Barry Lyndon (1975)

Stanley Kubrick’s Georgian period piece is an aesthetic and narrative tour-de-force, ahead of it’s time in 1975. More ambitious than almost any widely released studio film of today, Barry Lyndon may well exist as strongly in the mind as it does on screen. Like the great landscape paintings to which it pays homage, Kubrick’s film rolls along in different segments and the details continue to amass. The result is something wholly original which never manages to overwhelm the audience.

Redmond Barry is a poor Irishman who lives with his mother and is dependent upon the generosity of relatives with better financial prospects. After falling out with his benefactors over a matter of love and pride, Redmond leaves his country home and is swept up in many adventures. As he slowly learns to profit from each of these endeavours with the absolute bare minimum of effort, Redmond eventually marries rich and assumes the name which gives the film it’s title. From here the story becomes one of undeserving position and privilege, but also speaks to the emptiness and fallibility of the character’s incessant scheming and readily apparent unscrupulous nature. Barry Lyndon is a man with very little to offer in the way of substance, though his strength is found in representing himself as the very modicum of success and taste.

Kubrick and his cinematographer John Alcott famously shot almost all of this film with natural and period accurate light sources. The effect is to draw in the audience the same way a great painting from that era does; with enough contrast and definition to create something unique and inspiring, however shrouded in darkness. Shots begin in close up and pull back slowly to reveal tableaux and landscape. This technique allows for reflection on the complexity of the characters as well as the exterior and interior settings. The editing also nudges our understanding of the themes in the right direction. Shots either linger or cut to demonstrate the socio-political goings on between characters, all of whom seek to play their own game. These technical elements combined with the soundtrack of classical orchestral pieces present us with one of Kubrick’s more substantial and satisfying masterworks.

Barry Lyndon is a tragicomic epic told with aplomb and intelligence. Kubrick makes of Thackeray’s picaresque fiction a lively and stirring film, though it is excessively (and rightfully) patient in the execution of it’s narrative and thematic presentation. With a cast of actors that each seem aware of their place and function in the story, this cinematic treasure deserves it’s spot in the pantheon of classic 70’s film.

5/5