We’re not especially big on reporting forthcoming movie news here (though if that’s the sort of thing you want under our new incarnation, feel free to let us know), but how can we resist the announcement that Drafthouse Films will be releasing the new Ultimate Cut of Caligula after its appearance at the Cannes Film Festival last year.
Now, calling something the ‘ultimate cut’ is pretty boastful – the sort of claim of God-like status that you might expect from Caligula himself, in fact. For a film that has already gone through several different versions – the original theatrical cut, an R-rated edit, the 1980 BBFC (and UK customs) approved version, the alternative version already out on Blu-ray and the Channel 4 TV edit that Mark Kermode laughably tried to pass off as ‘the director’s cut’ – you might wonder just what else can be done with the movie. But this new edition is less a re-edit and more a completely new film crafted from 100 hours of footage unearthed from the Penthouse vault by Thomas Negovan – this new version promises to consist of 100% unseen footage and so is effectively an alternative imagining rather than just another a new cut.
Now, Caligula is one of my favourite movies – if the Sight and Sound Greatest Movies poll allowed you to pick 20 films rather than 10, it would have, without question, been in my list. The press release for the new edition does dismiss Bob Guccione’s version, with the addition of extra scenes of sex and violence, and yes – the hardcore footage featuring Penthouse Pets was certainly crowbarred into the film against the wishes of everyone else involved. But hopefully, the film doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. As anyone who has seen the Making Of documentary or contemporary reports from the production – not to mention the scenes that involve all the principal actors and the fact that director Tinto Brass was noted for pushing the boundaries of mainstream sexual imagery and controversy in films like Salon Kitty – will know, this was always going to be a sexually explicit and graphically violent movie, even in the version written by Gore Vidal. Hopefully, the new three-hour edition still respects that. We don’t need another R-rated version. This was never meant to be family entertainment. But I’m sure that all involved are aware of this.
So I’m cautiously hopeful about this. I also hope that the existing versions of the film will be included in 4K restorations on the eventual disc, allowing audiences to see every possible edition of what is one of the most extraordinary pieces of filmmaking ever created, a flawed but compelling work that is one of the last moments of 1970s boundary-pushing cinema. I also hope that I’ll get to see this version in time to run a review as part of an extensive piece charting the long and strange history of Caligula, and explaining in more detail just why I believe that this film – even in the Guccione cut – is a misunderstood masterpiece.
DAVID FLINT
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4K and Blu Ray due Autumn/Winter apparently from Drafthouse Films but a Blu of the Ultimate Cut has already been released in Spain. BD rips are available from the usual sources.