Caligula 1979

The movie by Gore Vidal and Tinto Brass. I never seen it in it's entirety but I have seen clips from it. I like Malcolm McDowell's voice, he kind of sounds like Dr. Muraki from Descendants of Darkness, and from what I have seen of it, I think he did well for playing a mad man. Like David Tennant as Doctor Who and Bartie Crouch Jr. I'd like to see the rest of it now. My only problem is that it looks more like a play than a movie, the Harem of Monsters and Imperial Bordello scenes....felt and looked like they were on a stage rather than a built set. Needless to say that the props looked completely fake but it's the performance that is important.

I know people have issues with the rampant sexuality in it but I have an issue with every movie I watch there is more naked women than men. So yeah....it's unfair and shut up about it. Hollywood isn't going to change. Sex is so natural and is actually healthy for you (still everyone should be safe) and it's a shame we now live in a world where we are demonized for our choice of partners and is made to feel ashamed for it.

I think people when watching this should try to actually educate themselves and learn a little bit more about who Caligula was because there's nothing an actor can do that can be captured on camera that will even come close to the atrocities he committed in real life. We all know the inaccurate/accurate history of Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Caligula and Nero (the Julian-Claudius Dynasty) through film (for everything the Romans accomplished, their eras aren't actually taught well in schools. Seeing how we use their alphabet, you'd think they'd get a little more credit) but I actually rather see something about Trajan, the Emperor from Hispania. He was brutal, bloody, fair and good. But I have a feeling that the monotheistic oppressive overlords don't want to admit that pagan leaders were good just as much as they were capable of evil.

Then, for some reason, Youtube recommended me the videos for Total War: Rome II. I don't play military games but I watched the live action trailer for the game anyway and it was done surprisingly well. You can watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKglskMfyWA
I wished there was some sort of narration to the trailer but the cinematography was done well nevertheless. Looked like it would have been a good movie, better than Pompeii anyway. So the trailer inspired me to write something while listening/watching random clips of Caligula because the full streams I found had terrible audio and the streams with good audio was either in Spanish or had actor commentary on it. So an excerpt from what I wrote, again no title.


 

It hadn't been going well since the younger Emperor's son met his Athenian relations. The men of his mother's family had been trying to fill his head with nonsense of Athenian pride. So much pride did them after Rome helped to crush them along with their allies. Not even the ever war hungry Spartans could be moved to help their fellow Grecians.
            Alecto didn't like what his maternal family had been telling him, they were conflicting the boy and he did not need that. Not when there were older heirs for the throne who would see Aries as a rival when he came into his manhood just the same they would see the child as a threat whenever Alecto died. He feared, that without his co-Emperor and elder brother, Saturn, his two nephews would turn feral on him.
            If they didn't fear him and Octavio, his paternal cousin, but then again, without Saturn, Octavio could become an enemy all too well. He was going to set things straight for his son as gently as the boy could understand, he was young still, only seven years old and had grown up living on Palatine in a villa, what did he know of betrayal?
           His own father had began his career in the Senate at a young age and spurred it in his youngest son, it was the Senate they were leaving now, walking in step with one another. Alecto was old, there was no denying that but his brother was older and there was no denying that either, while his brother had been favored in his youth, Alecto had come to power only a short decade ago when he returned from his own adventures outside the city and country.
           It was only noon, the sun reflected off the white buildings and stone, a trick of architecture to make the insides of said buildings cooler, a trick learned from the Grecians but ah well...he would give credit when credit was due. He wore his Senatorial robes, as he was also Consul, he had been elected by his peers inside the governing body before he made himself and his brother Emperors, naturally no one opposed the two dangerous men.
            If they did, they would only be silently removed.
            He stopped at the top of the stairs to look down upon the square teeming with the life that made this city great and glorious. "Where were you born?" He asked his son. Aries had been made to listen while inside the Senate but after the meticulous meeting of who would be his superior one day while he trained, Aries made an off comment about a democracy.
            A part of the boy wanted to understand the difference between the two governing sanctions but the voice that came out of his lips was condemning at best. Fortunately for him, his father knew that Aries didn't know enough to appreciate the reasons why a republic was better and since he was still a child, he was easily influenced by the adults in his life. Aries' grandfather was beginning to become a pain in his ass although he only met the older man twice.
            "Rome." Aries answered going no further than his own father.
            "And where was your father born?" He asked what seemed like a fruitless question to his son. Did he forget where he was born himself?
            "Rome." Aries answered automatically.
            "And his father and his father before him?" Alecto kept an eye on the square, following the moves of the guards meant to keep the peace.
            "Rome."
            "And what is a democracy? What is a republic?" Alecto asked.
            "I don't know." Aries admitted.
            "So you're equally ignorant of both of them. Have you ever been to Athens?" Finally he looked down at his son, his thick eyebrows pulled closely together but they were so often furrowed, Aries couldn't tell if he was angry. He didn't sound upset or offended but that meant nothing.
             "No."
             "Do you know anyone from Athens?" Alecto continued, hoping that Aries would draw the right conclusions as he baited the right answers from him.
              "You know I do." Aries huffed out a warm breath as he pulled on the front of his tunic, it was a warm day even in the shade.
              "What?" Alecto glared at him now but Aries was brave and stupid enough to ignore his expression. He'd chalked that up to youth but the boy needed to learn, he wouldn't be around forever and he had enemies in familiar and unfamiliar places.
              Aries choked down a response before listing his relatives that had been relocated to Herculaneum but only as a favor to his wife. He only knew her cousin and had no love for the Athenian merchant. He was more interested in saving the lives of his former quartermaster and the former hoplite who would become his personal assassin and ended up saving them from slavery by taking them as his own slaves during the triumvirate attack on the port city.
              It was a ruse of course, the families he had saved were now free in Herculaneum but people and friends they once knew........
              "And you've only just met them. They were not here when you were born, they were not here for any injury, sadness nor joy that befell you in your short years. Your loyalty is to your heritage and your heritage is here," he pointed to the square and to various well known landmarks and statues that stood erected testaments to what his heritage had accomplished.
              Aries frowned at the gist of his words, he liked his Athenian relatives and their food. He looked away from the glinting trophies of wars passed to look upward at his father. "Does that mean I can't wrestle?" Wrestling was a Greek sport and one not often practiced in Italy.
             Alecto rubbed the top of his head as he pulled him to his side. "Of course you can wrestle. You'll be a little Alexander but without blonde hair."



The ancient Romans were very family orientated and believe it or not, had excellent morals and values but all we ever see in fiction and film is the worst of them. All conquerors are brutal, if they weren't, they'd never win their wars but war is war and it doesn't make the soldiers evil in general or when they've return home. Anyone with family serving in the military knows that. I've included a link for anyone to read and or discover what ancient Roman virtues were. Don't demonize the past because without the past, you'd have no future.
Roman Virtues