Barry Lyndon
Tags: boring, cruelty, atmospheric, melodrama

Plot synopsis:
PART I: By what means Redmond Barry acquired the style and title of Barry Lyndon.In the opening scene, set in 1750s Ireland, the father of Irishman Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal) is killed in a duel by a businessman over a disputed sale of some horses. This detail is related by the film's narrator (the voice of Michael Hordern), who comments ironically on the events that transpire. The widow (Marie Kean), disdaining offers of marriage, devotes herself to the raising of her son.While still in his teens, Barry falls in love with his older cousin, Nora Brady (Gay Hamilton). A wealthy English army officer named Captain John Quin (Leonard Rossiter) meets and begins courting Nora, leading the jealous Barry to challenge Quin to a duel. They fire pistols at ten paces and Quin falls. Believing that he has killed Quin and will be arrested by the British for murder, Barry flees.On the road to Dublin, Barry is robbed and his horse stolen by a middle-aged highwayman (Arthur O'Sullivan) and the man's son. Penniless, Barry enlists in the British army and finds himself in boot camp. During training, Barry gets into a brawl with a local bully named O'Toole (Pat Roach), and is forced to fight bare-knuckle against the guy. Barry wins the fight by dodging all of O'Toole's blows and knocks out his opponent, which earns him popularity from the rest of his fellow recruits.After basic training, Barry and his unit are sent to France to fight in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) between the alliance of Great Britain and Prussia and the alliance of France, Austria and Russia. While still in a training camp, Barry learns from an old friend, Captain Grogan (Godfrey Quigley), that Captain Quin is not dead after all and has married Nora. The whole duel was a ploy by Nora's relatives to make Barry flee from Ireland so she can marry Quin.After the death of Grogan in a skirmish, Barry, fed up with the brutality of war, deserts from the British army. Posing as a British officer, Barry travels through the allied German states along the Rhine, hoping to get to neutral Holland and from there hopefully get back to Ireland. Barry has a brief affair with a local German woman (Diana Koerner) whom he shacks up with while her husband is away at war.Later, Barry meets a Prussian officer, Captain Potzdorf (Hardy Kruger), who quickly sees through his disguise. Given the choice of joining the Prussian army or being turned back over to the British where he will no doubt be tried and shot as a deserter, Barry enlists in his second army. After Barry saves Potzdorf's life by dragging him out of a burning house during a battle with French troops, Barry is promoted and receives a special commendation from the Prussian king, Frederick the Great.Two years later, after the war ends in 1763, Barry is employed by the Prussian Minister of Police, Potzdorf's uncle. It is arranged for him to become the servant of the Chevalier de Balibari (Patrick Magee), a professional gambler. The Prussians suspect that he is a spy and Barry is assigned to try to determine if he is. However, Barry discovers that the Chevalier is an expatriate Irishman like himself. After an attack of conscience, Barry immediately confesses his mission to the Chevalier and becomes his protege while continuing his charade of spying on him for Potzdor. Barry assists the Chevalier in cheating at card games, but when the Prince of Tübingen (Wolf Kahler) suspects the truth after losing a large sum of money, Potzdorf decides to expel the Chevalier from the country. Barry relays this to the Chevalier who persuades Barry to take advantage of this to flee Prussa. The Chevalier flees from his house during the night and crosses the border. The next day, Barry impersonates the Chevalier by doning his wig and clothes, so when Potzdorf arrives to take him to the border of Prussa and Saxony, Barry rejoins the Chevalier, both free at last.Over the next several years, Barry and the Chevalier become successful gamblers as they travel through Europe and gain access to high society. They wander from place to place, cheating the nobles at card games. Barry proves to be very useful; when a loser refuses to pay his debts, Barry's excellent swordsmanship convinces him otherwise. Seeing that his life of being a drifter and gambler is going nowhere, Barry decides to marry into wealth. Some time later, at a gambling table in Spa, Belgium, he encounters the beautiful and wealthy Countess of Lyndon (Marisa Berenson). After Barry has an argument with Lady Lyndon's aged and terminally sick husband (Frank Middlemass), he suffers