This is one of those notorious films that I grew up hearing about but never seeing fully. I've caught parts from time to time, but I've always been excited to see. Streaming is non-existent, so I bought the DVD.
The reviews are spot on, this movie is awful. There is a film here, the story of Caligula is ripe for dramatization. Unfortunately what happened here was the interference of Bob Guccione making the final product a glorified pornographic film.
What could have been a historical epic turns out to have a very loose in not completely lost narrative structure that makes the film hard to follow.
Is there artistic merit? I think there is. The production design team tries their best, but many of the sets are so obvious that you're taken out of the film. The cinematography is atrocious at times, I understand that is is the by-product of a bad edit job by Guccione himself.
Let's not forget that there are some exceptionally talented actors here: John Gielgud, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole and of course, Malcolm McDowell. It's really incredible to imagine a film like this exists, and that's what is so exciting, at least for me.
If you bought this for erotic purposes, I'll say that you're already on the internet and can find much better and more effective products elsewhere.
For someone who's interested in experiencing the film and believe me, it is an experience, then you can probably do worse. By the end of the film I was bored and just waiting for Caligula's brutal end.
The reviews are spot on, this movie is awful. There is a film here, the story of Caligula is ripe for dramatization. Unfortunately what happened here was the interference of Bob Guccione making the final product a glorified pornographic film.
What could have been a historical epic turns out to have a very loose in not completely lost narrative structure that makes the film hard to follow.
Is there artistic merit? I think there is. The production design team tries their best, but many of the sets are so obvious that you're taken out of the film. The cinematography is atrocious at times, I understand that is is the by-product of a bad edit job by Guccione himself.
Let's not forget that there are some exceptionally talented actors here: John Gielgud, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole and of course, Malcolm McDowell. It's really incredible to imagine a film like this exists, and that's what is so exciting, at least for me.
If you bought this for erotic purposes, I'll say that you're already on the internet and can find much better and more effective products elsewhere.
For someone who's interested in experiencing the film and believe me, it is an experience, then you can probably do worse. By the end of the film I was bored and just waiting for Caligula's brutal end.
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