Barry Lyndon
by Stanley Kubrick
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DVD details
Actor: Hardy Kr?ger, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Ryan O'Neal, Steven BerkoffDirector: Stanley Kubrick
Cinematographer: John Alcott
Producer: Stanley Kubrick
Writer: Stanley Kubrick
Editor: Tony Lawson
Producer: Bernard Williams
Producer: Jan Harlan
Writer: William Makepeace Thackeray
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Letterboxed, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 184 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-12
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Barry Lyndon
DVD Review: Beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
A film as visually magnificent and painstakingly photographed as "Barry Lyndon" deserves a fine transfer from a pristine print, and this DVD is as as good a presentation as one could expect from the format. This edition is presented in the matted 1.66:1 theatrical format instead of the 1.37:1 aspect ratio in which Kubrick shot it and intended for televised broadcast and VHS editions. However, this edition is NOT anamorphically enhanced for 16x9 display. If that's what you want, you're better off waiting for it on a Blu-Ray edition. Leon Vitali has suggested in interviews that the 1080i version will not be anamorphic; let's hope that he's mistaken!
Forty-seven chapters of the film can be selected from eight lists of titles. English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles are available, and all of these are competently translated and rendered. It should be noted that the French dubbed dialogue track from the 1999 Kubrick Collection edition is not featured on this disc, or on the second edition of the Kubrick Collection.
A listing of the many awards that the film garnered is available, as though we need be reminded of Kubrick's and Alcott's superior efforts. The fatuous theatrical trailer is also on disc for those who want to watch one of the dullest trailers in film history: a slapshod pastiche of the film's most immediately recognizable scenes narrated by some bore who reads positive reviews of it that were hurriedly scribbled out by film critics. Ugh!
DVD Review: Like Paintings Come-To-Life!
Summary: 5 Stars
Some movies - I wish there were more of them - simply look like a series of great paintings. This film has that look. You could freeze-frame many of the scenes and swear you were looking at a Gainsborough, a Vermeer, a Hogarth or similar work of art by one the great artists of three to five centuries ago. It just's beautiful stuff. I hope a Blu-Ray of this is done soon and released as this film is worthy of a great, high-definition disc.
For the visuals, we have Director Stanley Kubrick and Photographer John Alcott to thank. Being a three-hour movie, there are plenty of wonderful shots to admire, too. In addition, the costumes are lavish and authentic and the scoring is notable. It's no accident that Oscars were garnered for art/set direction, cinematography, costume design and scoring. Yeah, if you enjoy classical music, you'll really enjoy the soundtrack, toom under the guidance of conductor Leonard Roseman.
Not to be overlooked is the fine acting and the interesting and underrated story. I say "underrated" because this film, from what I've read, bored a lot of people and and it was a box-office flop. That's too bad because, frankly, I found the story (outside of the first 10--15 minutes) to be fascinating. As I watched, I kept wondering what strange occurrences will happen next to the lead character, "Redmond Barry/Barry Lyndon," played beautifully by Ryan O'Neal. (For most of the movie, he's called "Redmond Barry," so I will refer to him as that.)
In the end, this was a low-key adventure story about the rise-and-fall of a "scoundrel" back in late 18th century Englishman. "Mr. Barry" is an Irishmen living in England who winds up dealing with a number of people: Irish, English, Prussian, French. His dealings with these people are bizarre at times. While he mainly is shown doing what he can to promote himself, for either monetary gain and prestige of a name and power, he's not all bad. There is a compassionate side to him, but it only shows itself in small doses. It makes him all the more interesting to watch, because you don't always know how he's going to react to his circumstances, which change radically every few years.
We witness his rise to prominence and then his fall when his "sins begin to find him out," as the Bible would describe. It's quite a roller coaster ride.
This is an emotional, involving story, and a feast for the eyes and ears. It's quite different, too, certainly not the average fare from Kubrick. I can only hope this comes out on a high-definition disc some day. Admirers of this film need to see this in all its glory.
DVD Review: My all-time favortie is not on Blu-Ray
Summary: 5 Stars
I am going to get Blu-Ray soon and I do not want to recreate my collection. but I want my favorites on Blu-Ray. Since this is supremely underrated Warner Bros. is not interested in releasing it. The available DVDs have crappy transfers and bad sound. I am waiting with baited breath for Warner to release this. It is a great film and since Warner Brothers is unaware of this they do not release it on Blu-Ray. Warner Bros. has disappointed me here. I am begging for them to release this!!! Please!DVD Review: Exquisite historical story and detail
Summary: 5 Stars
One of Stanley Kubrick's best movies; also one of Ryan O'Neal's best. Period details are exquisite and lush, on par with Merchant & Ivory films. It helps to be familiar with English history to be truly comfortable with the long, slow story, the point of the narration, and the complex layers of society with the story set in 1844; however, one doesn't need to be a history buff to appreciate all the technical merits of this extraordinary film. This film will definitely transport the viewer to a different time in space...Kubrick's specialty. DVD Review: A Filmed Painting
Summary: 5 Stars
My comments are going to address the film itself (just as my 5-star rating is for the movie, not the DVD transfer), since many other smart and observant reviewers have pointed out the failings of Warner Brothers' shoddy treatment of Barry Lyndon on DVD. I absolutely urge any fan of poetic cinema or Stanley Kubrick to invest in a copy of this movie, but better to wait for a beautiful transfer of one of the most beautifully photographed films ever made.
As for the film... A hipster friend once told me Kubrick was his favorite director. I asked him if he liked "Barry Lyndon." "Barry what?" was the answer, confirming my suspicion that "Lyndon" is an underrated work even among Kubrick devotees. I can understand. Despite being a period-piece based on a picturesque adventure novel, Lyndon is as aggressively experimental as Kubrick's previous film, "A Clockwork Orange," and does not reward the passive or impatient viewer.