a heart attack and dies.PART II: Containing an account of the misfortunes and disasters which befell Barry Lyndon.The following year (on June 15, 1773), Lady Lyndon and Barry are married and Barry takes her last name of Lyndon and settles in England with wealth at last. The Chevalier is the best man at Barry's wedding and afterwords, he wishes Barry luck with his new life and goes off on his own. Young Lord Bullingdon (Dominic Savage), Lady Lyndon's 10-year-old son by Sir Charles, hates Barry from the beginning, knowing that Barry is an adventurer and "common opportunist" and is not in love with his mother.In this second part, Barry undergoes a character transformation from being ambitious, naive and innocent, into self-destructive and arrogant who becomes corrupted by his newly acquired wealth and power. The marriage between Barry and Lady Lyndon is not a happy one, although they welcome a new son born the following year, whom they name Bryan Patrick. Barry is unfaithful to her, and expends most of Lady Lyndon's fortune in an effort to ingratiate himself with those who could assist him in his quest to become a peer of the realm while keeping his wife and children in dull seclusion. He eventually comes to his senses and apologises to her for his treatment of her.A few years later, Barry brings his mother over from Ireland to live with him on the estate grounds. After meeting with Lady Lyndon as well as her son Lord Bullingdon (now a teenager played by Leon Vitali), Barry's mother privately warns her son that his position is precarious. If Lady Lyndon were to die, all of her wealth would go to her first-born son Lord Bullingdon; Barry would be left penniless. Barry's mother advises him to obtain a noble title to protect himself. He cultivates the acquaintance of the influential Lord Wendover (André Morell) with this goal in mind, spending much money to grease his way to the top of the social ladder. Barry gains access to more of high society and even once meets with the British king George III at a reception in London. But all this effort is wasted however.One day during a birthday party for Lady Lyndon, Lord Bullingdon crashes the party and announces his hatred of his stepfather. Bullingdon vows to leave his home and never return as long as his mother is married to Redmond Barry whom he continues to badmouth as a "Irish underling". The hot-tempered Barry physically attacks Lord Bullingdon and beats him up in front of all of the important guests. Humiliated by this public brawl, Bullingdon never the less makes good on his word and leaves the family estate and England itself for parts unknown. However, Barry's public cruelty towards his unruly stepson loses him all the powerful friends he has worked so hard to make and he is shunned socially.In contrast to the mistreatment his gave Lord Bullingdon, Barry proves to be a doting and compassionate father to Bryan. Barry now focuses all his attention on raising his son Bryan. Barry cannot refuse the young boy anything and spoils him every chance he gets. Barry even purchases a pony for Bryan to ride despite the fact that the young boy is not a good enough rider. Bryan says that all he wants is a horse (not a pony), so he can go hunting with his father. However, on Bryan's 9th birthday, despite his parents stern orders not to ride his new horse without the company of his parents, the spoiled and rotten boy disobeys them anyway and is thrown while riding from his horse and dies three days later from a head injury.The grief-stricken Barry turns to drink and isolates himself even further, while Lady Lyndon seeks solace in religion, assisted by the Reverend Samuel Runt (Murray Melvin), tutor first to Lord Bullingdon and then to Bryan. After a few weeks, Barry's mother dismisses Reverend Runt partly because they no longer need a tutor (mostly because of Barry's past spending habits), partly for what she says is fear that his influence is making Lady Lyndon worse. Plunging even deeper into grief, she attempts suicide by taking poison, but survives and is taken to a nearby clinic to recover. The Reverend and the family's accountant and emissary Graham (Philip Stone) then seek out Lord Bullingdon. Upon hearing of these events, Lord Bullingdon returns to England where he finds Barry drunk in a gentlemen's club, mourning the loss of his son rather than being with Lady Lyndon. Bullingdon demands satisfaction for Barry's public assault by challenging him to a duel.The duel with pistols is held in a tithe barn. A coin-toss gives Bullingdon the right of first fire, but he nervously misfires his pistol as he prepares to shoot. Barry, reluctant to shoot Bullingdon, magnanimously fires into