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CALIGULA ON VIDEO AND TELEVISION

THE 156-MINUTE US VERSION FROM FEBRUARY 1980

Out-of-print from Dutch FilmWorks. Quite nice transfer, ever so slightly overscanned, with a single audio problem. Region-2 PAL, which will not play on most US/Canadian equipment.

Seems to be copied from the Vestron laserdisc from 1984,
which was badly cropped to nearly full-screen, and was an altogether atrocious transfer.
Option for Russian voice-over translations.
Claims to be Region-5 PAL, but is actually Region-0 PAL, which will not play on most US/Canadian equipment.
Eugene Mlodik, who is from Russia, says that another irony in this video is that the credits
give the directors as Guccione and Lui, and list Brass only as a camera operator.
Despite that, the cover proclaims “TINTO BRASS’S MOST SCANDALOUS FILM!”
and that “Director Tinto Brass explicitly shows...,” etc, ad nauseam.

The US DVD from November 1999. Horribly converted from PAL, but slowed down to NTSC speed by the doubling of every fifth frame. Lots of confetti.

The back cover gives the running time as 177 minutes.
Hmmmmm, I thought; this could be interesting, yes?
Well, the stated running time is wrong.
The only difference is that this video is missing
the ridiculously irrelevant Biblical quotation at the beginning.

THE 156-MINUTE US VERSION. In January 1984 this version of the film came out on VHS and laserdisc in the US, but time-compressed to 148 minutes. The video transfer was cropped from the 2.00:1 of the US release prints (which in turn was cropped from the 1.85:1 of the camera negative), though a small vestige of the upper and lower masks still remained. A PAL transfer was terribly converted to NTSC for US release in a pathetic-looking DVD in 1999. Though transferred at the PAL speed of 25 frames per second, it was slowed down to the NTSC speed of 23.976 frames per second by the duplication of every fifth frame. Another PAL transfer (149min 35sec at PAL speed) was released in a sparkling crisp DVD in the Netherlands in 2000, derived from the 1.85:1 negative but reformatted to 1.78:1. Oddly, Longinus’s rhetorical question to Charicles and Claudius, “You’re not enjoying the emperor’s games?,” is almost inaudible.

THE FRENCH DOUBLE-DISC COLLECTOR’S DVD FROM 2003

Missing a few brief moments, and there are a few other problems, but overall this is the best-looking and best-sounding transfer yet.

THE FRENCH DOUBLE-DISC COLLECTOR’S DVD, RELEASED IN 2003. Basically the same as the 156-minute release version (149 minutes at PAL speed), but with a few incomprehensible re-edits. The dancing priestesses in the prelude are entirely deleted, and their omission is covered with a repeat of Caligula and Drusilla running through the idyllic landscape. The opening-credit music is badly re-edited, and all the opening credits are entirely re-done electronically, in a boring font. A brief moment during the celebration of the battle against Britain is deleted, probably by mistake. All the dialogue has added reverb. Despite the clarity elsewhere, “You’re not enjoying the emperor’s games?” is completely inaudible. And the third-to-last shot is replaced by a freeze frame. But at least the quality of the widescreen image is, for the most part, quite splendid, with vibrant color and contrast, better even than the 35mm release prints. Reformatted at 1.85:1, this is also possibly the only video release that reveals Cæsonia hovering above Longinus as he tells Chærea “You’d better be careful; he’s in a strange mood tonight.” And the bonus section includes excerpts from an interview that Tinto Brass gave to the Cinémathèque Française, but it quite deliberately omits Brass’s unfavorable comments about Caligula. What a shame!

THE 150-MINUTE ITALIAN DUB FROM NOVEMBER 1979

Never released.
The above poster art may or may not have been intended as the VHS cover.

This had been scheduled for VHS release through Cosmopolitan Films of Italy, but Franco Rossellini’s lawsuit put an end to that. If any copies were actually manufactured, they never got out to the public. The Mida VHS release of Io Caligola (of which more below) bizarrely included some segments of the 150-minute Caligola, which had superior dubbing by a different cast of voice actors. If you know more than I do, please write to me.

THE UK RELEASE

Unconscionably bad overscanned transfer, but with a few moments you won’t see in any other version.

THE UK RELEASE. As noted in the main entry, this edition contains alternative footage, some of it interesting, some of it meaningless. This was released on PAL VHS by Electric Video in the UK in late 1982 or thereabouts. James E Chaffin reports: “The extra footage in this version derives partly from Bob’s Jan ’77 shoot—alternate and extended footage of the the lesbian tryst, and alternate material of the Imperial Bordello, some of it rather insipid (Penthouse Pets caressing each others cheeks!). Of more interest is the alternate Tinto Brass footage from the Harem Monsters Orgy. This includes a stunningly bizarre shot of a woman being driven across one of the upper floors of the tenement on wheels ! There are also snatches of extra stuff in the Isis Pool scene and the rape of Livia.” The PAL-speed running time is 2:23:19, which at cinema speed would be 2:29:17.

