Meticulous approach pays off for Kubrick

Rating: Null/10 (4 March 2001)

Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975) stands out as one of the most remarkably conceived period pieces ever to grace celluloid, a virtual paragon of movie-making mastery. Nominated for 7 Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Director) and winning 4 (Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Music), Kubrick's adaptation of the obscure William Makepeace Thackeray novel of the same name stands out as perhaps the greatest movie no one has ever seen.

Ryan O'Neal stars as the film's title character, a young man of high ambition and questionable moral fortitude who, through the course of the movie, gambles, seduces, and duels his way up the European hierarchy.
Kubrick's ambiguous treatment of Barry (good or bad?) is one of the movie's high points; its sole detriment, by my estimation, is that O'Neal's performance had me asking the same question. Arthur O'Sullivan and Patrick Magee were wonderful in their roles as the highwayman and the Chevalier, and Marisa Berenson functioned well as Lady Lyndon. The most extraordinary aspects of the film, though, are the costumes, camerawork, and score: the parade of opulently arrayed characters, shot solely in natural light and candle light, combined with the baroque music of Handel, Mozart, and Vivaldi, help Kubrick achieve a degree of legitimacy not often attained in other `period' pieces.
As some claim Barry Lyndon to be the greatest movie Kubrick ever made, it's a shame not more people have seen it. It's status as a masterpiece is undeniable, and despite criticisms of its being overlong and emotionally void, I really found it to be quite entertaining. Barry Lyndon is an exquisitely crafted film, worthy of its high accolades, and stands out as one of Kubrick's greatest accomplishments.