Kubrick’s 1975 feature is a very odd film. It is entirely possible that I didn’t “get it.” If that is the case, I would appreciate assistance in that regard.
In the grand tradition of Kubrick films, it pitted a fundamentally flawed individual against the world around him, but here there was no cause for Lyndon’s underlying malcontent.
The first act of the movie was farcical; Barry was a cardboard cutout, albeit a very stylishly acted cardboard cutout. This then segues into the incredibly bizarre and maudlin second act. Kid thrown off a horse? Since when does Kubrick have to steal from Gone With The Wind to yank some tears from the audience?
The theme of the duels, between Barry and the world as well as Bulyngdon and Quinn played through completely, but the rest of the film seems a bit muddled.
Throughout the second act, I found myself waiting for the payoff of some overarcing satire as implied by the early par tof the film, but it never came.
In other Kubrick films, the protagonists are products of their environments; their behavior is as a result of the oppresive society against which they are rebelling. This idea is absent from Barry Lyndon. Basically, there is no obvious reason for the peverted power hungry animal that Barry becomes.
Did Kubrick have a point tht I am overlooking? I keep seeing the film referred to as Kubrick’s unsung masterpiece, but I’m just not seeing it. Is there some significance to the fact that there are no zooms in the film, only reverse zooms?
You are aware that the movie was adapted from a novel, aren’t you? It was by William Thackeray and it came out in 1844. So when you say:
> Kid thrown off a horse? Since when does Kubrick have to steal from Gone With
> The Wind to yank some tears from the audience?
you’ve got the order mixed up. The scene came from the book. It’s possible that Magaret Mitchell was influenced by Thackeray when she wrote Gone with the Wind.
I’m not sure what the “theme” is–it’s been a while. But I do know this: the first time I saw Barry Lyndon I felt much the same way: I ended up bored and confused. When I saw it again a few years later, however, it hopped to near the top of my Kubrick list.
Nothing specific to suggest; just wait a while and try again. Worked for me.
(Rosenbaum’s capsule, while entirely positive, doesn’t offer much beyond “[Barry Lyndon] repays close attention as a complex and fascinating historical meditation, as enigmatic in its way as 2001: A Space Odyssey.” And he calls it one of Kubrick’s most underrated films.)
I can’t offer much in the way of profundity, but I can say that my experience of the film matched lissener’s very closely. The first time I saw it, it bored me. Now, it is one of my favourite of his films. Critical reaction matched us, though. It took some time for the film to creep up into Top 10 lists.
As for why I like it: Yes, it’s slow, but in an age of directors who learned their trade on pop videos, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I like long novels and long poems, and perhaps the film appeals to me for the same reason. Also, the film looks fantastic. It is a technical masterpiece.
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it but I remember it as a visual masterpiece, and despite that, yeah, the first time I saw it (in a theatre) it seemed slow. But it resonated. And sort of a classical tragedy, in the sense that the protagonist had a flaw that brought him down.
Visually, it was indeed pleasing. And, the film moves on in a rather mundane fashion and you are wondering when the explosion of profundity will arrive. But, throughout the film, I always got the sense that there was “something” interesting which was under-stated (in the background) and definitely felt fulfilled when the film ended.
I also wonder what my reaction would have been if I didn’t know it was Kubrick’s.
I’ve seen the film only once, back in 1975, when it was in theaters. Barry Lyndon holds, for me, the distinction of being one of two movies, that, in my adult life, I have cried openly at.
Ant it was the “kid and horse” incident. As the boy lies dying, he asks his parents not to fight anymore, and the film cuts from his deathbead to his funeral procession. You know, where his coffin is borne along on a little cart drawn by goats(he used to drive it himself) and the music swells as the minister recites the funeral liturgy. I put my head on my husbands’ shoulder and positively bawled!
I really enjoyed Barry Lyndon. I saw it for the first time five years ago on video. One of the most famous shots, from a techincal standpoint, are the scenes only lighted by candles. Special lenses were developed just for them.
Using f0.7 lenses is all fine and dandy, but it seemed like an exercise in the Kubrick tradition. It felt like Kubrick drunk with Kubrick. I’ll wait ten years, but it just seemed utterly pointless and rambling. The disconnects and disparate story elements made the narrative almost incoherent.
To quote an IMDb reviewer:
My initial reaction was along those lines. The death of the young Lyndon was cheap, maudlin and melodramatic, regardless of it’s origins. Kubrick had to have known this. He also must have known that it would be compared to GWTW.
I would have said it was crap. Knowin it was Kubrick’s, however, leaves me with the nagging feeling that there is something else there that I am not connecting with.
I saw it when it first came out, and loved it. I have to admit that I loved all of Kubrick’s films, until Fll Metal Jacket.