This video, released in PAL VHS and PAL Beta, was the subject of a two-page pictorial in the Continental Film and Video Review vol 30 no 2, December. Somebody, and I wish I could remember who, scanned the relevant pages for me, but there was apparently no indication of the year. But a bit of research indicates that Volume 30 ran 12 issues beginning November 1982 and ending October 1983. If the research is correct, that places the video release at about the end of 1982, which makes this surely the earliest official video release of Caligula anywhere in the world. (Of course, there was the earlier and definitely unofficial release, also on NTSC VHS in the US, which I could have purchased in late 1980 for a mere $150 had I had the funds, the courage, and the ability to hold my nose. Alas, I had none of those qualities. But if any of you purchased or own or saw the bootleg, please write to me. No, I won’t turn you in. No point anyway, not after all this time and not now that the movie is so freely available. But I would be most interested in examining the quality and the transfer. Most interested indeed!)

THE OCTOBER 1981 R-RATED VERSION

The alternative footage in this edition includes one little jewel—a comic bit of business toward the end of the Imperial Bordello scene that was probably not included in any other version. This edition was released on VHS, CED, and laserdisc in January 1984, time-compressed to 101 minutes. The VHS edition includes an unintentionally hilarious afterword by Guccione. This version (though without the afterword) is still available on a very poor-looking VHS in the UK.

IO CALIGOLA, RE-EDITED BY ENZO MICARELLI
UNDER FRANCO ROSSELLINI’S SUPERVISION

The code sticker is most unfortunately placed. I’m not certain, but I think this was only available with a subscription to Borghese magazine. Tinto Brass was probably unaware of this edition of the movie, because if he had been, he would likely have sued over his name being featured so prominently.

The dumbest cover ever, which contains one of the better transfers of one of the better versions!

For the curious, the extra bits in this edition consist of more commotion around Nerva’s suicide; Proculus vs the Killing Machine, but so horribly edited as to be lamely anticlimactic; a really nifty Busby Berkeley-like overhead shot of the Isis pool, and the mourning Caligula carrying Drusilla’s body across the veranda. There were also a couple of other minor differences — different camera angles and extra languourous moments which should probably have been cut out. Rossellini also rewrote the epigraph. No longer do we hear “I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man; therefore I am — a God.” Nope. Now he says “Quando la libertà diventa liberticidio, e quando i valori morali svaniscono, allora tramontano le civiltà. Logico, no?” (“When liberty becomes libertycide, and when moral courage withers away, then civilizations collapse. Logical, no?”) Why he did this, I don’t know. Did he need to add a moralistic tone to please the censor? Who knows? In addition, he stole (though surely he owned the copyrights) music from his recently deceased father’s other films, most notably Stromboli. He also commissioned an almost complete re-recording of the soundtrack—resulting in a much quieter movie. The result is a far better, but still quite poor, film. At least in this version we can discern one of the main themes, namely, the absolute isolation of the ruling élite from the empire that they govern—a situation that inevitably breeds a sense of paranoia and derealization.

The oddball Mida release of the revised Io Caligola from 1984, which unaccountably included a few fleeting moments of the November 1979 edition of Caligola.

Skorpion Home Video, cropped to full screen

Another issue of the Skorpion Home Video version

Of course, without access to all the raw footage, it was simply impossible to restore Brass’s vision. All Rossellini and Micarelli could do was monkey with the footage they had inherited from Guccione. So we still see mostly the wrong camera angles along with the maddening zooms. Truncated sequences either remain truncated or are deleted altogether. As for the numerous scenes that dragged because of Guccione’s insistence on holding on main shots, proper re-editing was naturally out of the question, and so they were simply trimmed.

Another video release, with yet more alterations, from a poor faded print,
cropped from 1.85:1 to full screen.

Nonetheless, small as Micarelli’s edits are, they make for such a dramatic improvement that the result leads one strongly to suspect that, had Brass been allowed to complete the film, it may well have been brilliant and deeply moving.



There have been more video releases of Io Caligola than I’ve been able to trace. This is the latest one so far, from a really miserable print, faded and shrunken. The VHS has a notice on the front which reads “CONTIENE SCENE MAI VISTE PRIMA.” And what are these scenes never before seen? Simply snippets of Guccione’s footage from the American version, carelessly spliced back in. You can even see the splicing tape run on by, all over the place.

