Barry Lyndon (1975)

Barry Lyndon (PG) - Review

"Barry was one of those born clever enough at gaining a fortune, but incapable of keeping one"

The long running, tragically black comic tale of the life of a country Irish boy named Barry, whose fortunes and travesties are spread all about 18th Century Europe as could only be accomplished by master director Stanley Kubrick.

Famously shot using mostly natural lighting, the picture is luxuriously bathed in candle, sun and moon light.  Every frame is intended to invoke a painting from the period, adding a soft even glow that surrounds the often turgid affairs onscreen.  This was made possible, yet still famously, when Kubrick borrowed three lenses that had been constructed for NASA's moon landings to shoot Barry Lyndon.  The rolling hillsides, the elegant costumes, the pastoral music all combine into an epic of a quiet simplicity:  to observe Barry slink his way through the stations of his life and fortune as it comes and goes.  With the dry wit of the script and drier still voice over narration, Lyndon gracefully lambastes the European castes and societies while still fabulously dousing itself in it's fashions, practices and beliefs.

Ryan O'Neal (Love Story) leads the cast of wigged and ruffled actors with stoic determination, but all of the strengths of the movie lie with the filmmakers:  the script, the production design and the editing are all the major feats of accomplishment.  The actors may then end up just models for the camera and lighs, but one can hardly complain when the frame it produces is this gorgeous.

The transformations of Barry, the log winded nature of its humor, and the absolute genius of Stanley Kubrick's artistry allow Barry Lyndon to be more than just a sly romantic period piece. While the story certainly meanders a tad (the MTV generation might scoff at its 3 hour runtime and lack of jumpcuts), nothing in retrospect is either excessive nor unnecessary.  To remove a scene would be the same as removing the color blue from a great oil portrait, leaving a gaping hole in the tapestry that is obviously more than the sum of its hues.

8.5 Sheep Drawn Carriages out of 10 (GREAT)