Stanley Kubrick's magisterial Thackeray adaptation now stands as one of his greatest and most savagely ironic films, not to mention one of the few period pieces on celluloid so transporting that it seems to predate the invention of cameras.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
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Reviews Counted:7
Fresh:7
Rotten:0
Average Rating:7.5/10
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
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.
All of Stanley Kubrick's features look better now than when they were first released, but Barry Lyndon, which fared poorly at the box office in 1975, remains his most underrated. It may also be his greatest.
Barry Lyndon isn't a great success, and it's not a great entertainment, but it's a great example of directorial vision: Kubrick saying he's going to make this material function as an illustration of the way he sees the world.
The loveliest of Stanley Kubrick films. Indeed, Barry Lyndon is the one Kubrick movie that could even invite that adjective (or epithet).
Maybe the only abstract maxim that one can derive from Kubrick's new film is: 'Openness is everything.'
Another fascinating challenge from one of our most remarkable, independent-minded directors.
Latest News for Barry Lyndon
November 15, 2007:
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