It might appear foolish to name a movie directed by Stanley Kubrick — one of the acclaimed and influential filmmakers ever — “underrated.” However, whereas a few of his movies are extensively celebrated as iconic and groundbreaking classics (i.e. 2001: A House Odyssey or The Shining), his 1975 epic interval drama Barry Lyndon would not pop up in conversations about Kubrick’s greatness almost as typically. The movie facilities on an impulsive however tenacious Anglo-Irish man named Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) as he seeks to enhance his social standing. Over the course of his journey, he turns into a fugitive from the legislation, joins two armies, participates in duels, and repeatedly modifications his identification earlier than finally setting his sights on marrying a widowed aristocrat (Marisa Berenson).
Though the movie received three Academy Awards (and was nominated for Greatest Image), it was additionally dismissed as bland and self-indulgent, with eminent critics Pauline Kael and Charles Champlin each evaluating it to a “coffee-table e book.” And, despite the fact that, like many Kubrick movies, it has undergone a important re-evaluation lately, it nonetheless stays comparatively obscure inside Kubrick’s celebrated oeuvre amongst most movie-goers, with many individuals being delay by its size, pacing, and seemingly uninteresting and clichéd narrative. This is why it deserves extra consideration, and why it’s best to completely hunt down the Criterion Assortment‘s upcoming 4K restoration of the movie, releasing July 8, 2025.
Each Body a (Literal) Portray
Barry Lyndon
- Launch Date
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December 18, 1975
- Runtime
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185 Minutes
Kubrick was recognized for conducting intensive analysis in preparation for his movies, asserting in an interview with critic Michel Cement that, “The place to begin and sine qua non of any historic or futuristic story is to make you imagine what you see.” For example, Kubrick defined in the identical interview that the movie’s period-authentic (and Oscar-winning) costumes and set design have been primarily impressed by the works of 18th-century British artists like William Hogarth and Thomas Gainsborough: “These photos served because the reference for every thing we would have liked to make — garments, furnishings, hand props, structure, automobiles, and so forth.”
Kubrick and cinematographer John Alcott additionally based mostly their strategy to lighting in Barry Lyndon on 18th-century English work. As Graham-Dixon factors out, these work typically depicted their topics subsequent to home windows that allowed pure mild into the in any other case darkish indoor areas. Certainly, a lot of the movie’s indoor scenes are solely lit by both pure mild coming in by way of home windows (for daytime scenes) or by candlelight (for nighttime scenes), with none synthetic lighting sources.
As a way to movie the candlelit indoor scenes, Kubrick obtained three uncommon digital camera lenses that had been initially designed for NASA’s moon-landing program, which have been far quicker than the traditional movie digital camera lenses of the time. This daring and revolutionary strategy to cinematography ends in what Charlie Grahan-Dixon of Dazed calls “among the most visually beautiful [shots] in cinema historical past.”
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Along with making the movie look fairly and traditionally genuine, the movie’s fixed visible homages to work additionally serve an essential thematic goal. As a result of work are a two-dimensional medium, their evocation within the movie additional reinforces how flat, passive, and shallow Barry is as a personality. As Roger Ebert describes, “… Kubrick has directed Ryan O’Neal within the title function as if he have been a nonetheless life. […] As one horrible occasion after one other happens to him, he tasks an eerie calm. Nor do his triumphs…appear to deliver him a lot pleasure. He’s a person to whom issues occur. […] He appears the a part of a lover, a soldier, a husband. However there is no such thing as a there there.”
Ugly Folks in a Lovely World
As spectacular because the movie’s indoor cinematography is, the movie’s most memorable factor is definitely the gorgeous surroundings of the Irish countryside, the place all of the film’s out of doors pictures — together with those set in England and Prussia — have been filmed. (Filming took a staggering 300 days to finish as a result of perfectionist director’s notorious tendency to make his actors do dozens, if not tons of, of takes for only a single scene.) Kubrick and Alcott ceaselessly intensify the countryside’s magnificence by slowly zooming out from medium close-ups of the characters to current panoramic vistas of the picturesque rural background.
Tim Pelan of Cinephilia & Past means that the overwhelming magnificence of those zoom-outs has the impact of belittling Barry and the opposite characters’ exploits by making them appear small and insignificant: “All through, Kubrick exposes the frailties, foolishness and frivolities of characters […]. He reveals a gorgeous, detached world that can endure past our brief time.”
Equally, Ebert posits that the gorgeousness and tranquility of the surroundings belies the violent and chaotic Seven Years’ Warfare throughout which the movie is ready, illustrating Barry’s self-centered and opportunitstic nature: “[The film] hardly appears to assume the warfare price noticing, besides as a sequence of challenges posed for Barry Lyndon.” As each critics agree, these zoom-outs contribute to the viewers being made to really feel emotionally indifferent from Barry. In consequence, his gradual fall from grace feels pathetic and comical as a lot because it feels tragic.
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This ironic distinction between magnificence and melancholy extends to the movie’s soundtrack. Like 2001, Barry Lyndon‘s soundtrack consists of orchestral renditions of Classical compositions reasonably than an authentic music rating. Essentially the most ceaselessly recurring piece is Handel’s Sarabande, which Pelan and Ebert each describe as “funereal.” Pelan elaborates that the seemingly upbeat piece “ornaments the pomp of each Barry’s ambitions and the outdated order” through the movie’s first half earlier than finally “driving residence the inevitable tragicomic downfall of our silly hero” when it reappears within the movie’s second half.
This seemingly sentient soundtrack, mixed with Michael Hordern’s dryly plaintive narration (which causally spoils important plot developments nicely earlier than they happen), offers the movie a foreboding ambiance, suggesting that Barry has no management over his personal life and future. As Ebert sums up, “There’s a way in each this movie and 2001 {that a} superior drive hovers above these struggles and controls them. In 2001, it was a never-clarified type of increased intelligence. In Barry Lyndon, it’s Kubrick himself, standing aloof from the motion…”
Barry Lyndon is Martin Scorsese’s Favourite Kubrick Movie
Even when Barry Lyndon lacks the provocative material and emotional depth of Kubrick’s different movies, that doesn’t imply that Barry Lyndon is inferior or much less attention-grabbing than the remainder of Kubrick’s filmography. Whereas it actually calls for extra endurance and open-mindedness from the viewers than even most Kubrick movies, those that oblige can be in for a richly rewarding expertise. Do not imagine me? Ask Kubrick’s fellow filmmaking legend and Barry Lyndon fan Martin Scorsese.
Barry Lyndon is on the market for rental or buy on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+. The movie is coming to The Criterion Assortment on July 8, 2025, with a newly restored 4K model and a number of particular options; pre-order it right here.