the ground, but the unmoved Bullingdon refuses to let the duel end, claiming he has not received "satisfaction". In the second round, Bullingdon shoots Barry in his left leg. At a nearby inn, a surgeon informs Barry that the leg will need to be amputated below the knee if he is to survive.While Barry is recovering, Bullingdon re-takes control of the Lyndon estate. A few days later, Bullingdon sends his nervous emissary, Graham, to the cottage where Barry is recovering to offer him a deal: Bullingdon will grant Barry a small annuity of 500 guineas for life if he leaves England forever and ends his marriage to Lady Lyndon; otherwise, with his credit and bank accounts exhausted, his creditors will see to it that he is put in jail. Wounded in spirit and body and with no friends left, Barry reluctantly accepts the deal. Barry goes back to Ireland with his mother to recover from his injuries. He is then said to have gone back to the European continent to resume his former profession of gambler, though without his former success. From there, history loses touch with Redmond Barry's life after that. He never sees Lady Lyndon again.In the final scene, set another few years later in 1789, a gray and middle-aged Lady Lyndon is going over her finances with Lord Bullingdon and a few other accountants. She then pauses to sign Barry's annuity cheque to be sent to Ireland. Bullingdon looks over at her sorrowful face and comes to realize that she indeed loved Redmond Barry despite his faults. Mother and son say nothing to each other and continue to review their financial papers.EPILOGUE: "It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now."

Review: In the midst of the many wonderful films made by Stanley Kubrick, it is strange to note how rarely people mention "Barry Lyndon".The film portrays an unusual young Irish man, Redmond Barry, and his endeavours as he is forced to leave his home and tries to make good his life elsewhere.
His life away from home starts out as a career in the British Army; only to evolve in surprising ways and lead to as different places as a position of trust within the Prussian Army and later a title of nobility, gained by what our time can only measure as rather disgraceful means.Some consider Barry Lyndon a slow and tedious film  and it is in deed past three hours in length, but this is because of the artistic flow of a film that strays not only to tell a tale about a man who is by no means neither hero nor villain, but also a film which is in no hurry and takes the time for every detail to sink into the mind and heart of the viewer.
The impressive atmosphere and the wonderfully picturesque scenarios along with the fact that the entire plot moves at a calm pace makes this film a very pleasant experience."Barry Lyndon is", amidst Kubricks' many masterpieces, a film so easily dismissed due to length and the fact that it is overshadowed by others, but I deeply recommend this film to anyone who would like to see a film both for the plot line, the story and the pure enjoyment of the images presented.
Kubrick's adaptation of Thackeray's Barry Lyndon sharply divides fans of the great director's work, as the languid pace and seemingly interminable running time -- not to mention Ryan O'Neal's questionable performance in the title role -- are cherished by some and deplored by others.
Not only did Kubrick manage to out do his last epic "2001" but he has created a movie that not only showcases the untapped acting abilities of Ryan O'Neil, but a beautifully lensed film that uses minimal lighting , gorgeous sets, perfect balance, positioning and meticulous timing.
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)Stanley Kubrick's beautifully opulent production takes many liberties with William Makepeace Thackeray's picaresque romance, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq (1843), narrated in the first person depicting events from the eighteenth century.
Kubrick, in keeping with a long-standing filmland tradition, certainly has license, and Thackeray won't mind.Ryan O'Neal is the unlikely star, and he does a good job, rising from humble Irish origins to the decadence of titled wealth, employing a two-fisted competence in the manly arts, including some soldiering, some thievery at cards and a presumed consummate skill in the bedroom.
But Barry is rather clumsy at playing at peerage, and bit by bit manages to squander most of the Lyndon fortune until his stepson, Lord Bullingdon (Leon Vitali) grows old enough to do something about it.This really is a gorgeous movie thanks to the exquisite sets and costumes and especially to John Alcott's dreamy cinematography and a fine score by Leonard Rosenman.
