The constant array of waxworks figures against lavish backdrops finally vulgarises the visual sumptuousness.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
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Reviews Counted:49
Fresh:46
Rotten:3
Average Rating:7.8/10
Runtime: 3 hrs 9 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: BARRY LYNDON is Stanley Kubrick's epic costume drama based on William Makepeace Thackeray's picaresque novel. It tells the story of a young rogue who wanders through life getting lost in various... BARRY LYNDON is Stanley Kubrick's epic costume drama based on William Makepeace Thackeray's picaresque novel. It tells the story of a young rogue who wanders through life getting lost in various adventures, meeting his share of women and oddball characters. When Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal, trying desperately to maintain an Irish brogue) becomes jealous of Captain Quin's advances on Barry's beloved cousin, he challenges the man to a duel. Winning the duel, young Barry is forced to leave his home and his mother, and off on his adventures he goes. He meets thieves, lonely soldier brides, Prussian army leaders, and British widows, inventing new stories about himself at every turn of the road. BARRY LYNDON is lush and magnificent, sparkling with color, every frame reminiscent of the finest European art. The blues of the Prussian army uniforms and the reds of the British contrast sharply with the majestic green land and mountains in nearly every background. Kubrick often begins a shot close in, then zooms out to reveal the beautiful natural landscape and ornate rooms surrounding the now seemingly insignificant characters. With rousing performances from O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Hardy Kruger, and Leonard Rossiter, jaw-dropping camerawork, spectacular natural lighting, and a marvelous classical-music soundtrack painstakingly put together by Kubrick, BARRY LYNDON is a dramatic romantic epic that may be Kubrick's most beautiful film. [More]
Starring: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger
Starring: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger, Steven Berkoff, Gay Hamilton, Marie Kean, Murray Melvin, Andre Morell, Leonard Rossiter, Philip Stone
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Producer: Stanley Kubrick
Composer: Leonard Rosenman
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Reviews for Barry Lyndon
The movie's charms are limited to its technical and visual virtuosity and droll voice-over narration.
Director Stanley Kubrick's opulent epic is certainly a feast for the eyes, with every scene beautifully framed and the attention to exquisite detail breathtaking.
Ryan O'Neal's excellent performance captures the shallow opportunism endemic to the title character who is brought down as much by his own flaws as by the mores of the ordered social structure of 18th-century England.
It's a tour de force, with the director pushing the limits of film technology to realise his singular vision, developing new camera lenses to tell this 18th Century cautionary tale with only natural, available light.
Like all Kubrick films, it's a curiosity, but Barry Lyndon contains more than enough beauty, artistry and hard-won truth to justify its conceits.
You can't tear your eyes from it. Loosely held together by Michael Hordern's drolly ironic narration, it might not catch very much of Thackeray's tone but it creates a world that is sumptuously, even shockingly, vivid.
Sure it is slow; but it rolls over you and mesmerizes you; a wonderfully photographed effort with a great soundtrack; one of O'Neal's best performances.
Stanley Kubrick's minor masterpiece is often overlooked -- even scorned -- by those who claim it to be pretentious and slow. Well, it is pretentious and slow, but it's still an exceptional film.
It paints a detailed picture of Europe's 18th-century period that could have been drawn by master painters such as Constable, Gainborough and Watteau.
Its story of an 18th-century social climber, adapted from Thackeray, unfolds in Gainsborough-esque landscapes and in rooms lit either by milky-white sunshine or shimmering candle flames.
A bold, experimental screen adaptation, Kubrick's much understood film at the time of its release, is a masterpiece, marking the helmer's meticulous attention to every single frame.
Glimpses of Barry's humanity peek through during his moments with Brian, and explode in Kubrick's most wrenching moment near the film's conclusion.
Latest News for Barry Lyndon
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