Barry Lyndon

Martin Scorcese reportedly considers this to be Kubrick's best film. I must agree, and I would say it's his best by some fair margin. I've never seen a film with photography that even begins to approach that in Barry Lyndon. But everyone mentions the photography. The three things that most decisively set this film apart from all of Kubrick's others and really haven't been mentioned enough are its enormous heart, its uncompromising spirit, and the way it seems to suspend time over and over again, simultaneously standing still yet flowing along easily, almost breathlessly. If you watch it expecting A Clockwork Orange or The Shining, you'll be very disappointed and may end up calling it long and boring, but if you set aside an entire evening and surrender yourself totally to its magic, I swear you'll be looking for yourself in Stunland a few hours later. I's time to treat yourself to Barry Lyndon. You may be shocked at discovering what's been there for so long.

The genius Stanley Kubrick has truly outdone himself by crafting this masterpiece. After viewing A Space Odyssey, I thought there were no films more beautiful, but the breathtaking painting-like scenes of Barry Lyndon paired with music exquisitely chosen by Kubrick are simply stunning. There are some who may say that this film is too long or stale, but I say, that this film must be savoured slowly, and that one must enjoy it for what it is, which is almost like a series of ethereal paintings, one after another. Watch this film not for the end, but watch it and live with the fact that every scene is a part of the whole, and that the wholeness and oneness in itself is beautiful. Say, if we only watched movies for the ending, then composers who only wrote finales would be the greatest. All you must do is to simply sit down and relax, then, nothing else except absolute enchantment can possibly follow.

Some movies - I wish there were more of them - simply look like a series of great paintings. This film has that look. You could freeze-frame many of the scenes and swear you were looking at a Gainsborough, a Vermeer, a Hogarth or similar work of art by one the great artists of three to five centuries ago. It's just beautiful.

For that, we have Director Stanley Kubrick and Photographer John Alcott to thank. Being a three-hour movie, there are plenty of wonderful shots to admire, too. In addition, the costumes are lavish and authentic and the scoring is notable. It's no accident that Oscars were garnered for art/set direction, cinematography, costume design and scoring. Yeah, if you enjoy classical music, you'll really enjoy the soundtrack, too, under the guidance of conductor Leonard Roseman.

Not to be overlooked is the fine acting and the interesting and underrated story. I say "underrated" because this film, from what I've read, bored a lot of people and and it was a box-office flop. That's too bad because, frankly, I found the story (outside of the first 10--15 minutes) to be fascinating. As I watched, I kept wondering what strange occurrences will happen next to the lead character, "Redmond Barry/Barry Lyndon," played beautifully by Ryan O'Neal. (For most of the movie, he's called "Redmond Barry," so I will refer to him as that.)

Overall, this was a low-key adventure story about the rise-and-fall of a "scoundrel" back in late 18th century Englishman. "Mr. Barry" is an Irishmen living in England who winds up dealing with a number of people: Irish, English, Prussian, French. His dealings with these people are bizarre at times. While he mainly is shown doing what he can to promote himself, for either monetary gain and prestige of a name and power, he's not all bad. There is a compassionate side to him, but it only shows itself in small doses. It makes him all the more interesting to watch, because you don't always know how he's going to react to his circumstances, which change radically every few years.

We witness his rise to prominence and then his fall when his "sins begin to find him out," as the Bible would describe. It's quite a roller coaster ride.

This is an emotional, involving story, and a feast for the eyes and ears. It's quite different, too, certainly not the average fare from Kubrick. I can only hope this comes out on a high-definition disc some day. Admirers of this film need to see this in all its glory.

The beauty, the depth, and the mystery of this film are unsurpassable - what Kubrick was doing with light is just a miracle. Special lenses were designed to shoot interiors and exteriors in natural light. In one scene Barry (Ryan O'Neil) was having a dinner with a German woman who was feeding her baby and the candle light made the whole scene look like a Caravaggio's painting. This is just one of many scenes. Each of them is perfection and harmony. Costumes and sets were crafted in the era's design. Age of Enlightenment with its gallantry, wars, and duels, had been recreated in the film with the precision of the celebrated landscape and portrait masters of the period such as Thomas Gainsborough; Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the Royal Academy of Arts; George Romney to name just a few. If nothing else, watching BL is pure aesthetic delight - and there is one man who responsible for it, Stanley Kubrick. If ever divine film was made, "Barry Lyndon" was it and Kubrick could've quoted the Bible - "God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good".

I've read the comments and articles that call "Barry Lyndon" cold, slow, boring, "the collection of pretty pictures', "flawed" masterpiece, and the most ridiculous one, "glittering ornament with a hollow center". I simply can't understand it. "Barry Lyndon" is the most compelling and compassionate realization of the inevitable finality of everything in this world which was presented by the visionary director with elegant sensual melancholy. Stanley Kubrick known for his detached, seemingly remote and non-sentimental style chose to reach out to his viewer directly during the epilogue, "It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personalities lived and quarreled, good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now". I don't recall any other movie that would illustrate the old wisdom, "everything will pass" in such sublime and deeply moving way.

In fact it's one of Kubrick's most gripping pictures, with a narrative drive second only to that of "Dr. Strangelove" (and it's unquestionably a more glorious creation than, say, anything he made in the 1950s). English director Michael Powell (while attributing a similar failing to one of his own works) says that Kubrick fell into "the trap of the picturesque", but while I admire Powell as a creator, the judgment is absurd: at the VERY least, each lush image shows us people not just occupying a part of the screen but inhabiting a world, and tells us much about their relation to that world. Many shots are indeed amazing and beguile the eye, but they don't have the effect they do simply because they would make nice postcards.

THIS, I feel sure (without having read Thackeray), is the proper way to adapt a long story from novel to screen. Each scene is either allowed as much time as it needs to make its point and its impact, or it's cut altogether - you won't catch Kubrick skating too quickly over his material for no better reason than to fit it all in. The third-person narration (consisting of witty, beautifully crafted sentences - it's about time I did read Thackeray) almost performs a kind of dance with the images, gliding in just when we need it, taking a step back when we don't. (So rarely is even third-person narration used so well.) And as always, Kubrick's musical sense is unerring. My impression at the time was that I was listening to mid-eighteenth century music that gave way to pieces from the classical era as the hero started to move in higher and higher circles. I was more or less right. But then I noticed Schubert's name in the credits - and I realised with a start that I'd been listening to, had even started tapping my feet to, a Schubert piece I was familiar with, without the anachronism registering.

It's a pity Kubrick stopped making epics after this. Look at the ones he's responsible for: "Spartacus" (not a project Kubrick was fond of, admittedly, but still the most magnificent of all Roman epics) "2001" (the most magnificent of ALL epics), and "Barry Lyndon". The last of the three is by no means a poor cousin.