Bob Guccione

(YouTube Streaming, August 2021) Even in the vast universe of wild movies in cinema history, there has never been and will never be anything quite like Caligula. Produced at the end of the 1970s by pornography mogul Bob Guccione with the intention of bridging the mainstream movie world with the “porno chic” movement of the permissive decade, this is a film that has both well-known actors (Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren) and pornographic footage. Even knowing all about Caligula’s reputation, I still blinked whenever the X-rated material showed up on-screen, gradually pushing back the familiar limits of what we’re used to seeing on-screen: Nudity: Yes. Erect phalluses: Yes. Graphic Oral Sex: Yes. Full penetration: Yes. Ejaculation: Yes. And that’s not even getting into the far less entertaining gore and violence. But wait, because the film’s production is one for the history books as well. Offering perhaps the purest example of how movies are written thrice, we here have a script by Gore Vidal (!) meaning to explore the concept of total power leading to total corruption, being handed over to exploitation director Tinto Brass meaning to show luridly how a corrupt individual becomes even more corrupt once powerful, being handed over to producer Guccione, who shot the X-rated footage that was then added after the main actors had left the film, blending everything into a bizarre mash-up of sex, violence and some remaining satire. Caligula is fascinating, but it’s not a good film: The many hands that rewrote the film just end up producing an incoherent historical drama with jolts of hard-core sex. On the other hand, it does offer the irresistible trivia that Mirren once starred in a film with unsimulated sex — and she still to this day seems amused by it, which is appropriate considering that her character is probably the most appealing in the film. Still, it’s a surprisingly dull movie, and its length is made even worse by the way the film repeatedly stops to highlight hardcore sex with no relationship to the plot. A unique viewing experience and a wild filmmaking history don’t always end up equalling a good film. The idea that there will never be another film like Caligula is frankly more of a relief than something to mourn. Fun fact: Midway through watching Caligula, the police came knocking at my door… but the explanation (it turns out that leaving a fully-lit garage door open at 1:30 AM in my quiet neighbourhood will get the police to come knocking to ask if everything is all right) is not quite as satisfying as the fun fact itself.