There is fine acting support from Patrick Magee as the Chevalier de Balibari and Leonard Rossiter as Captain Quinn, and a number of lesser players, who through Kubrick's direction bring to life Europe around the time of the Seven Years War (1754-1763) when decadence and aristocratic privilege were still in full flower.The script features two dueling scenes, the first showing the combatants firing at one another simultaneously at the drop of a white kerchief, the second has Barry and his stepson face each other ten paces apart, but due to the flip of a coin, the stepson fires first.
I recommend this great piece of cinema to anyone who has an interest in the time period the film is set and any fan of Stanley Kubrick.
(Although most of these are not mine, they helped me appreciate my favorite film.)1) The narrator is unreliable: different because he is not first person like in the novel, but similar by not telling the exact truth.Barry Lyndon is very much in a passionate struggle to shape his life yet the narrator dismisses him as a heartless womanizer doomed ("as fate would have it") for his unsuitability for polite society- which itself acts accordingly to its own fixed playbook ("fine family fortune!") In fact, both Lord Bullingdon and his father mock Barry's non-Lord-liness with the metaphor of stepping "into my shoes".
2) Lots of moments happen offscreen (his father's quarrel about purchasing horses, cousins falsifying the ammunition, Barry mentioning a commander O'Grady, his son sneaking off to the horse stable; there are countless key events described but not witnessed; all of which refocuses the significance of what Kubrick DID intentionally put in front of the camera) Like Richard Schickel said, critics bicker about what Kubrick didn't do; Kubrick lovers enjoy his films in an uncomplicated fashion for what he DID present.Thus the viewer has to actively filter through the narrator's misdirection to appreciate the characters quietly reacting to the impact of missing moments.3) The scene where Barry meets Lady Lyndon at the gambling table is easily encapsulated by two quiet details which communicate so much; 1) Reverend Lunt's eyes as he espies the other two making eye contact, 2) how she is breathing on the terrace.
5) When you consider the theme of three duels by firearms, also include the boxing match and the fencing match; and possibly all three abuses of Lord Bullington; and possibly even the robbery; they are all head-to-head confrontations that shape Barry's fortunes, character, & competence (dramatically!), ...but only the final climactic duel tells us who he has become.This is the key reason I offer these insights: Spielberg is correct in saying every time one repeatedly views a Kubrick film one gets something new; BUT Kubrick himself probably intended a singular perspective: so it is ideal for viewers to appreciate all these enigmas the first (few) times viewing -while being overwhelmed by this flip book of fine art paintings set to classical music.
I'm a big fan of Kubrick's films, so back in the early days of DVDs I bought a boxed set that contained Dr. Strangelove, 2001, Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Lolita and Barry Lyndon.
A Brilliant Work of Art. Barry Lyndon, directed by my hero, Stanley Kubrick, is probably one of the greatest movies I've ever seen in my life.
He soon becomes the emporer of England, but Lady Lyndon's son think he's only marrying her for her money, and tension grows between him and Barry throughout the years that result in a shot off leg.This film basically tells the same story as Citizen Kane.
Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon was a film that upon first experience was a little sluggish, and compared to the bizarre nature of many of his other masterpieces (Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, the Shining) is lacking.
Barry Lyndon is the kind of film that, if nothing else, shows that Kubrick wasn't only this madman director of these satires and totally visual experiences (which he was terrific at), but also could do a tender, expressive, and period-perfect film about a world that most of us know from looking at paintings in museums, which is precisely what Kubrick was going for.
Considered one of Thackeray's best novels "Barry Lyndon" comes to light in a brilliant fashion under the direction of Stanley Kubrik with Ryan O'Neal in the title role.A young Irish profligate of the 18th Century finds himself involved in the Seven Year's War in Europe.
Although the choice of stars in some movies seemed odd at the time they were made, over the years, they have grown into their roles.Ryan O'Neal in Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" is a classic example.
Although narration can sometimes seem a lazy way of telling a story in a film, it works perfectly here; we find ourselves waiting for the commentator to put Barry's often-painful experiences into perspective.Kubrick changed the story a great deal, without losing the essential themes.
