Barry Lyndon (1975)

Many cinéastes – I was inclined to write ‘cinéastes’, but that would be too snide even for me – are now inclined, more than 50 years after Barry Lyndon was made, to describe the film as a masterpiece. When it was released, however, it was a bit of a dud as far as many critics were concerned.

In the New Yorker. Pauline Kael wrote that it was one of the vainest movies ever made – ‘We might as well be at a three-hour slide show for art-history majors’. To my mind that is overly harsh and though less harsh but equally underwhelmed in 1975 was Variety’s take when it noted that Barry Lyndon’s ‘lack of narrative drive and empathy for the characters’ made it a difficult watch.

Word of mouth – I imagine – at the time ensured the public didn’t like it much either and the box office takings showed that. As far as I can tell the film did not recoup its estimated $11m (now $63m) budget by a very long chalk. However, to judge a film artistically by how many dollars, pounds, lire and drachma it can claw – this was

before the euro – is too crass even for me, and opinion has now crossed over from the red into the black and unbridled praise.

The many superlatives are most certainly deserved, especially for the visuals, and Stanley Kubrick took immense pains with framing every shot. Many outdoor scenes resemble landscapes by Gainsborough and Constable and with very few exceptions he eschewed artificial lighting.

For many indoor scenes – the mutual seduction at supper of Barry Lyndon by the young German mother, Lieschen, for example, a hear-to-heart with one of Barry’s army superiors and other candlelit scenes, Kubrick used bespoke lenses with an ‘f-stop’ originally developed by Nasa to take pictures on the dark side of the Moon (apparently – I’m just parroting what I read in an interesting 2017 post on the matter).

These then had to be adapted to fit camera Kubrick wanted to use, the Mitchell BNC, and again I note that I pass that on in my Joey Parrot ‘I googled it and this is wot I found out’ persona. Kubrick also went through a lot of candles which continually had to be replaced as they burned down to avoid being noticeably shorter from one scene to the next.

Kubrick’s choice of music was also inspired: it includes the Piano Trio in E-flat by Schubert, Vivaldi’s Cello Concerto in E minor, Bach’s Concerto for Two Harpsichords in C minor, Cavatina from The Barber of Seville by Giovanni Paisiello and Sarabande, Handel’s suite for Harpsichord No. 4 in D minor as well as many marches and traditional Irish folk tunes, and contributes to the sensual pleasure that the film is.

For this viewer, however, Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon has one flaw which I cannot ignore. Warner Bros who financed the film insisted the lead should be taken by a ‘big name’ and at the time the ‘name’ Ryan O’Neal was, post Love Story, What’s Up Doc and Paper Moon, so O’Neal it was and there is little to complain about his performance.

Reputedly Albert Finney (Tom Jones in Tony Richardson’s 1963 Tom Jones) and Jack Nicholson (in Kubrick’s own 1997 The Shining) were considered by the director, but he opted for O’Neal. As it turned out O’Neal’s name became less ‘big’ in the decades leading to his death n 2023

What I can complain about and shall is, for whatever reason, O’Neal’s Barry Lyndon is two-dimensional: we know what he did, we are shown and can see the naivety, the gullibility and the ensuing lack of moral character, the cruelty as well as the undoubted sincere love for his son, but what we miss is the ‘why’. Might it be impolite to suggest that Kubrick is at fault here?

Barry after being ditched by a flighty woman with her eye on the main chance, Barry hardened a little. He was ambitious and keen to ‘become a gentleman’ and, duplicitous and insincere, he sets about trying to become one of England’s gentlemen. But Kubrick simply does not flesh out the traits which in Barry determine his actions. We are simply presented with ‘what happens’.

Barry is horribly cruel to the widowed aristo who falls in love with him, marries her and uses her and her money and background to advance in society. But, as I say, missing, crucially, is the ‘why’, and furthermore there are no hints which we might seize upon to speculate as to what that ‘why’ might be (‘speculate’ as in ‘guess’ – ‘speculate’ is just a more upmarket take on ‘guessing’ but like to pose as more stubenrein).

This is a flaw and a serious one. No amount of gorgeous cinematography and staging can make up for it and so for me Barry Lyndon is no ‘masterpiece’. It certainly looks and feels the part, yes, but it isn’t one.

I can add that it is a long film but at no point does it drag despite its almost 18o minutes on screen. That is an achievement to be added to the visuals, staging and score. But building the Hoover Dam, Russia’s Kerch Bridge to Crimea, splitting the atom and getting elected to the Oval Office for a second time despite, incompetent, dumb, being a rapist, s crook, possibly a nonce and certainly a sociopath are also ‘achievements’. So . . .