| Barry Lyndon | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster by Jouineau Bourduge | |
| Directed by | Stanley Kubrick |
| Screenplay by | Stanley Kubrick |
| Based on | The Luck of Barry Lyndon byWilliam Makepeace Thackeray |
| Produced by | Stanley Kubrick |
| Starring | |
| Narrated by | Michael Hordern |
| Cinematography | John Alcott |
| Edited by | Tony Lawson |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 185 minutes[1] |
| Countries |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $12 million[2] |
| Box office | $20.2 million[3] |
Barry Lyndon is a 1975historical drama film written, directed, and produced byStanley Kubrick, based on the 1844 novelThe Luck of Barry Lyndon byWilliam Makepeace Thackeray.[4] Narrated byMichael Hordern, and starringRyan O'Neal,Marisa Berenson,Patrick Magee,Leonard Rossiter andHardy Krüger, the film recounts the early exploits and later unravelling of an 18th-century Irish rogue andgold digger who marries a rich widow in order to attempt to climb the social ladder and assume her late husband's aristocratic position.
Kubrick began production onBarry Lyndon after his 1971 filmA Clockwork Orange. He had originally intended to direct abiopic on Napoleon, but lost his financing because of the commercial failure of the similar 1970Dino De Laurentiis–producedWaterloo. Kubrick eventually directedBarry Lyndon, set partially during theSeven Years' War, utilising his research from the Napoleon project. Filming began in December 1973 and lasted roughly eight months, taking place inEngland,Ireland, andGermany.
The film's cinematography has been described as ground-breaking. Especially notable are the longdouble shots, usually ended with a slow backwards zoom, the scenes shot entirely in candlelight, and the settings based onWilliam Hogarth paintings. The exteriors were filmed on location in England, Ireland, and Germany, with the interiors shot mainly in London.[5] The production had problems related to logistics, weather,[5] and politics (Kubrick feared that he might be anIRA hostage target).[6][7]
Barry Lyndon won four Oscars at the48th Academy Awards:Best Scoring: Original Song Score and Adaptation or Scoring: Adaptation,Best Costume Design,Best Art Direction, andBest Cinematography. Although some critics took issue with the film's slow pace and restrained emotion, its reputation, like that of many of Kubrick's works, has grown over time, and it is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time. In the2022Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll,Barry Lyndon placed 12th in the directors' poll and 45th in the critics' poll.
In theKingdom of Ireland, 1750, Redmond Barry's father is killed in aduel. Barry, of a genteel but impoverishedIrish Protestant family,[8] becomes infatuated with his cousin Nora Brady, and shoots her suitor,Army captain John Quin, in a duel. He flees but is robbed byhighwaymen on his way toDublin. Penniless, Barry enlists in the Army. Family friend Captain Grogan informs him that Quin is not dead: the duel was staged so that Nora's family could get rid of Barry and improve their finances through her marriage to Quin.
Barry serves with his regiment in Germany during theSeven Years' War, butdeserts after Grogan dies in combat againstthe French. Absconding with a lieutenant's horse and uniform, Barry has a brief affair with Frau Lieschen, a married German peasant woman. On his way toBremen, he encounters Captain Potzdorf, who sees through the ruse andimpresses him into thePrussian Army. Barry later saves Potzdorf's life and receives a commendation fromFrederick the Great.
At the end of the war, Barry is recruited by Captain Potzdorf's uncle into the Prussian Ministry of Police. The Prussians suspect that the Chevalier de Balibari, an Austriandiplomat and professional gambler, is in fact an Irishman and a spy for EmpressMaria Theresa, and assign Barry to become his manservant. An emotional Barry confides everything to the Chevalier and they become confederates. After they win an enormous sum from the Prince of Tübingen at cards, the Prince accuses the Chevalier of cheating (without proof) and refuses to pay his debt. The Chevalier threatens to demandsatisfaction. To avoid a scandal, the Ministry of Police pays off the debt and quietly escorts the Chevalier outside Prussian borders, which allows Barry, disguised as the Chevalier, to leave the country as well, the Chevalier himself having uneventfully crossed the frontier the night before.
Barry and the Chevalier travel across Europe, perpetrating similar gambling scams, with Barry forcing payment from debtors with sword duels. InSpa, he encounters the beautiful, wealthy, and visibly depressed Lady Lyndon. He seduces her, and goads her elderly husband Sir Charles Lyndon to death with verbal repartee.
In 1773, Barry marries Lady Lyndon, takes her last name and settles in England. The Countess bears Barry a son, Bryan Patrick, whom Barry spoils. The marriage is unhappy: Barry is openly unfaithful and squanders his wife's wealth while keeping her in seclusion. Lord Bullingdon, Lady Lyndon's son by Sir Charles, still grieves for his father and sees Barry as a gold digger who does not love his mother. Barry responds with years of escalatingemotional andphysical abuse.
