"Do you have to make your contempt for the institution so obvious... why!?"
"It is my inspiration."

To describe the development of Caligula as troubled would be a hilarious understatement. Scripted by Gore Vidal and directed by Tinto Brass, the film was single-handledly financed by founder of Penthouse magazine, Bob Guccione. (When lead actor Malcolm McDowell asked asked why the film was being funded by a pornographer, Vidal responded, "Malcolm, just think of him as one of the Warner Bros!").…

From Tinto Brass' autobiography:

"Inspired by Heliogabalus, a book by Antonin Artaud, I wanted to structure the story of Caligula according to a narrative scheme articulated around three fundamental nuclei: the logic of Utopia, of Power, and of Madness. Caligula, full of hopes and illusions, rises to power. He dreams of managing it, according to the logic of Utopia, for noble and just purposes, and his first acts of government express this intention. He does not realize that he is…