Caligula: The Ultimate Cut 4K 2023 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

This movie is a complete reimagining of Caligula (1979). 96 hours of never-before-released footage that was restored many years after its release. Instead of supplementing scenes with new footage, the entire movie was re-mounted from scratch to create a unique version that does not contain a single frame from the original. This was done in order to get as close to Gore Vidal's original script as possible . Visual effects were used to enhance the scenes and replace cheap sets and backgrounds. Artificial Intelligence technology was used to restore dialogues that were previously unusable due to background noise.

Review 4K Movie

This is truly a lost opportunity. After a massive search, a film scholar tracked down all of the original film shot by director Tinto Brass, who is still alive, and he wante4d to work with Brass to finally make a director's cut.

Penthouse, which own the rights, changed management and the new management instead turned the footage over to some people with absolutely no background in film restoration. This new team said they wanted to restore the film to the intentions of Gore Vidal's script. The main problem with that is Tinto Brass was not filming Vidal's script as it was written, as he thought it was terrible. He and actor Malcolm McDowell reworked the script into something more of an art film.

The result of this restoration is that the scenes are finally in the right order but put together with with no sense of style or pacing. Tinto Brass envisioned lots of close up and fast editing, and completed about half of the film this way. Instead we get long takes that emphasize the lavish sets and obscure the action. It looks like a rough cut that is waiting for someone to add closeups and quicken the pace. A few individual scenes work much better in the original due to better editing.

Another drawback is the overly modern score, which doesn't reflect musical trends of the 1970s, when the film was shot.

On the plus side, all of the incongruous hardcore scenes shot by Penthouse chief Bob Guccione are gone. A more coherent performance by Malcolm McDowell can be seen, though at times some of the more manic takes might have worked better to emphasize his deteriorating mental state.