He was a guy from New York who could embrace British literature and history, and produce such a believable work as this - it was almost as though he had Thackeray himself sitting in a canvas chair beside him acting as technical adviser.The true genius of the movie is in how Kubrick captures the period perfectly, maintains that beautifully measured pace, and yet delivers a film that is full of wit and tension from beginning to end..
Long drawn-out scenes, lingering close-ups of stiff-faced actors, no rooting interest, a sudden personality shift (for the worse) in the lead character, and minute attention to period detail that seems director Stanley Kubrick's main reason for making this.Kubrick shoots his 18th-century costume drama, based on the William Makepeace Thackeray novel, with nods in the direction not of other filmmakers but rather period painters like Gainsborough and Hogarth.
For that, it is a unique film, one that transfixes many still.Still, it's a hard film to love, at least for me, starting with the main character, a young Irishman named Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal) forced to flee his homeland after a duel who gets himself trapped in not one but two armies in the middle of the Seven Years' War. He escapes with a tricky gambler to Belgium where he meets Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson) who falls in love with him and offers him an opportunity to rise in the highest realms of society, if only he can control his mendacity and bitter temper.Not a lot to love there, and some say it's either O'Neal's fault or Kubrick's for casting him.
O'Neal surprises on occasion, especially late in the film when he delivers a crying scene as powerful as Russell Crowe's in "Gladiator." Once you get past his weak Irish accent, you may find him as good a man for the job here as anyone.There's also nice character work by Murray Melvin as the dour minister Mr. Runt, Leon Vitali as Lady Lyndon's son by a prior marriage, and Steven Berkoff, unrecognizable as the same man who menaced Eddie Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cop", as a foppish dandy who trifles with Barry to his regret.
Audience identification, too, is hard, except I think some of the charm of this film is in how alien it is, presenting a world we think we know in an askew but somehow more real-seeming way than ever before.It's a triumph in "Barry Lyndon" how fine and layered a visual scheme Kubrick is able to put on screen, and the story, especially in its first half when Barry is on the rise, has its compelling moments.
The first thing that struck me as I started watching Barry Lyndon (which I'll admit that I knew almost nothing about when I put it on) was that it's a period film, something that I have definitely not come to expect from Kubrick.
Granted, I'm a little behind in my detailed look at his filmography, given that more than a quarter century passed between the film's release and me finally getting around to watching it, but I very soon began to see the same Kubrick that I have come to know and love.The film is about a man named Redmond Barry, who we love and then hate and then pity and then admire for his luck and then pity, love, hate, etc.
Like so many Kubrick films, it is prohibitively long at just over three hours, and it is interesting in that it gives a feeling that nothing ever happens from beginning to end, and yet there is ALWAYS something happening.Personally I absolutely loved it.
(Handel's "Saranbande" is constantly in the background during the final half-hour.) Kubrick even has his narrator "spoil" the ending with 40 minutes still to go, because he wants us to marvel at his design rather than be held hostage to the plot (which, given its episodic nature, admittedly isn't much).Finally, Kubrick broke new technical ground with *Barry Lyndon* with the use of camera lenses that, for the first time, could capture indoor light without professional arc lamps and such.
Youthful Redmond Brady falls for his cousin Nora, getting himself into a duel with an English Army Captain and killing him causing him to flee Ireland, be waylaid by highwaymen, join the army, desert, sleep with the farmer's wife, join the Prussian Army, hook up with an Irish card sharp and marry into title and property the massive success he had hoped to become before a swift downturn in fortune.In the hands of a capable actor of the day, Barry Lyndon may well have ranked as one of Kubrick's better films but O'Neal simply rings hollow from end to end going from an overgrown chubby cheeked young adult to a dissipated, aging old man with the healthy glow of Malibu Ryan still in evidence.
When people say the Stanley Kubrick's movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and Full Metal Jacket, Barry Lyndon is the most underrated of his work.
