I own an unwatched copy of Barry Lyndon because it came with a Kubrick collection I bought a long time ago. I didn’t buy it because I felt the need to own a Kubrick collection. I bought it because it was cheaper than buying 2001, Full Metal Jacket, and Dr. Strangelove separately. Those are two movies I love (half of 2001, half of Full Metal Jacket, and the entirety of Dr. Strangelove is two movies worth of movies). Clockwork Orange is quaint for how it was once considered scandalizing and for the synth Beethoven. I didn’t appreciate The Shining until recently. Eyes Wide Shut is like that scene in The Shining where Shelley Duvall sees two furries having sex, but drawn out into a full movie starring movie stars instead of furries. Like everyone else under 80, I’ve never seen Paths of Glory.
On to Barry Lyndon, which won the Patreon Review Request drawing.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2017/04/30/longest-thing-youll-see-week-barry-lyndon/
I’ve never seen Raising Arizona, but I feel that saying Dr. Strangelove is your favorite Kubrick is like saying RA is your favorite Cohens’.
I’m prepared to to regret this hypothesis tomorrow.
Thanks for this wonderful and illuminating piece. I am honoured and a little embarrassed to see my fruity prose encased therein.
There are more important Kubricks, and funnier ones, and better looking ones, but I feel Barry Lyndon is the most Kubrickian. It didn’t strike me as all that on first viewing, and as Spartacus was the first of his I saw (age 9, at school - watching Airplane! later brought home how strange that viewing situation was) I was well disposed to him doing historical epics. It was an enthusiastic review by Brian Eno that made me reappraise; some of Eno’s works last for days and are painstakingly constructed. This was the approach needed. I look at this film as a tour of a gallery; much of my time looking at paintings involves imagining the life in and around the scene. You may have seen those animated gifs people make of famous paintings. Some are effective, some tacky, some rather seedy. Barry Lyndon is a spectacular flip-book of tableaux, decades before the technology was up to it.
One reason I chose Barry Lyndon for the measurement 3x3 is that I couldn’t see where you could cut anything. It’d be like chucking out some Old Masters. Steven Soderbergh released his own cut of 2001 a while back, not available now it would seem, in which he lopped off more than half an hour, so the viewer zips from the spinning bone to the lunar monolith in 1 minute. It was perfect.
Your assessment of O’Neal’s many failings is fair (Oh Man Oh God is it fair) but I’d argue for his light weight. Redmond Barry is little more than a vehicle for his scrotum; it’s right he should be as insubstantial as pollen in the breeze.
Despite having another decade and a half to 80, I’ll say it anyway.-Paths of Glory is one of the greatest movies about the insanity of war and the people in charge of it ever made.
You need to watch it immediately.
And yes, it’s in black & white.
Now don’t even get me started on The Killing
Yeah, did Tom purposely ignore The Killing just to make some kind of point about black-and-white movies? Because I rewatched it recently and it totally holds up. I’d even say it’s the best Stanley Kubrick movie that has Sterling Hayden.
I think Tom is just telling us that we all really could use a nap.
To my surprise “delope” wasn’t found at dictionary.com. so much for world’s leading dictionary site.
Heretic.
Thank you, Tom. I’ve always had this feeling that I “should” watch Barry Lyndon because I love Kubrick’s other films. Periodically it’ll get on my radar and I’ll say, “Oh yeah. I still haven’t seen that. Really need to.” And then I’ll demure and stall and forget about it.
I think your review tells me everything I need to know, and I think now I know I really don’t need to watch Barry Lyndon. Is that duel scene on YouTube? Then I really, really don’t.
Now the movie I “should” watch is the Deer Hunter. I really need to see that.
(God, why is 70s cinema so unbearable to me?)
I cannot argue with ANYTHING in that review. The biggest failure of this film to me was in casting O’neal as the lead.
