Tag: Malcolm McDowell

A masterful train wreck

I didn’t know that famed porno director Tinto Brass was still alive. But at 90, he surviving on his pure, unadulterated hatred for Bob Guccione (who died in 2010). According to recent reports, Tinto is still fighting to keep his name off the recent version of Caligula, which, according to Malcolm McDowell, was released at Cannes. Brass argues that editing is an important part of his directing process, and since he wasn’t involved in editing any version of Caligula…including the latest one…it’s not his film.

I’m sort of with Brass on this. Not because I give a shit about the integrity of his “process”, but because producers and Penthouse executives need to leave well enough alone. Caligula is a cult classic. It’s flaws, inexplicable porno shots, and incoherent plot are actually what make that movie memorable. It’s sort of perfect in its own unique, stupid way. Despite the protests of the talent involved, I don’t think there’s any way to cut Caligula into a great, or even good, film.

But I get it. It’s sort of embarrassing to have a film written by Gore Vidal, and starring Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole, and John Gielgud get reduced to a hardcore porno. I feel McDowell’s frustrations in his Instagram post. He gave a performance of a lifetime that perhaps doesn’t get recognized due to the film’s controversy.

But I had a similar concern when Peter Bogdanovich announced that he was finishing Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind for Netflix. What was fascinating about The Other Side was that IT WAS unfinished. It fit Welles’ reputation perfectly: he couldn’t finish a film, and The Other Side of the Wind was supposed to be his magnum opus. There was no way that the finished product could have matched our expectations, especially since Welles couldn’t be involved in finishing it (because he died in 1985).

Good for McDowell. He might finally be recognized for his hard work. But Caligula will always be remembered as an expensive, and violent, hardcore porno film starring the best talent that money could buy. Of course it was a train wreck, but it was a beautiful one at that 👍

the long, hot summer

Where were my parents growing up?

What was I doing watching such classics as The Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver, Paris Texas, and Caligula before the age 13?

In fact, I was right about to turn 13 when I watched Caligula for the first time. It was a long, boring summer. I was dragging ass on mowing the yard. My dog puked on the tile floor. And instead of taking care of both of those problems, for whatever reasons we had a rented copy of Caligula so I popped it in the DVD player.

I remember the moment better than I remember 9/11.

Next thing I know, Malcolm McDowell was fucking his sister, penises were everywhere, and there was blood. So, so much blood (with a few blowjobs to boot).

I just didn’t see it coming.

Hardcore porn and bloody movies weren’t anything new to me. But when they got mixed together, you go from being aroused to utterly horrified in one frame. It’s too much for a young mind to take in.

I was so traumatized by the experience, I couldn’t watch it again until I was 20.

But now I’m happy that it’s being recognized as a truly awful classic, and a marquee role for Malcolm McDowell and a disgustingly hott Helen Mirren. It’s been therapeutic for me to say the least.