squeezed themselves into a tiny cutting room (which had previously served as Fermans cloakroom!). The lawyers recommended 10 and a half minutes of cuts. Once these cuts had been implemented, customs officials viewed the abridgment and gave their approval, even admitting that its rather a good film!
Nonetheless, Ferman was still reluctant to give the film a BBFC certificate, and he therefore returned to his cloakroom/cutting room for further deletions, mostly of female genitalia. Ferman explained that they took out another three or four minutes and replaced it with lesser material to make it acceptable for the X certificate. The final res