Idea & info: 'Caligula - The Restored Cut' (concept)

If this isn’t allowed, let me know and I’ll take whatever action I need.

If there’s one film out there that desperately needs restoration (apart from Star Wars, of course), it has to be Tinto Brass’ Caligula. Yes… it would’ve been a political satire had Bob Guccione not gotten his mitts on it and turned it into a flat-out sex film. But with what the media’s been given to us - can it be restored to what it should’ve been? Possibly, I don’t know. What I do know is that the analysis of the footage by Alexander Tuschinski serves as the foundation for this epic task.

Assuming this project actually does get going, I’ve written up a list of the things that need to be done:

1. First and foremost, remove ALL of the pornographic imagery.
2. Sort the deleted scenes into their respective points in the film
3. Try and clean up the negatives made available
4. Bring in some voice actors to redub some scenes
5. Try and reconstruct the music from what so little there is of it
6. Some colour correction.

I do have access to a portion of the footage required, but not all of it. Even so, this is a pretty huge undertaking for me… in fact it might even be the death of me. So this is only in concept stage at the moment.

Oh goodness.  This could very well be the death of you, just because of how badly this film is fucked.  

As per #3 - what kind of footage are you working with?  Tinto Brass claimed that Guccione used "test footage" in the final edit, and given how out-of-focus /bizarrely framed many shots are, I believe him.  

Apart from the film itself, I have what's in the UK Imperial Edition, namely:

• A few surviving pieces of Tinto's workprint
• Some of the "Bonus Footage"
• Several "rushes" of some scenes
• A few deleted scenes from the Making Of documentary
• Behind the scenes footage, possibly

The "Io, Caligola" DVD and the Unreleased Guccione Cut should have more detail, but I have access to neither.

I don't know if you can ever make it what it was supposed to be, but I'm really curious as to what you might be able to come up with for this.

Well the DVD does have two of the draft scripts, so there's a rough idea of how it should be for a start. The aforementioned analysis also includes a treatment which sounds about right.

That is true. Which is why this hasn't become a full project, at least not yet.

Ah, so Alexander's already reconstructed it? Superb!

SilverWook said:

Mission Caligula
Alexander Tuschinski’s 10 year quest to research Tinto Brass’ original ideas for Caligula, culminating in the discovery of Brass’ 1977 workprint - showing the film as a dark political satire, unlike any version ever released.
https://vimeo.com/241947493

nice bump, silverwook 😃

great podcast from several days ago with tuschinski and holland on docu and restoration, to whom it may concern!
https://www.spreaker.com/user/impossiblefunky/epx148-missioncaligula

I’m a big fan of Tinto and Caligula, so I was giddy as a schoolboy when I heard the news. The theatrical version is such a mess, so it’s understandable why audiences have felt so alienated by it. It’s like someone trying to read you a poem while a big band plays loudly in the foreground. I imagine that in addition to the deleted content, the scenes we’ve been seeing for years will have a whole different meaning now.

Ideally, apart from a theatrical re-release, the restored cut ought to be presented along with the theatrical one, since the current releases don’t have the original audio.

Ooh, I’ll have to check that out when I get the chance!