A landmark of Kubrick's career...

Rating: Null/10 (23 November 2004)

With the telephoto lens freezing the characters to look as if they are in portraits in so many shots, and with the trite dialogue, one might consider Barry Lyndon to be at the peak of Stanley Kubrick's frigid meticulousness, but it isn't. In fact, this film might be considered one of the landmarks of Kubrick's career, his fullest realization of his artistic style. He has been considered unemotional but it is clear in Barry Lyndon that Kubrick is emotional with the same kind of gentlemanly refinement that the main characters of this film posses. He is emotional without flaunting it. He lets his emotions leak out at certain times in the first half of the film. But, when he lets a lot of emotion leak out in the second half of the film, it freezes like ice; he doesn't know how to show emotions to a melodramatic extent which causes the second half of this film to be a tremendous bore. The first half is something special, though. Based on the novel by William Mackepeace Thackeray, Barry Lyndon follows a young Irishman named Redmond Barry in 18th century Europe as he moves up to the top of the social latter.
The first half of the film has many hand-held shots of battle; pristinely composed shots that milk the telephoto lens expertly become more prevalent within the second half of the film. I'd see the first half of the film for the trite-but-enjoyable performance by Ryan O'Neal and Barry's delightful encounters with galleries of interesting and sometimes touching characters. The only reason not to check out at the 'Intermission' is the skilled performance by Murray Melvin and innovative cinematography by John Alcott, filmed with a lens made by NASA that allowed Kubrick to use natural light with interior shots.