Caligula (1979)

UUUUUUUURRGH. As if last months movie choice wasn't bad enough it had least had the decency to be average length. Not this obnoxious piece of garbage. TWO HOURS THIRTY SIX MINUTES. What is it with shit movies in the 70's being so long? First The Swarm and now this? I mean, I at least, for the most part, found The Swarm entertaining to watch. I cannot, confidently, say that, pre-emptively, I'm going to feel the same way about this one. Nothing against historical recreation movies in general although they mostly just bore me stupid to be honest. However when they are done right, they can be pretty good. I... think... I can't immediately think of an example to put here... But I have this horrible foreboding that what I'm about to watch has not been done right. Not at all. Stuffed with gratuitous sex scenes that would make Ron Jeremy blush, and garnished with a handful of horrifically violent murder scenes; 79's Caligula garnered a reputation for being a "moral holocaust" a phrase coined by critic Hank Werba which is, I'll be honest with you, a little bit concerning as I'm not sure I've entirely recovered mentally from having exposed myself to the horrible bollocks I covered last month.

Playboy Prince, Caius Caligula (Malcolm McDowell), only surviving heir to the throne, is summoned by his grandfather, and Emperor, Tiberius (Peter O'Toole) for an audience. Fearing he may be executed, he discovers his grandfather maddening, in advancing age, crippled by disease, and... seemingly really into swimming with naked men and women. His palace reduced to nothing beyond a massive swinger orgy. After a... testy dialogue between the pair, Caligula is smart enough to survive a would be assassination attempt from his grandfather, who warns him that his time will eventually come by the hand of his closest family. After the death of his closest friend Nerva (John Gielgud), Tiberius already fragile state of mind only worsens, until he is eventually bed ridden, receiving news from the Emperor's Physician that it is only a matter of time, Caligula visits him with his Guardian, and General of the Guard, Macro (Guido Mannari / English dub voice: Patrick Allen) and in a show of loyalty to the would-be new Emperor, Macro strangles a withered Tiberius to death before leaving to spread the news of the crowning of a new Caeser. Before leaving, Caligula discovers his younger step-brother, Gemellus (Bruno Brive) witnessed the whole event, but he swears loyalty to Caligula immediately and Caligula states that they must "love each other"... At his coronation, Caligula unveils his sister Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy), and secret lover, as his equal, much to the disgust of the Roman senate, and announces Gemellus as the heir to his throne. Macro warns him to be careful of Gemellus with Caligula seemingly agreeing. As his romps away with Drusilla, she suggests that Caligula should "take care" of Macro before he controls him like he controlled his grandfather, and hatching a plot to use Gemellus in order to point out his grandfathers murderer, Caligula has Macro arrested for murder and appoints Chaerea (Paolo Bonacelli / English dub voice: Joss Ackland) as his successor. The Senate sentences Macro to death for treason, and his wife, Ennia (Adriana Asti) - an unwilling but part time lover of Caligula - is banished to Gaul. Committed to marrying his sister, a crime in Rome, Caligula is convinced by Drusilla to marry, and is introduced to Caesonia (Helen Mirran) and despite his sisters protestations about her suitability, Caligula selects her as his wife anyway, but only on the grounds that she first bears him a heir. Whilst watching on as Macro is horrifically executed by decapitation, he spots a guard, Proculus (Donato Placido) cosying up to a lady he fancies, Livia, and singles him out to his entourage, arranging to be invited to their wedding. At the wedding, he takes Livia and Proculus to their wedding bed, but instead forces himself on Livia, forcing Proculus to watch as he does so, much to the disgust of Drusilla. And then on Proculus himself, just for good measure. After a... slightly bizarre lesbian sex scene that I'm pretty sure was only put in as a kind of compromise to whoever supplied the porn stars for this movie (ed: Penthouse) and doesn't really do anything to advance the plot... Convinced that Gemellus intends to murder him, at a party later that day, he has him arrested on the pretext that Gemellus suspects him of poisoning him, and Gemellus is carted away. Seeing Gemellus arrested upsets Drusilla and when Caligula confronts her she tells him Ceasonia now carries his child. But Caligula tells her that Gemellus must die anyway, given he knows what happened to Tiberus, and Drusilla calls him an amateur, which leads Caligula to smack her across the face and Drusilla to storm off upset. Following the events of the party, Caligula comes down with a severe fever that almost kills him and he develops a strong paranoia that Gemellus is going to kill him whilst begging for Drusilla. She eventually arrives to console him and the pair resolve their differences with Caligula recovering. He has Proculus executed for treason in a pretty tasteless scene where two ladies masturbate over his carcass. Yeah, really. Then what follows is the very public birth of Caligula's child with Ceasonia and their concurrent wedding at the same time, however Caligula refuses to accept the child as his daughter, instead insisting that she is his son. And at the birth Drusilla collapses with the same illness that struck down Caligula. She is less fortunate, succumbing to the illness and dying and Caligula is apoplectic. Smashing a statue of the Goddess Isis in temper before collapsing into depression, disappearing and roaming the streets of err.. Rome... as a begger. However he comes to his senses and returns to his throne, proclaiming himself a God in front of the Senate. He goes on to degree that the wives of the Senators will become prostitutes in an "imperial brothel" and what follows is a pretty drawn out gratuitous sex scene of what is basically an orgy, whilst Caligula belittles the army, making them act out a mock invasion of Britain watched on by Chaerea and Longinus (John Steiner), head of the Senate. Following a celebration of the mock invasion, Caligula degrees that all the land and estate of the Senators be confiscated, with each Senator learning one by one before he orders Chaerea to arrest them. With the confiscation being the final straw, and convinced that Caligula is both entirely mad and a tyrant, both Chaerea and Longinus hatch a plot to have him assassinated. As Caligula, Ceasonia and their daughter Julia return from rehearsing a play, Chaerea stabs Caligula to death before the rest of the guard execute Cesonia and Julia, watched on by a horrified Claudius, Caligula's uncle, who is immediately proclaimed Caeser...

