Really Surprised!

Overrated and overhyped

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

A couple years ago I got a Roger Ebert review book and discovered his 0 star review of it. In it, he writes: "You have heard that this is a violent film. But who could have suspected how violent, and to what vile purpose, it really is? In this film, there are scenes depicting a man whose urinary tract is closed, and who has gallons of wine poured down his throat. His bursting stomach is punctured with a sword. There is a scene in which a man is emasculated, and his genitals thrown to dogs, who eagerly eat them on the screen. There are scenes of decapitation, evisceration, rape, bestiality, sadomasochism, necrophilia." Yes, these scenes do occur, and they are disgusting.However, there are misnomers here. The emasculation is off screen. The dogs do not EAT the genitals, they just lick the blood off. The "necrophilia" is not sex with a corpse. Caligula's wife dies in his arms and he passionately kisses her in absolute grief. So according to Ebert, kissing your dead spouse goodbye makes you a necrophiliac! And the bestiality, while it's still perverted, Caligula goes to bed with an animal, but no further sexual content occurs.As for the other scenes, yeah, there's not much to say to defend them, They are perverted and exemplify the worst of human nature. But maybe that is the point. I thought a movie like this was praising the emperor, the way people cheer and rile you up for Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. But it doesn't seem to. I felt bad when Belfort was arrested. Yet I was satisfied when Caligula got beheaded.Now I should mention that by no means am I defending this despicable content. It is a nasty movie. There are few I could recommend it to.I am also not sure if it IS a 10. But no other rating on any scale seems to fit. I gave it a 10 and put it on my favorites list. But it's not a pure delight. Some scenes made me cringe or fast forward(like a 2 minute lesbian sex scene) but I can't give this another rating.My 10 is not a literal 10. It's more of a "not applicable." Like, I said, there is no rating I could give it. I am left with a film I enjoyed and yet despised. It's one of the best I have ever seen but at the same time it deserves bottom 10 status. If you really want to see this, please do. If you can't bring yourself to do it, that is okay to do.If you read my review of Triumph of the Will, you know I thought it was not good but rather important, Perhaps that, in summary, is why I give it a 10."A haughty spirit comes before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). This is the story of a sexually perverted ruler's fall. Maybe that is where the majesty lands.

Certainly Malcolm McDowall has been excellently cast as the most nefarious of ancient rulers. Whether you have read historical accounts of his life or Jay Robinson's portrayals in "The Robe" and "Demetrius and the Gladiators", or most notably John Hurt's in " I, Claudius", then you know what a mad man he was. Taking that BBC mini-series to a different level in dramatic liberties, adding various perversions into the story.Starting from the last days of Tiberius (Peter O'Toole, much more lively than the subtle George Baker of "I, Claudius"), this tries to give the impression that Caligula didn't really start going mad until Tiberius began taunting him about being murdered by family members himself. It lacks the motivation of what Caligula was like as a child which through history made him mad from the start.The sexual activity of the film gets boring after a while, showing straight and gay sexual acts of every kind and even having McDowall deflowering a virginal bride on the wedding night and even taking it upon himself to humiliate the groom as well. While not shocking to me, I just found it gratuitous to show that, especially after a scene where Caligula and his court pelt victims of a head chopping machine with eggs right before they get lopped off.It's lavish to look at, much like a Fellini movie, but lacks in real artistic flair. A lengthy orgy scene with Tiberius is tried to be topped later with one when Caligula turns the senator's wives into prostitutes for his palace bordello. There are some moments where I did laugh and do double takes, but mostly, my eyes just rolled.John Gielgud manages to save some dignity by departing after only two scenes. I couldn't even recognize a young Helen Mirren, and I didn't care enough to rewind. But the hand on the fast forward button did come in handy to get through close-ups of the groins of naked women, leading to unnecessary lesbian sex scenes. All I really wanted to see were the historical highlights. The rest of it, well, not so special, and ultimately sleep inducing.

Early this morning I started watching one of the most notorious cult films ever made, Caligula (1979). The full uncut version is available on YouTube (without an 18 and over warning! Kids, do NOT watch this! Seriously!!!). I saw the first half hour of it, tried to go to sleep afterward, and I couldn't (it disturbed me that much). Then I finally went to sleep and resumed the rest of the film when I woke up. It is disturbingly pornographic and violent, and shows the basest of human nature. The back story behind the film is even more interesting than the film itself since it had a lot of big names and blurred the line between mainstream and adult. The 70s were a time of experimentation, but this went way beyond that and it is truly decadent and over the top, showing the licentiousness and depravity of Imperial Rome. There are gruesome things in it that will turn your stomach and wall to wall sex that was thrown in without the actors' knowledge after principal photography was completed. So many of the people involved disavowed this film because it devolved into a different kind of animal than what the screenwriter (Gore Vidal, of all people) envisioned. It's like a car wreck, so horrible, but at the same time, you can't help but crane your neck to look at it. It was done with a lot of style, impressive sets and costumes, and even had a bit of dark humor. It is a fascinating yet bizarre and shocking picture, one of the darkest I've ever seen, despite it being a big uneven mess. The only good people in the film get killed off and the rest are so corrupt and evil. However, you have to consider the time it was made and the time period that it depicts. In a way I have to admire the balls of the filmmakers. Very few filmmakers today take those kinds of risks, to shatter taboos, and dare to show the ugliness of humanity. It is mainly cult filmmakers that make midnight movies such as these that do.I draw the line at this film. It's one of those that you see once and once is enough. The only other one I can think of that goes beyond this is Salo, and I am definitely not brave enough for that one!

I watched the 160 minute version, which may have been a mistake on my part (or not?) because it had all of the pornography that wasn't in the original script added to it. If the film had had more direction, if it truly had buckled down and focused on Caligula and simply had the sex as an *element* of the film and not an overall theme --though that may have been difficult as the Romans were more liberal than many at the time, even more so than the neighboring Greeks when it came to sex in some aspects--and while that may paint the background, I do not think it was really necessary to be a part of nearly every single scene. Naked slaves and worker bees I can understand, and of course Caligula's reign did have a very promiscuous color to it, but there were, in my opinion, much more pressing matters that the film only touched upon that could have served as more entertaining. Him naming his horse as senator was obviously a joke and with Malcolm McDowell's wonderful acting you are left guessing how many of his actions are due to mental instability and how many of them are as a means to belittle the system that he rules over.Don't take this the wrong way, readers, but I never thought I would have ever rooted for a brother-sister couple like I did with McDowell's Caligula and Savoy's Drusilla. Their chemistry was beautiful and lovely, their sibling bond plunged into erotic and romantic waters which never ebbed up until the very end. Again, it is very, very weird to me that I *felt* for them during their time on screen and wished them to be happily married (shivers) but somehow McDowell always seems to make the most taboo into a "Eh, why not? It can't hurt". I recommend you watch a fairly well-edited version instead of the full 160 minute slog. Too much porn ruined the story telling. Goddamn Guccione. There's no way a film like this could ever be made again with the same Shakespearean seriousness, stifling awkwardness, and on- screen lasciviousness that for the latter may be a good thing in the end.