Barry Lyndon

This is the Kubrick film I feel most lost with. The rest of his films (excluding a couple of his earlier films) seem to be not only gripping stories, but also dialectics on a theme. I'm afraid I sensed neither of those in Barry Lyndon. It felt like little more than a gentle skewering of social prestige, which is fairly bland territory for such an incisive filmmaker.
The most impressive thing about it was definitely the look of the film. I've read that Kubrick shot the whole thing in natural light--often candlelight, and had to acquire camera lenses like NASA was using at the time just to make it work. The costumes are also amazing, and from what I've read, 100% authentic.
I'm sure there's something else in there worth study, or Kubrick wouldn't have spent years and millions on it; but I found little to connect with in the story, and few characters that I enjoyed at all. But it may have social implications for its time period that I'm unaware of.
I recently bought half a dozen Mad Magazines from the mid-70's, and one of them had their parody of this film. I enjoyed reading it a lot more than I enjoyed watching Barry Lyndon.

This is one of my favorite Kubrick films. I was caught up in how perfectly the Director took a man who started out as a sympathetic protagonist and ends up with him as a despicable antagonist after the turmoils that life (and partially himself) visits upon him.

Lyndon's has humble beginnings as a man with few possesions aside from his honor, his mother, and his sense of self, and eventually he loses scope of what he should have preserved in his character in favor of gaining status and wealth through marrying a rich and titled widow.

You feel pity for him after the duel trick was played upon him, which in turn caused him to be robbed by the highwaymen, which in turn causes him to be enlisted in the Army and subjected to the ugliness of war, something Barry never apparently set out to do. It makes it seem like we have no control over our posts in life, regardless of our personal free will. His stint as a professional cheat with the Chevalier was a very romantic and amusing time, he still has qualities to admire. Then, when Barry meets Lady Lyndon, you begin to develop a bad taste in your mouth for him.
By the time Barry takes to abusing his stepson, you outright hate the man you sort of cheered for just a half hour earlier.

Exquisite.

considering how much I love kubrick's films and how resonant they are with me, I was left a bit confused by this one. at first I had imagined that barry was a bit like tom ripley in the film version of talented mr. ripley. likeable, a bit enigmatic, and sort of backs in to "scheming" his way up the ladder. by the end though, I was thouroughly convinced that was not an accurate depiction of the character. like muncie girl I too thought that skewering the society of the time was a little "simple" for kubrick, so I read some stuff about the movie. I came across a fascinating article which is beyond me to sum up here, but left me really wanting to watch the movie again.

the most interesting thing this essay enlightened for me was that the narrator in Barry Lyndon is (apparently) completely biased and unreliable. that device just blew me away... but it ties into something I have thought about a lot of kubrick's works.

I consider full metal jacket to be what I, perhaps inarticulatly, call an anti movie movie. it struck me that the wildly divergent tone from first half to second, and the fact that watching the second half I was left wishing the plot was more interesting and I cared more for the characters layed bare the fact that this was a war movie... and perhaps it was sick of me to want to be intrigued by war,as brutal and unredeeming a thing as can be imagined.

then I moved on to eyes wide shut, where kubrick draws you into this seemingly sinister plot only to reveal that it's really not that big of a deal, that the protaganist is just sort of a jealous dope. that really spoke to me about how psychologically we link our fears and jealousies with sex and death and society and can really drive ourselves to distraction over it all.

my final example of this tendency of kubrick's is 2001... which seems to be about this grandiose discovery of alien intelligence that appears to prompt nothing less than evolutionary change within humans... when really it's a deeply satirical take on a bunch of subjects... and the star child is not, to me anyway, a symbol of something mystical but rather the need to go home again, back into the womb even.

basically what I am getting at is kubrick seems to really like to mess with his audience, and uses some wildly original narrative devices to make razor sharp points.

or I could be full of shit.

Barry Lyndon is my favorite Kubrick film.

It's just a great movie, the characters are extremely realistic from the Barry's rich momma's boy stepson to his sluty cousin.

When i watched this movie the first time i wasn't that impressed, however this is one movie when subsequent viewings improve it alot.

Plus it has the best epilouge ever.

(paraphrasing) These lived in the era of George the Third, and rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, good or bad they are all equal now.

IMO, a very good movie, although not one of kubrik's best. i too was surprised to see how my feelings for the main character changed during the course of the film. i had some problems with the pace, but the whole thing looks absolutely gorgeous.

yeah, in a way he did what the danish dogma collective tried to do 30 years later, namely shoot films in natural light. the difference, of course, is that barry lyndon looks much more alive and "natural".