Well. This is indeed was a long one and there is a lot for me to unpack here. It was a bit of a tale of two different films going on. On the one hand, you had the absolute outstanding dramatic portrayal of one of history's most reviled figures and all of the top notch acting of the various supporting characters that came with it. And then on the other hand you had the gratuitous pornography that was kind of woven in alongside it. My Roman history isn't entirely fantastic but I at least know enough that to some extent, there was a need for it: Caligula was famous for being something of a sexual deviant and a nymphomaniac but I felt like there was often just nudity for the sake of nudity... more on that later. I can't deny that I enjoyed this movie though, even given some of the... questionable thematic choices it made along the way. If nothing else it was certainly engaging, interesting and enjoyable to watch.

I can't attest to it's historical accuracy. As aforementioned I am no expert in Roman history. I can at least say that some of the events depicted were indeed based on historical record. And Caligula was eventually assassinated. I haven't taken the liberty of combing through the various events depicted in the film and then comparing them with the historical depiction so err... sue me I guess... but I'm prepared to assume that the movie takes some creative liberties. And to a degree that's absolutely fine. It's about making a movie after all, and sometimes you have to bend or stretch the truth a bit and so long as you don't depict any kind of reputational harm as a result, then that's mostly fine. I can't be certain, but for what it's worth I believe most of the key moments in the film are pretty accurate to what happened in real life.

With that aside, storyline-wise things flow along pretty nicely for the most part. A good half of the film is mostly just pornographic sex scenes to be honest, but the story built around that nicely depicts Caligula's rein from his beginning as a Prince becoming Emperor right up to his assassination and how his fragile mental state gradually decays throughout his rein. Not that he was a particularly nice person to begin with... but the events he endured didn't really help matters either. But it flowed well and captured your interest. Sometimes that was out of morbid curiosity of what was going to happen next and sometimes, especially with the death of Drusilla, with genuine empathy for Caligula, painting him as something of an anti-hero in parts. But... gratuitous sex scenes notwithstanding, there wasn't really any moments where the plot felt like it stalled or was drawn out. It would have been easy for it to collapse into a repetitive, over embellished diatribe given the subject matter but that doesn't really happen. There are key scenes where Caligula's megalomania is established and it isn't rehashed again and again. The movie takes the opportunity to develop the other areas of Caligula's character.

If you've gotten this far, it should really go without saying but there are plenty of boobs in this. And dicks. And everything else in between. There is no shortage of nudity and there are some pretty hardcore moments. You could argue that this is the most storyline and plot enriched softcore porn that has ever been produced. There is certainly no skimping on the genitals. At times though, it often feels the movie makes the creative choice to go with nudity for the sake of nudity. I often felt like a scene was shot with it just because they had already crossed over into that territory and it didn't really matter any more. There wasn't really a scene that goes by without someone being around with their tits out. Or their dick out. And it got to the point where it was oversaturation and it felt un-necessary. 

Malcolm McDowell absolutely commands this entire thing and rightfully so I guess, playing the titular character. But he is so enjoyable to watch at work and a true master of his craft even at this younger age. He demands attention in every scene he is in and his depiction of Caligula is perfect. He goes through a pretty dramatic range here, having to be a total psychopath, an emotionally damaged and depressed lover and a powerful commanding leader, and he has no problem delivering in any of those scenarios. He absolutely makes this move legendary and it's almost a shame that the other stylistic choices damaged it so badly that he isn't more appreciated for the work he put into this.

In terms of production, I was watching a streaming copy that wasn't of the best quality, but I sometimes struggled to understand some of the dialogue. Owing to the fact that it was completely drowned out by the "background" music. I think there was a good 5 or 6 occasions where I missed parts because I just couldn't hear what had been said. It never really ruined a key part for me and I don't think it particularly damaged the movie but it did drag it down a degree and felt a bit amateurish. This was 1979, and by this point there isn't really an excuse for it. Otherwise though, cinematography was pretty decent, some creative use of the camera, and the soundtrack was really the embellishment that gave the movie a much more grand production feeling about it. Some of the music choices were outstanding and impressive enough that I forgive them for some of the more odd, bizarre choices that were made in other parts of the movie.... particularly with the weird lesbian sex scene and the oddly unfitting unsettling music behind it...

I can kind of give the movie a nod of appreciation for at least trying something a bit different in the depiction of Caligula with choosing to take the safety off and just going all in with the nudity. He was well known for his sexual depravity and I think to do a movie about Caligula and not include it would just be a false and ignorant production. But I'm still of the opinion here that it really just got took a little bit too far. There is often nudity just for the sake of it and there are moments in a scene that are designed just to be low-brow and shocking because the movie knows there's no restrictions here now and that they can go all in. And it's in that that it really gets ruined. This is otherwise an incredibly good portrayal of Caligua by Malcolm McDowell and the supporting cast are also all very good but it's massively tarnished by just an un-necessary amount of pornographic content that goes beyond tasteful and just into straight up erotic which is only going to split the audience. And it, retrospectively did by the looks of things. This is by no means a bad movie, it's a very good movie. Most of it. But there is also this really uncomfortable and gratuitous pornographic sequence heavily woven into the entire thing that if I'm being frank, really hampers where the movie is excelling. And it's a massive shame because I think dialled back into tasteful but very much a key component of the movie and I think this would be a far better production. And likely more appreciated. But instead it just drags the movie down a couple of pegs and damages what is otherwise a top quality historical recreation. 2 out of 5.