It was straighforward storytelling, adapting Thackeray’s story about his Upstart’s Progress, in the manner of Hagarth’s Rake’s Progress. In doing so, he gave you a glimpse and Grand Tour of the times. Unlike Hogarth, he didn’t really moralize. But he didn’t cover up Redmond Barry’s shortcomings, either. And he did it all in a cinematographic style that tried to emulate those enormous, detailed paintings of the period. That’s why he got that super-low f/# Zeiss camera lens – he wanted everything to look as it did back then.
A friend once claimed that Kubrick got Ryan O’Neill to play the lead because he wanted a nonentity romantic comedy lightweight, so as not to distract from the story and the visuals. Me, I think that implies that all the other actors are lightweights, too, and know that’s not the case. I’ll give O’Neill his due. I still love the flick.
Kubrick abandoned the characters completely. They were only there to add to the set design. An extension of how he used the actors in “2001” (which at least had human history as a story). And the exact opposite of the wonderful “Dr. Strangelove.”
Anthony Burgess talked around that time about his frustration with trying to work with Kubrick again. Burgess wanted a fast paced story, one thing after another. Kubrick wanted a long sequence of beautiful paintings with no real action. That pretty much sums up what Kubrick was doing at that time.
I guess I don’t quite see why you expected to feel sympathetic for the character - it’s only slowly revealed, but at the end of the film it’s clear just what an awful man he is. The point isn’t that he’s driven to it by society - because he’s not.
My feelings are similiar to others here; Kubrick misfired. My reaction upon watching the movie was that he had attempted to partially “Kubrickize” a story that simply wasn’t suitable for such a treatment. Kubrick’s style and recurring themes tended to work to varying degrees depending on the subject matter. It worked on “2001,” “Fail Safe,” “Dr. Strangelove” and “A Clockwork Orange.” In the case of Barry Lyndon, it didn’t. Same with “Full Metal Jacket,” which wasn’t bad but didn’t entirely work, or some others. One gets the distinct sense KLubrick read “Barry Lyndon” and loved it so much he was determined to make a movie out of it, and the hell with having a point.
It’s beautifully shot but the story simply doesn’t draw a workable picture for me. A beautiful sequence of pictures CAN work as a movie; it worked pretty well for “The Thin Red Line,” to use a recent example.
It may be that Kubrick was attempting to create a visual conflict between the cruelty, violence and amendacity of Barry and the society he lived in, and the lush, beautiful, pastoral images of the natural world they lived in. “Look at this beautiful, pastoral, pre-industrial Europe, and contrast it with the hideous ogres who lived in it!!!” Actually, it’s the only logical explanation I can come up with for the contradiction that seems to be bothering Ilsa so much. But it just doesn’t seem to suggest a point to me; it feels less like a deliberate conflict, and more like the screenwriter and art/set team were working on different films.
The novel Barry Lyndon is told in first person by BL, and it’s quite ironic. He excuses everything and justifies he does, but it’s easy to read between the lines and discover that he’s an utter bastard from the get-go. I think the movie glosses over this essential point and tries to make BL a more sympathetic character. Perhaps if Ryan O’Neal was allowed to portray him more faithfully to the book character, the movie would not have been as stiff and puzzling as it is.
Having said that, I adore Barry Lyndon, the movie. It’s visually stunning and conveys a rich and hypnotic tension throughout.
I’ve never understood why Kubrick is so worshipped by film people. I’ve never seen anything admirable in his work other than his photography – which is admittedly gorgeous. If it weren’t for the movingpart of moving pictures, I’m sure I’d think he was a genius, too. Alas, his camera work leaves me cold, his stories seem to be largely to the credit of of the terrific writers that he’s worked with, and he’s bollixed up some fine stories and at least one great novel. He leaves great actors floundering (they seem to like this, though – won’t say anything bad about him), and he indulges himself at the viewer’s expense.
I quit watching Kubrick movies before Full Metal Jacket came out, and Barry Lyndon was before my time, and I’m not going to torture myself by watching it now. I’ve seen enough.
I’ve never understood why James Joyce is so worshipped by people who read books. I’ve never seen anything admirable in his work other than his wordplay-- which is admittedly gorgeous. If it weren’t for the reading part of reading books, I’m sure I’d think he was a genius, too. Alas, his writing leaves me cold, his stories seem to be largely to the credit of of the terrific sources that he’s worked with, and he’s bollixed up some fine stories and at least one great novel. He leaves some readers floundering (they seem to like this, though – won’t say anything bad about him), and he indulges himself at the reader’s expense.
I quit reading Joyce books before Ulysses came out, and Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man was before my time, and I’m not going to torture myself by reading it now. I’ve read enough.