And still, I really liked this film. It’s just a beautiful film, visually. And I enjoyed the languid pace. 2001 was a pretty slow film - and long, too at 2.5 hours
And in some ways it doesn’t feel all that different from some of Kubrick’s other films. A more capable, charismatic actor would have really helped. I mean, put O’neal in the lead of Clockwork Orange or The Shining and they would each fall apart entirely.
Though he would have fit in just fine in Eyes Wide Shut - the bottom of Kubrick’s barrel.
One of my favorite Stanley Kubrick films. Why? Because it is 3 hours long, I love every shot, every scene, how he is working with music and how he is portraying 18th century (although using a famous piece from a Schubert trio)…
And I believe Ryan O’Neal was perfect in it, because he is such a superficial actor or maybe he plays Barry Lyndon deriberately superficial. But there is almost no progression in his character, he dies as dumb as he was introduced … I have not read the novel, but I suppose that it could be that Lyndon was a simpleton in the book. There might even be a precursor in Simpliccisimus by Grimmelshausen published after the 30 years war, portraying a simpleton and his adventures during the 30years war…
I am not really interested in psychology of characters in films (most of the time), maybe that’s why I like this one. Kubrick does not really show the inside of the characters, and maybe this is appropriate for the time when the movie is set. A lot of artificiality in relationship between peoples at that time? Or what Tom wrote, that Kubrick was interested in the paintings of that time and trying to recreate them… and I believe that The Draughtsman’s Contract by Peter Greenaway was a continuation of this kind of filmmaking. Less psychology, and more “affekt” which I believe was a thing back in the 18th century theatre
p.s. here is an article on the Affektenlehre, theory of the affections
which I somehow totally link to this movie
The doctrine of the affections was an elaborate theory based on the idea that the passions could be represented by their outward visible or audible signs
I don’t know that I’m surprised to read people dissing on Eyes Wide Shut, but it doesn’t resonate with me. I mean, it’s not a classic like Kubrick’s greatest films (including ALL of 2001), but the movie really stuck with me since I originally saw it in the theater.
The best lens to look at it through that I’ve heard of is that it’s a horror movie… but with sex instead of violence. (This came from a critic whose review I can’t find now.)
That’s an interesting perspective. Is a drama a horror movie with talking instead of violence?
I thought Eyes Wide Shut was about a doctor with Tom Cruise’s looks who is unable to get laid in Manhattan, no matter what he tries.
Kubrick just wanted to see Cruise’s wife naked.
Internet, I am disappointed that no one has called out this line:
[quote]
Thackeray is the DC Comics of English literature.[/quote]
When I requested Tom his opinion of the movie, I was telling him I found this movie about the worse of humanity (before it falling into inhumanity, at least) deeply moving for reasons I couldn’t understand. I can’t say this reading helped me on that front!
As I don’t have English trained ears, I was thinking the main protagonist’s void looks were displayed on purpose.
This is a movie I need to rewatch.
The only time I saw it was almost 25 years ago, stuck in a sweltering, non-AC room in the tropics, when I couldn’t sleep so I was watching it on late-night TV. At this point, the movie is almost like a fever dream to me.
It’s the best story of a mediocre opportunist I’ve ever seen. The contrast between the beauty of the surroundings and Barry’s lack of character is oddly poignant. To place someone like Barry, who wouldn’t work if he was played by a charismatic actor, on such a grand scale feels absurd. I can’t think of another period drama (partly because I usually hate them) that’s ever tried something similar. Kubrick’s the original punk.
I honestly don’t understand Tom’s problems with length and boringness.
Most movies I see today are twice as short as Barry Lyndond but 10 times as actionless. And when most movies have nothing to say - they feed you with boring CGI (not that I have something against CGI, it’s just it’s much easier to make stale and boring than live action). Barry Lyndon gives you beautiful period shots. A feeling of being there. It’s almost a Tarantino movie before Tarantino.
I’d like Tom to review Duelists later just to make him suffer through a very similar yet beautiful movie.