I just saw this. In Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, they do mention how Kubrick made off with those rare cameras and irreparably deconstructed one--there is a similar story about Kubrick doing this to a rare gun that Milius helped him secure--to build the cameras he needed to shoot the natural lighting. If the only film that benefited from that project was this one, it was totally worth it. I used to think that Days of Heaven was the most beautifully shot film in the post-color era but this movie just beats it to Hell and back. Every single frame looks like it could be framed and hanged in an art gallery.

Ideally you could say that about all beautifully shot films, but I think in the case of Barry Lyndon Kubrick was probably going for compositions that reflected the painting of the period.

Has anyone read the original novel? I haven't, but the movie felt like a faithful adaptation, in that it used a storyline and devices that I'm pretty used in seeing in literature from that time, if that makes any sense. Funnily enolugh, one of the factors that most made me feel like that - the hectoring narrator, who I felt was totally akin to the ones in books like Les Miserables, always ready to let the action stop a while so that he can get some philosophical points in - wasn't in the book!

Probably my favourite movie of all time.

A masterpiece.

I like Jim Emerson's comments on this in his critique:

I've had this one on my Netflix queue for quite a while. I really need to watch this one of these days.

You can watch it instantly, if that's an option for your setup.

As a Dubliner, it's strange and thrilling to hear the little town of Dun Laoghaire mentioned in a Kubrick film.

This is just an incredible achievement on so many levels, but I'm not surprised it has some detractors. To some, its beauty may seem too static, but that is indeed the point. As Redmond Barry moves up in the world, things get more beautiful...and more lifeless. It's a critique of that aristocratic society, the very thing so many period films lavish over. In that sense, it must be considered as an anti-period film, at least in relation to the films we are familiar with. And the narrator being full of shit is a brilliant device, trying to impose a narrative on the film that is not always fully evident in what is being shown. It's supposed to be about an ambitious schemer, but when does Redmond actually do the horrible things attributed to him? And, for all the narrator's heckling, he actually does seem to love his wife and child. So, is this actually a Rake's Progress kind of story, or is that merely a clever facade, concealing deeper layers?

Having seen (endured?) the film on its original release, I will certainly acknowledge its technical brilliance. The comments about its unsurpassed painterly beauty, and the deliberately static approach, are on the money, but, to me, it feels as though it's all put at the service of a story that is, coming from Kubrick, neither revelatory, or even particularly interesting. And while I don't completely dismiss Ryan O'Neal as an actor, this was not his moment.

In retrospect (I have to admit I've never watched it on home video, and that's probably long overdue), as a viewing experience, it weirdly reminds me of Avatar: I was pretty bored throughout, but I don't regret it-- the experience of seeing both films on the big screen was absolutely worth the money.

(And do I need to mention that I'm not equating the quality of the two films?)

I largely agree, but I think this film operates on three different levels:

1) The Narrator who is trying to impose his point of view on the film (could the narrator be Barry's abused stepson grown old? Or a novelist with a self righteous bent?)

2) The visuals which seem to suggest that Barry's actions are honorable until he joins the Marquis and becomes a professional Gambler/Con Artist

3) The acting, especially by Ryan O'Neal (sorry he's great in this) show us a character who's never entirely revealed. We really can't determine why he is so arrogant and dismissive towards his wife. Was he just scamming her all along? Did he love her when they met but found her , her social circle and the life of the Aristocracy maddening? Was he simply a fish out of water, a brutal farmboy who finds himself way above his "natural station"? We are left to draw our own conclusions.

The more I re-visit Kubrick's films the more I appreciate his respect for the viewer, his willingness to evoke and not explain. He gives you multiple ways to interpret all his films. He makes you work to understand what he's doing, while making it impossible to ever do so.

Beyond all reason, this is the Kubrick film that really hit me. I'm not really into period films or this particular period. I usually admire Kubrick's films more than I love them. It's not one I can watch over and over, but that first time I watched the film I was riveted. I can't always get into Kubrick's films, but I was drawn to its icy cold passion.

I really enjoy the first two-thirds of it, but after Redmond marries Lyndon it feels less like a Kubrick film and more like your standard period piece tragedy.

Very well shot and the film looks like an elongated Monet painting, but it's a bit perplexing.

I'm on the fence between 2001 and Eyes Wide Shut, but in the end I think this is Kubricks masterpiece. Like Hamlet and Odysseus, Barry is doomed. That's the point, as Sam Peckinpah said to Pauline Kael and as the narrator tells us from the beginning. His rise and fall is inexorable. O'Neal is perfectly cast as the dullard, common opportunist. Everything in this movie works. It's glorious and I'd put it with the top ten of all time.

This film reminds me of that David Mamet quote where, when we listen to Bach, we don't say, "Oh, what great technique!" but instead we love how great it sounds, the melodies, the chords, etc. This film is really well-made, from the script to the photography. It's not compelling from start to finish (seriously, there are some major slow points, esp. towards the end) but does manage to be hypnotic at times. I like it alot, but just am not impacted by the story in the way that I am with SHINING, 2001, EYES WIDE SHUT, DR. STRANGELOVE, etc.

