Thomas Negovan wondered if his quest to restore and repair the famously mangled, pornified all-star 1979 production of Caligula was pointless and insane. Then the Cannes Film Festival told him they wanted it to debut there, and yesterday history was made. The new cut draws from 90 hours of footage and focuses on the performances of Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud. 

It's still a deranged, depraved and badly-shot film (unfocused and otherwise incompetent camera and sound work being one of the infamous problems for would-be editors of Caligula) but now it… well, it finally lives up to its original epic pretensions.

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