Caligula (film)

Caligula is a 1979 film directed by Tinto Brass (with additional scenes filmed by Bob Guccione and Giancarlo Lui) about the Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar Germanicus also known as "Caligula". Caligula was written by Gore Vidal and co-financed by Penthouse magazine, though the script underwent several re-writes after Tinto Brass and Malcolm McDowell found Gore Vidal's interpretation of the infamous Emperor to be unsatisfactory. The producers were Bob Guccione and Franco Rosselini. The film was budgeted at about 20 million dollars. The production advertised itself as "the most controversial film in history. Only one movie dares to show the perversion behind Imperial Rome...".

Multiple versions

Caligula was shown in various versions, including:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• an unreleased version, shown in a limited private screening at the Cannes Film Festival, was 210 minutes long.
• an unrated version, 156 minutes long, was show in theaters in certain jurisdictions. It contained several scenes with sexually and violently explicit content, including orgies, masturbation, fellatio, anal fisting, female urination, beheading prisoners using a lawn-mower-type device (which is unlikely to have existed in reality), and slamming an infant on to stone steps like a ragged doll. It was highly controversial, and considered by some objectors to be pornographic. It would certainly have received an X rating from the MPAA.
• Guccione eventually authorized an R-rated cut released in 1981, 105 minutes long, which earned the film wider distribution. Though the controversy over the film's content drew large crowds, virtually none of the most excessive scenes were included in the R version.
• A later R-rated DVD version simply cut out the graphic portions awkwardly instead of using the alternate angles seen in the R-rated theatrical release. This DVD version clocked in at 102 minutes.

Both the new R-rated version and the 156-minute cut have been released to DVD.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~