Thwarted in his desire to film a Napoleon biopic, Kubrick turned to William Makepeace Thackeray for inspiration and the result is an arrestingly beautiful, strangely haunting, and thoroughly original work of cinematic art. In two parts separated by an intermission, Barry Lyndon follows the rise and fall of one Redmond Barry, an 18th century Irishman whose good looks, ingratiating manners, talent for fighting, and cutthroat ambition mark him for something "greater" in life than tending farms. During the course of the narrative, Redmond duels an Englishman, joins the regiment afoot, deserts, gets dragooned into the Prussian army, becomes a Prussian spy, escapes again, takes up the profession of gambling, travels the Continent in the company of a Chevalier, and pursues a nobleman's wife.
And that's just the first part. Sounds like an exciting romp, doesn't it? Er, actually -- it's not. For all its visual pomp and splendor, "Barry Lyndon" remains one of the strangest, most idiosyncratic films I've ever seen. Ask almost anyone who has seen the movie (a paltry number to begin with) and most will tell you that "Barry Lyndon" is, in a word, boring. I can only account for my own experience, but the effect for me is more mesmerizing than yawn-inducing. Kubrick's mastery of the film medium is such that he recklessly breaks all rules of movie storytelling and yet I'm hypnotized by the painterly images and evocative classical soundtrack.
"Lyndon" is an embarrassment of visual riches, from the lush green landscape of Ireland to the candle-lit interiors of European courts and palaces. Virtually every shot of the movie could be framed and mounted on the wall. "Barry Lyndon" belongs on a shortlist of the most physically ravishing films ever made and is worth seeing for that reason alone. It's pure cinema, distilled to a gorgeous interplay of sight and sound.
Kubrick stretches film time to the breaking point, collapsing months and years into a few shots and then drawing out fleeting moments for a seeming eternity. Redmond's seduction of Lady Lyndon, for example, is a wordless sequence that travels from the gaming table to an outside veranda in a breathtaking ballet of glances, meaningful expressions, unspoken emotions, and quiet gestures. Social ritual fascinates Kubrick, and much of the drama of the story stems from the tension between violent passion and society's restrictive formalities.
Yet it's not all filmic experimentation and weighty themes. "Barry Lyndon's" early, Ireland-set scenes feature stunning scenery and a lovely, lilting theme composed by that great Celtic band, the Chieftains. The humor is dry-as-dust and dark-as-midnight, the kind of humor Kubrick specializes in (remember a little satire called Dr. Strangelove?), as in the delightful exchange between Redmond and Captain Feeny, one of the most courtly-mannered robbers one is likely to encounter. As for Kubrick's purportedly "clinical" absence of emotion, there's a scene towards the end of the film between Redmond and his ailing young son that is emotionally devastating.
Ryan O'Neal, never known as a great actor (to put it mildly), is nevertheless perfectly suited to the part of the rogue-ish Redmond Barry. As in the aforementioned scene with his son, O'Neal digs deep to give a powerful, convincing performance that maintains a high quality over the course of the movie's 3-hour running time. Though his Lucky Charms Irish accent comes and goes, O'Neal captures an essential innocence and sweetness to the character that allows the audience to keep with him through thick-and-thin. His social climbing doesn't seem so much the result of a Machiavellian plan as the result of spur-of-the-moment opportunism. In the climax of the film, a stunning duel that takes place in an abandoned barn, Redmond makes a choice that demonstrates the distance he's traveled from his first impetuous duel with the Englishman. In that moment, Redmond deserves the name of hero. O'Neal himself must have known Barry Lyndon was a career highlight: he named his son Redmond.
Because of its slow pace and storytelling idiosyncracies, I'm always hesitant to recommend "Barry Lyndon." Yet I can't help myself. Though not for all tastes, "Lyndon" is that rare cinematic beast: a truly personal expression by a formidable artist. Its rewards are rich and abiding.
Description of Barry Lyndon
In 1975 the world was at Stanley Kubrick's feet. His films Dr.?Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange, released in the previous dozen years, had provoked rapture and consternation--not merely in the film community, but in the culture at large. On the basis of that smashing hat trick, Kubrick was almost certainly the most famous film director of his generation, and absolutely the one most likely to rewire the collective mind of the movie audience. And what did this radical, at-least-20-years-ahead-of-his-time filmmaker give the world in 1975? A stately, three-hour costume drama based on an obscure Thackeray novel from 1844. A picaresque story about an Irish lad (Ryan O'Neal, then a major star) who climbs his way into high society, Barry Lyndon bewildered some critics (Pauline Kael called it "an ice-pack of a movie") and did only middling business with patient audiences. The film was clearly a technical advance, with its unique camerawork (incorporating the use of prototype Zeiss lenses capable of filming by actual candlelight) and sumptuous production design. But its hero is a distinctly underwhelming, even unsympathetic fellow, and Kubrick does not try to engage the audience's emotions in anything like the usual way.Why, then, is Barry Lyndon a masterpiece? Because it uncannily captures the shape and rhythm of a human life in a way few other films have; because Kubrick's command of design and landscape is never decorative but always apiece with his hero's journey; and because every last detail counts. Even the film's chilly style is thawed by the warm narration of the great English actor Michael Hordern and the Irish songs of the Chieftains. Poor Barry's life doesn't matter much in the end, yet the care Kubrick brings to the telling of it is perhaps the director's most compassionate gesture toward that most peculiar species of animal called man. And the final, wry title card provides the perfect Kubrickian sendoff--a sentiment that is even more poignant since Kubrick's premature death. --Robert Horton
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