Movie Masterworks

“Thus Barry fell into the very worst of courses and company. And was soon very far advanced in the science of every kind of misconduct.”

Synopsis: How does an Irish lad without prospects become part of 18th-century English nobility? For Barry Lyndon (Ryan O’Neal) the answer is: any way he can! His climb to wealth and privilege is the enthralling focus of this sumptuous Stanely Kubrick version of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel.

For this ravishing, slyly satiric winner of 4 Academy Awards®, Kubrick found inspiration in the works of the era’s painters. Costumes and sets were crafted in the era’s designs and pioneering lenses were developed to shoot interiors and exteriors in natural light. The result? ‘Barry Lyndon’ endures as a cutting-edge movie that brings a historical period to vivid screen life like no other film before or since.

Critique: Barry Lyndon is a masterpiece of a director whose films are all extraordinary; it marks a new conception of the art of film. Although based on a novel, it is entirely cinematic, offering an endlessly suggestive vision of reality which is irreducible to verbal formulations. Each shot and cut tells us more than any verbal formulations (including this one) can convey. Like its hero, it seems at first uncomplicated; but it maintains a dream-like coherence and ambiguity throughout, succeeding as a story, spectacle, historical reconstruction, psychological allegory and vision of Western man. And it is about the act of viewing. It betters our ability to watch, and betters us. In an age less interested in ugliness, seen by the viewers Kubrick has helped to create, its greatness will be recognized and its reputation righted.

-Excerpt from Barry Lyndon Reconsidered by Mark Crispin Miller
© 1976 The Georgia Review Volume XXX, Number 4. All Rights Reserved

My thoughts: Barry Lyndon is the most beautiful film I’ve ever seen. It’s as if each frame of film can serve as the composition for an impressionist’s oil painting. But this is art come to life! The costumes, lighting and cinematography are so exquisite, it’s like peering through a window directly into the mid 1700’s.