Barry Lyndon

Starring: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger, Steven Berkoff, Marie Kean, Diana Korner
Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Rating: PG
Genre: Adventure, Drama
1975

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: An ambitious rogue (Ryan O'Neal) will stop at nothing to climb the social ladder in 18th century England.

Review:

Tim: I'm still not entirely sure if I am overrating Barry Lyndon or underrating it. It's a hard movie to pin down. On the one hand, Stanley Kubrick is a fantastic director and it's fun to see what he does with this canvas. On the other, there's quite a few things not to like about this film. Perhaps I got it right- this is a really good movie that won 4 Academy Awards, but is likely not as great as many people believe.

Let's start with the positives. It was as if Kubrick wanted to tell a specific story and used this period drama to accomplish those ends. Kubrick certainly played with a lot of different genres throughout his career, so it was legitimately fun to see him making a period drama. The film is certainly epic in scope and covers a lot of ground- there were several moments where I marveled at how quickly Kubrick moved the story forward without it feeling rushed at all. The movie is certainly beautiful to look at- it's a technical achievement (it's Oscar wins were all technical categories, backing this up). It also tells a fairly memorable story featuring the kind of lead character we don't often see. Period dramas can often feel like just slight variations of the same thing, but Kubrick ensures this movie feels quite unique.

However, I had a series of issues with the film, too. Yes, the movie is epic, but there's absolutely no reason for it to span 3 hours and 5 minutes. That's absurdly long for this kind of movie and it easily needed to shed 20+ minutes. You kind of get worn out by the end- the last half hour, it was increasingly difficult for me to care about the events on screen. The other major issue I had was with the performance of Ryan O'Neal. I know Kubrick has praised his performance, but O'Neal is godawful. He's a terrible actor (and also, a terrible human being). His performance is wooden and dull and conveys so little emotion throughout the film. He spends most of the movie looking like he's a step behind, putting up a mask so that no one knows he's clueless. This might work in the early scenes, but ultimately, O'Neal's talent was far too little for this kind of role. That gets more and more obvious the longer this long movie goes on. He's a bad actor and that was on display for all the world to see here. This movie would have been significantly better with a real actor in this role. Now, there's a few things O'Neal does right- he has several scenes that were effective. As a whole, though, it's a cringe-worthy performance.

I do want to explore the technical aspects, because they're so strong that they make up for some of these other flaws. Kubrick is obviously a master-class level director and that's obvious when you watch this movie. He was completely in control of the film, the pacing, the visuals. Outside of being dead wrong about his lead actor, Kubrick crafted an exceptionally strong film. The cinematography is astounding. This movie looks so different to everything else before it- many of the shots were quite innovative in the day. Not surprising that it won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. It also won for Best Art Direction-Set Direction and Best Costume Design. Period dramas like this often get those awards, but it's certainly deserving in this sense. The film's visuals are terrific and it feels like Kubrick is painting on a wide, colorful canvas. The film's final Academy Award was for Best Scoring- the music indeed adds greatly to the film.

I tend to feel torn about this movie. I recognize the technical achievements Kubrick made and was on occasion awed by that aspect of the film. In that sense, the movie was wonderful. However, a poor actor miscast in the lead role is a major flaw that can't be overlooked. It's made worse with the long run time. I certainly couldn't call Barry Lyndon a great movie. However, it gets surprisingly close. That may be the highest accolades you can give Kubrick- he made an overly long movie (be sure that it drags in places) with the wrong actor and yet he's so brilliant that it manages to be a really good movie. In the hands of nearly any other director, given the same challenges, this movie would have been an unmitigated disaster. Kubrick somehow manages to salvage the film. That being said, this is not a movie I have any desire to revisit. Once was enough- it was really good, but I don't see much value in seeing it again.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7.5



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