The atmosphere and the setting that reminds me of a game called Assassin's Creed III is able to keep me on track as long as the movie apart from this is a boring historical drama.If you look closely at the screen, you can see how clearly Stanley Kubrick designed the attractive property and cinematography from the fascinating costumes, atmosphere, the dialogue of the 18th century, it such as witnessing a real history back then and we enjoyed in the present times.
The depth of the story which is told in this film not only that but from the use of music that feels thick and feeling like the atmosphere of the 18th century, the cinematography which often shows close-up to zoom out which has its own meaning, until the use of lighting and the atmosphere in this movie that feels the details.Ryan O'Neal as Barry Lyndon is so phenomenal.
Ryan O'Neal was also pretty good, his Irish accent wasn't too bad.For some reason, Barry Lyndon was rarely shown on TV & I had to buy the DVD so I could watch it a few times a year.
Barry Lyndon is a big-screen version of the Thackaray novel which describes the rise and fall of Redmond Barry, a common but fiesty Irishman who (through luck as much as skill) ascends the ranks of British nobility.It's a great pity that this is one of the lesser-seem works of Stanley Kubrick, for this is a highly believable and entertaining recreation of 18th century Europe with none of the stuffiness that many movies and TV shows set in this era substitute for atmosphere.Like Full Metal Jacket, Barry Lyndon is a film of two halves but it hangs together much better, perhaps due to the deliberate intermission and cue cards.
I am fond of Stanley Kubrick's movies, and I honestly think Barry Lyndon is one of his best.
The meticulous details of 18th Century court life make this movie endlessly fascinating, even if many viewers have complained that it's emotionally distant (a criticism that could apply to more than one Kubrick film).I loved "Barry Lyndon" the first time I watched it, thought it was hollow and lacking the second time I watched it, and then went back to thinking it a masterpiece the third time I watched it.
"Barry Lyndon" is one of those movies that reminds us why Stanley Kubrick's what it is, let's start at the weak point of the film, the script is well encaixadinho but contains some holes off the pace at times are lost, though their actions are well defined, and the actions that do not excite although not bad, but the picture of this film is undoubtedly one of the best of Kubrick and consequently the film, scenes recorded without artificial lighting are of a beauty and reality are south reais, the costumes and screen elements are also incredible, rich in detail and takes us directly to the time, perfect, along with all the scene compositions that are really a work of art, zoom them in and out that Kubrick uses all the time is to show us the scene of perfection, this is quite typical in his films, but this is phenomenal, if you pause the movie at any time, you can capture the screen and send frame and put on the wall of your home the aesthetic beauty along with the details and compositions of all scenes are something I can not put into words, the soundtrack does not stand out much, but when it appears is fundamental and guides the tone of the film, "Barry Lyndon" is beautiful , magnificent and triumphant in their technical questions that show all that famous obsession with Kubrick for detail, the three-hour film are a bit unnecessary, the script extends beyond what is proposed, but it is good to have more time to admire the beauty of the movie..
For a film that keeps its title character in frame but at arm's length for virtually its entire 180-minute running time (save for a brief interlude of contented fatherhood), Barry Lyndon is Kubrick's most moving and heartfelt film.
You just can't stop watching this movie.Kubrick continued his fabulous use of Classical music to enhance the action on screen in Barry Lyndon.
He is quite dull in many scenes, but nonetheless he captures this strange dreamlike feeling which on one side drives you nuts and on the other side gently drags you into this imaginary world.The wonderful achievement Kubrick makes is to set up the scenery as if it was a painting, giving it a beautiful surrealistic touch to reality so to say, mixed with the great choice of music and lighting, this simply pays of as this master worked pearl of film-making.Generally this movie is a masterpiece from start to finish, with top notch set up, lighting, filming, music, narrator, acting and story.
The story of the lead character, the people he encounters, the good and bad that comes to his life, is all told through master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, the film's writer, producer, and director.Barry Lyndon is 3 hours perfection.
Everything from the acting, cinematography, music, to the screenplay is top notch.If you're a true Stanley Kubrick fan, meaning you don't watch his films solely for the sex and violence, and actually enjoy his talents as an artist, check out Barry Lyndon.