I have now come to claim that satisfaction

Rating: 9/10 (22 March 2014)

Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" is one of the great dramas of the twentieth century; it is clearly the master's most under-appreciated work.
The seemingly irregular tale of Barry Lyndon is quite simple. The film tells the story of the life of Redmond Barry, a poor Irish rogue that, through a mixture of deceit and chance, manipulates his way into the highest reaches of the British Aristocracy in the late 18th Century. The time-frame is between The Seven Years War and the French and American Revolutions. The three-hour long picture is broken down into two parts, making the movie appropriate for multiple-night viewing.
The screenplay by Kubrick, based on the novel "The Luck of Barry Lyndon" by William Makepeace Thackeray, uses an unreliable narrator to tell the story objectively. This is an intentional, creative choice by Kubrick; the novel itself was told in the first person. Kubrick does this so that the narrator (Michael Hordern) can exist outside of space and time. The narrator knows the entire story before telling it, and gives the audience hints on what is to come. Much of the satire in the picture comes from the narrator's musings. Furthermore, one could argue that the narrator is the most human and relatable character is all of "Barry Lyndon".
There is no denying that Barry Lyndon is one of the most beautifully photographed motion pictures ever created. Each scene is basically a painting in its own right. Kubrick wants us to take in the scenic beauty of each shot. When viewing Barry Lyndon one feels as if they are traveling through the Romanticism section of an art museum.
More impressive than the outdoor shots were the indoor shots. Kubrick had to create a specific camera that would allow filming to be done without any artificial light- creating the ability to shoot entire sequences in candlelight. Any photographer will tell you that lighting is everything in staging a shot- and the fact that Kubrick was able to shoot entire sequences in nothing but candlelit is nothing short of a major technological milestone. Specific lenses were purchased from NASA to shoot the candlelit scenes- the same types of lenses that were used in the filming of the Apollo 11 space landing. He is truly representing what living in the time period would look like.
In the end, I think Kubrick is trying to show us the futility of greed- it is this that Barry Lyndon creates a universal message. The vanity of the 18th century is still alive in well, and the story could be that of a stockbroker, imperialist, actor, womanizer, prostitute, terrorist, or President. In the end, everyone is equal. This is a human tale. One can learn a great deal by listening to the tale of Redmond Barry, who once was Barry Lyndon.