I just don't see how people could say this is Kubrick's best film. The actors are seriously better than Nicholson, Sellers, and Douglas? Is there really a sequence more compelling than the entire stretch of 2001? Is there really a monologue more exciting than Ermy's monologues in FULL METAL JACKET? It's really good, but not the best.

I'd never say it's a bad movie, obivously.

Those are all standout moments to be sure. Barry Lyndon's standout is the character of Capt Quinn, played by Leonard Rossiter (who went on to create The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin at BBC). That actor devours every scene he's in, and creates one of the most flawed, human characters in all of Kubricks's films. (/Derail; Kubrick was more than willing to let an actor run with things if that actor was genius; witness the two films he did with Peter Sellers /Derail)

Of course he's the standout! Pfft, at 1500 a year, I'd marry him!!!

1500 a year!

Just saw this as part of a Kubrick retrospective (35mm baby!) and was blown away.

Whenever people talk about how cold his films are, I think they must be intentionally unwilling to rectify what's really going on in this film. It's true that, being as static as this one is, in terms of shot composition, it may just seem like an exercise in aesthetic posturing, but that's part of a larger statement it's making about the restrictions of that time. By the end of the film, for all of his flaws, I don't see how someone can't feel a lot of sad sympathy for Barry.

The scene where he beats the living shit out of his stepson in front of all those members of high society is brilliant. Up to that point everyone in the movie is so strict about keeping up the facade of civility, against all reason at times (the opening shot, where Barry's father and the other man willingly point guns at each other and fire is hilarious in it's stupid absurdity, as is the fist military march Barry finds himself in, where he and his fellow soldiers are literally walking into massive gunfire with no real protection), that when he unleashes his fury in this scene it becomes an absolute breakdown of every social code those people tried to uphold.

It's just bare, brutal humanity (compare it to the other fist fight he gets in earlier, where the men literally box him in, and the whole thing seems like more of a dance) that you generally never see in period pieces that it's shocking and cathartic and I think it may be my favorite scene in any Kubrick film, if I still might put one or two of his other films ahead of it.

Finally saw this one. Even by Kubrick standards this has some of the most gorgeous cinematography I've ever seen, especially with the outside location shots. It really is like walking into the london national gallery and having the paintings come to life. But I have to admit I think I'd have rather seen him apply this style to his Napoleon project. It's immaculately put together, but for me just too understated, leisurely and episodic to truly 'pop' like Kubrick's greatest.

Needs a rewatch at some point though. When something acclaimed and obviously well done doesn't connect with me I always feel like I'm probably not looking at it from the right angle.

Although I've only seen this film once, a very low return given I'm such an (ignorant) fan of Kubrick's, it's one of my favourite film watching experiences. I have a personal tendency towards classicism and symmetry in art and the way Kubrick utilises the intrisic beauty of that approach whilst (at least to me) exploiting it to deliver a sly critique of the fallacy of control and the sterile nature of over-analytical philosophy really touches me in parts very few other films have.

It's a point which is dancing around all the other good ones made in this thread, and may not need to be said, but to my mind there is a clear choice by Kubrick to frame things in such a careful and classical way in order to reflect the Enlightenment rationalism that I think was the pervasive philosophy of the time and which argued (amongst other things) that the Good could be achieved and controlled through dispassionate and reasoned action. It takes a special director to use the script, the actors and the camera to tell not just an interesting story but present a philosophy class as well.

I'm stumbling a bit because the ideas and practice are slgihtly above my pay grade, but hopefully the above makes some kind of sense.

I am gagging for this to come out on Blu Ray.

I bought the Blu-Ray of this recently, and My God. I think 2001 is one of the epochal moments of cinema, but this is my favorite Kubrick film, using his post-2001 cold, distant style to tell a story with genuine emotion. One of the most gorgeous films ever shot, Kubrick uses his "God's Eye" to maximum effect. The film really is a study in cumulative power. Kubrick isn't the kind of filmmaker to evoke tears, but O'Neal breaking down while telling his (false) war story to his dying son was shockingly moving, a sucker punch that Kubrick spent 2 1/2 hours preparing us for. I adore every frame of this film.

 

Pa...Pa...am I going to die
 

Gahh, that scene breaks me every time.

 

I haven't seen this in a really long time (waiting to pick up the blu over the next few months, maybe black Friday) but while watching A Life In Pictures I starting thinking that the Chinese New Wave (Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou) owes a huge debt to this film. Similarity in aesthetics aside, the way Kubrick takes all this class stuff and puts it into a very personal character-driven story in a lot of ways is what Yimou was doing with JU-DOU and RAISE THE RED LANTERN.