The ads give the title as Io, Caligola, with a comma, but the main title of the film does not include the comma. According to Isola nella Rete approximately ten minutes had been cut by censors’ orders. This assertion is almost certainly incorrect, resulting from the confusion engendered by the Mida VHS release, which was advertised as running 130 minutes. No two video editions of Io Caligola seem to be alike. Some are somewhat better than the 156-minute US edition, and some are worse — much worse.

THE FILMFOUR VERSION

The folks at FilmFour, the UK’s most daring film-programming channel, decided to reconstruct a “director’s cut” of Caligula, but did this by the simple expedient of deleting Guccione’s inserts from the 156-minute version, and cropping the frame when they deemed extraneous actions unnecessary to the story—or unbroadcastable! (“TV Outing for Restored Caligula,” The Genius of Malcolm McDowell: News Archives�October 1999, reprinted from an uncited BBC source; “Caligula: Cut Director’s Cut,” formerly posted at http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/news1099.htm) J E Chaffin elucidates once again:

When it was shown on TV, there was a brief but polemical introduction from the Film 4 boss, Mark Kermode, explaining the background to the movie. He stated that Guccione/Lui had inserted six minutes of ‘grotesquely inappropriate’ hardcore porn footage into Brass’ ‘savagely unsexy’ political opus. He described the result as a ‘hideously deformed masterpiece’. Kermode went on to say that his team had deleted all the Guccione/Lui footage ‘where identifiable’. He expressed the hope that this new cut would shed new light on the film though he doubted whether we would ever get to see a ‘complete or completely satisfying’ cut.

So, what was Film 4’s version like? Well, they were working at a disadvantage as compared to Rosselini/Micarelli. Micarelli did have some sort of extended/pre-release cut (Cannes or otherwise) to work from when he created Io Caligola. Film 4 had no access to any work-in-progress versions or raw footage. (Did they try?) The best they could manage was the full 156-min release print (or 149 mins at PAL speed) which had long been banned in the UK. From this, they cut out Guccione’s inserts and also reluctantly had to delete some elements of Tinto’s footage (i.e. urination, slaves jerking off over Ennia) in order for the film to be show on TV. Generally, they used creative panning and scanning to obscure ‘offensive’ images while keeping scenes intact.

Film 4 made no attempt to restructure the picture and put scenes back in their proper places. (Without access to an extended print and musical score I guess it would hardly be feasible, anyway.) What they produced, more or less, was the Guccione cut minus the Guccione trimmings! Nevertheless, the quality of the print restoration was extremely good and the picture looked fabulous. The highlight of the film is the Imperial Bordello scene: Guccione’s inserts are almost entirely absent (save for a couple of brief frames) and the scene is altogether more coherent and effective in this version than in any other.

THE R-RATED DVD VERSION

I wasted my money on this because I thought it would be the October 1981 version but in a nicer transfer. Wrong! Guccione apparently so hated the October 1981 version that he decided it better to butcher the 156-minute version even further. I couldn’t get through more than a few minutes of this mess. This version was also released on DVD in France. Whoever shortened the film did not receive any credit, and was probably relieved not to have received any credit.

THE JAPANESE VERSIONS

The red version is reportedly the same as the 156-minute version, but with genitalia fogged. I know nothing about the blue version, but, like a desperate dope fiend who’s lost all touch with reality, I’ll be dumb enough to purchase it, and I’ll regret it later on. So those of you who can speak, read, and write Japanese should give me a holler. (NOTE to the person who gave me a holler: I accidentally deleted your email, because it somehow appeared in my bulk-mail folder. Please contact me again. Thanks!) I’ll pay you the cost, the postage, and a $10 honorarium to buy it for me. Here are the links:

OTHER VERSIONS...

...are in all likelihood derived from the 156-minute version, the UK version, or the October 1981 version. Maybe. But then, according to the mistake-ridden essay at IMDb, “The laserdisc shows more of the freak show... when Malcolm McDowell first meets Peter O’Toole (among other things throughout the film).” Well, that’s not in my laserdisc copies (Los Angeles, CA: Image Entertainment, catalogue number ID5249VE, 1988; and Santa Monica, CA: LaserDisc Entertainment, catalogue number 15249, © 1991). If you know of a laserdisc release that does indeed contain this material, please write to me. The mistake-ridden essay goes on to state that the older Russian release (the one with the black cover, not the newer one with the blue cover) features “some extremely repulsive scenes from Tiberius’s grotto that were left out by Bob Guccione for the uncensored version.” Why do I have my doubts? But I’ll watch it anyway. I’ll pay you the cost and shipping plus a $10 honorarium to send me the DVD. Please contact me if this proposition interests you. Thanks!