Tough to Hate but Kubrick Makes You

Rating: Null/10 (29 November 2004)

Barry Lyndon is tough to hate, beautiful photography, costumes, candlelit scenes and all, but it's really a terrible film and probably Kubrick's worst, down there with The Shining and Full Metal whatever. Not much happens, and when it does it's with horrible non-actors at the center.
Mostly you go crazy with boredom watching this lifeless, unbelievable mess. At least it seems to have a point, unlike Shining, which is completely pointless. And it is art, unlike Full Metal whatever, which is simply a mirror of reality, completely artless. For 18th Century costume drama and authenticity, I prefer The Duellists, a small, unpretentious film by Ridley Scott, who can make a movie move, or Amadeus, with a real script, acting, and edgy performances and directorial choices that enlighten.
Barry Lyndon is some kind of phony experiment that sacrifices the audience on behalf of Kubrick's "vision." Was he trying to say that acting is nothing but moving a few dummies around in front of the lens? Is this movie all about the lens? Who cares. That's not enough.
Ryan O'Neal is so bad, and Marisa Berenson so blah, that all the high-falutin photography and fancy dresses fade into meaninglessness. O'Neal's character is an Irishman who climbs through English society with a brogue and goes to Mass? In the 17th Century Catholics were being hung for going to Mass - the Penal Laws weren't repealed until the 1830s. Certainly the native Irish had no entree into colonial English society, period, end of story. So much for Kubrick's vaunted fanatical management of historical detail. The story is simply unbelievable.
In France they call a model a "mannequin," and Berenson, an It-Girl of her era, is truly is as lifeless as a stuffed dummy. Maybe she had some lines originally and was so bad, worse than O'Neal even, they shut her up. Her face is a beautiful mask - literally. Lifeless, stiff, inexpressive. That pretty much sums up this pretty, but lifeless, experiment.