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Barry Lyndon (1975)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

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8 reviews

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From Time Out London

This often breathtaking exploration of the world of Thackeray’s titular eighteenth-century Irish adventurer – showing at the centre of the BFI Southbank’s unmissable two-month Stanley Kubrick season – is the nearest the great director ever came to realising his uppermost ambition, to film a life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Thus all the grand armies, dashing uniforms and suffusion of gunsmoke (here pertaining to the pre-Bonaparte Seven Years’ War). Another kind of smoke pervades the series of lowly Irish farmsteads, elegant brothels and imposing country houses through which the film’s antihero, Redmond Barry (played by then fashionable, fresh-faced hot property Ryan O’Neal), fights, duels, gambles and seduces his way to success and back again – that of a million candles, the natural source of illumination that Kubrick insisted on using, to the astonishment of cinematographer John Alcott, to render authentic interiors.

Despite that, much of the atmosphere, decor, mannerisms and performances are fake (not least the ridiculous turns by Murray Melvin, Leonard Rossiter and the insipid Marisa Berenson) – not that it matters much. It’s not only the beautifully intoned third-person narration (by Michael Horden), the consummate mise-en-scène and stunning photography but the iron-strong confidence of direction that help transform Thackeray’s lively picaresque tale into one of cinema’s most heartfelt and sustained (it runs over three hours), if cynical, visions of an individual’s powerlessness when confronted with the impersonal, mangling machinery of power and fate. What a magnificent, mesmeric slow dance it is, not merely of death but of an ambitious man’s inexorable decline.

A relative failure at the time (1975) – despite Ken Adam’s Oscar for design – it improves with each passing year, although it must take part of the blame for making the immortal strains of Handel’s Sarabande the evergreen Classic FM favourite it is.

Author: Wally Hammond 2009-01-27 11:13:58

Time Out London Issue 2006, 29 Jan - 4 Feb. 2009

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User reviews of this film

robert Gale said...

Posted on Aug 15 2009 16:23 love and politics.a movie that you can watch again.a piece of art.They don't make them like they used to

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Mark Eldon said...

Posted on Feb 19 2009 12:33 I have read many essays and writings on Barry Lyndon after seeing it and to this day I still think it is the best costume drama ever made. Many criticize the use of the narrator as a sort of "spoiler" but what many do not realize is that he is unreliable. Yes it is a visual feast and the choice of music is perfect.

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Gort said...

Posted on Jan 31 2009 21:38 Actually I much prefer Fasbinder's film "Effi Briest" which came out a little bit earlier. Both films begin the same with a narration and very cold direction, centered around a person which lived in one of those past periods, but while Fassbinder's film kept his way on exploring drama of the person in the non functioning society, Kubrick's film went on exploring technical limits of cinematography.

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Simon Treves said...

Posted on Jan 31 2009 00:04 Glorious languorous trip - as enthralling and bold as 2001. Plus it has one of the most sublime soundtracks in motion picture history.

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James said...

Posted on Jan 04 2009 01:01 Probably my favorite film. If you think the characters are waxwork figures. Give the film another go. The second viewing will not be the same.

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BetteDillinger said...

Posted on Sep 25 2008 02:48 This film is a definite visual feast for the eyes, and could be enjoyed for that alone. Kubrick's familiar angles and cinematic slights of hand make it even more entertaining. Also, Bach's Sarabande is intoxicating in its intense beauty, which just build climactically throughout the film. Glorious. However, the central character is never truly fleshed out by Ryan O'Neil, and this viewer finds that is the ultimate tragedy of the film. The most intense scenes of drama show a lack of passion from him that is frustrating. If I find myself wondering whom I would cast to replace the lead, I know I am watching a pretty average performance. A masterpiece and required viewing for film students nevertheless. Hey, it's Stanley Kubrick.

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tN.. said...

Posted on Jun 27 2008 17:42 My favourite movie of all time. Astonishing, beautiful, epic.

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Magmabulle said...

Posted on Jun 06 2008 15:25 Possibly the best film ever made, and definitely the most beautiful.

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