Kubrick In The Late 18th Century

Rating: 9/10 (15 July 2014)

Stanley Kubrick was one of those directors who made the kinds of films that were so easily misunderstood and misread upon first viewing. From his first film, 1953's FEAR AND DESIRE, up to the 1960 epic SPARTACUS (which he really only had a modicum of control on, and which he basically dismissed), he stayed within traditional filmmaking bounds. But after LOLITA in 1962, he set out to push those filmmaking bounds out of the way; and from that point on, until his last one, 1999's EYES WIDE SHUT, he was a hero to a great many aspiring filmmakers, and a complete enigma to film critics. Most important of all, he never made the same kind of movie twice, which made him perhaps the most utterly unpredictable director of the post-war cinema. His 1975 costume epic BARRY LYNDON is a case in point.
In choosing to do a lavish adaptation of the then-little-known book "The Luck Of Barry Lyndon" by William Makepeace Thackeray, Kubrick invested his trademark sense of deep, dark irony in depicting an Irish rogue (Ryan O'Neal), who, after winning a duel, goes out in the world to find his fortune. After a series of adventures and misadventures alike, including a stint in Her Majesty's Army, he seems to find the fortune in the guise of Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson), but he quickly runs afoul of his newlywed wife's stubborn stepson Lord Bullingdon (Leon Vitali). It all comes down to a duel between him and Vitali in the barn of the Lyndon estateand there can only be ONE winner.
Among the many ways that Kubrick defied audience expectations, this film is one that doesn't movie especially fast. At three hours and four minutes, it's no MTV video; but pretty much after the stately interstellar mood of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, it would be part-and-parcel of this director not only not to give what the audience expects, but to give them something that requires total concentration. Primarily filmed in England and Ireland over a period of twelve to eighteen months at the mid-point of the 1970s, BARRY LYNDON was a fairly expensive movie, at a cost of $11 million, and was, at the time, perhaps Kubrick's most poorly received film; widely mixed critical and audience reactions in America and England resulted in only modest box office returns there, though the film did clean up in Europe.
O'Neal has come in for a fair working-over for his portrayal of Barry Lyndon over the last four decades, but I think it is a very good performance, molded as it were under a thorough taskmaster like Kubrick; and the same could be said for Berenson as Lady Lyndon. BARRY LYNDON also features some excellent turns by such British character actors as Patrick Magee, Phillip Stone, Hardy Krueger, Steven Berkoff, Leonard Rossiter, Godfrey Quigley, George Sewell, and Anthony Sharp.
The film justifiably won four Oscars: cinematography (John Alcott); costume design (Milena Canonero); production design (Ken Adam, who worked with Kubrick on DR. STRANGELOVE, and Roy Walker); and musical adaptation (primarily of works by Mozart, Paisiello, Schubert, and Handel) by veteran composer Leonard Rosenman (whose credits included GIANT; FANTASTIC VOYAGE; BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APRES; and A MAN CALLED HORSE). Particularly notable in the latter is Rosenman's bold orchestration of the Sarabande from Handel's Keyboard Suite #11, which has since become BARRY LYNDON's musical calling card, much as Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" had been for "2001." And in terms of the photography, Alcott and camera expert Ed Di Giulio did a great thing by giving Kubrick the idea to use very powerful lenses to shoot a number of complex scenes lit only by candlelight, which has been tried by many a period film that followed in the wake of this movie.
A great deal of patience is required for BARRY LYNDON; and, as with many a Kubrick film, this one requires many viewings to really understand the various nuances and themes. But a lot of times this is what great films demand, and BARRY LYNDON is an excellent demonstration of such.