Barry's mother comes to live with him and warns him that if Lady Lyndon dies, Bullingdon will inherit everything. She advises her son to obtain a title. To this end, Barry cultivates the influential Lord Wendover and spends even larger sums of Lady Lyndon's money to ingratiate himself withhigh society. Bullingdon, now a young adult, interrupts a society party Barry throws. He publicly accuses his stepfather of infidelity, abuse, and financial mismanagement, and announces that he will leave the Lyndon estate for as long as Barry remains there. Barry responds by brutally assaulting Bullingdon until they are physically separated by the party attendees. In the aftermath, Barry is ostracised by high society and plunges further into financial ruin.
Barry arranges to give Bryan a full-grown horse for his ninth birthday. An impatient Bryan rides the horse unaccompanied and dies in a riding accident. Barry sinks intoalcoholism, while Lady Lyndon seeks religious counseling from clergyman Samuel Runt, who had been tutor to Bullingdon and Bryan and a longtime companion of Lady Lyndon. When Barry's mother dismisses Runt to keep her son from losing control, Lady Lyndon attempts suicide. Runt and Graham, the family's steward, write to Bullingdon, who returns to the estate and challenges his stepfather to a duel.
When the duel takes place, Bullingdon accidentally misfires the first shot, but Barry then deliberatelyfires into the ground, refusing to exploit his stepson's mistake. Bullingdon refuses to accept this as satisfaction and fires again, shooting Barry in the leg. This wound forces Barry to have an amputation below the knee. While Barry is recovering, Bullingdon takes control of the Lyndon estate. Through Graham, he reminds Barry that his credit is exhausted and offers him 500guineas a year to leave Lady Lyndon, her estates, and England forever. Barry grudgingly accepts and resumes his former gambling profession, but without any real success. In December 1789, Lady Lyndon signs Barry's annuity cheque as her son looks on.
Critic Tim Robey suggests that the film "makes you realise that the most undervalued aspect of Kubrick's genius could well be his way with actors."[9] He adds that thesupporting cast is a "glittering procession ofcameos, not from star names but from vital character players."[9]
The cast featured Leon Vitali as the older Lord Bullingdon, who then became Kubrick'spersonal assistant, working as thecasting director on his following films, and supervising film-to-video transfers for Kubrick. Their relationship lasted until Kubrick's death. The film's cinematographer,John Alcott, appears at the men's club in the non-speaking role of the man asleep in a chair near the title character when Lord Bullingdon challenges Barry to a duel. Kubrick's daughterVivian also appears (in an uncredited role) as a guest at Bryan's birthday party.
Other Kubrick featured regulars were Leonard Rossiter (2001: A Space Odyssey), Steven Berkoff, Patrick Magee, Godfrey Quigley, Anthony Sharp, and Philip Stone (A Clockwork Orange). Stone went on to feature inThe Shining.
A main theme explored in Barry Lyndon is one of fate and destiny. Barry is pushed through life by a series of key events, some of which seem unavoidable. As criticRoger Ebert says, "He is a man to whom things happen."[10] He declines to eat with the highwayman Captain Feeney, where he would most likely have been robbed, but is robbed anyway farther down the road. The narrator repeatedly emphasizes the role of fate as he announces events before they unfold on screen, like Bryan's death and Bullingdon seeking satisfaction. This theme of fate is also developed in the recurring motif of the painting. Just like the events featured in the paintings, Barry is participating in events which always were.
Another major theme is between father and son. Barry lost his father at a young age and throughout the film he seeks and attaches himself to father-figures. Examples include his uncle, Grogan, and the Chevalier. When given the chance to be a father, Barry loves his son to the point of spoiling him. This contrasts with his role as a (step)father to Lord Bullingdon, whom he disregards and punishes.[10][11][12]
After completing post production on2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick resumed planning a film aboutNapoleon. During pre-production,Sergei Bondarchuk andDino De Laurentiis'sWaterloo was released, and failed at the box office. Reconsidering, Kubrick's financiers pulled funding, and he turned his attention towards afilm adaptation ofAnthony Burgess's 1962 novelA Clockwork Orange. Subsequently, Kubrick showed an interest in Thackeray'sVanity Fair but dropped the project when a serialised version for television was produced. He told an interviewer, "At one time,Vanity Fair interested me as a possible film but, in the end, I decided the story could not be successfully compressed into the relatively short time-span of a feature film ... as soon as I readBarry Lyndon I became very excited about it."[13]
Having earned Oscar nominations forDr. Strangelove,2001: A Space Odyssey andA Clockwork Orange, Kubrick's reputation in the early 1970s was that of "a perfectionistauteur who loomed larger over his movies than any concept or star".[9] His studio—Warner Bros.—was therefore "eager to bankroll" his next project, which Kubrick kept "shrouded in secrecy" from the press partly due to the furor surrounding the controversially violentA Clockwork Orange (particularly in the UK) and partly due to his "long-standing paranoia about thetabloid press".[9] Kubrick was initially rumored to be developing an adaptation ofArthur Schnitzler's 1926 novellaDream Story, which would serve as the source material for his later filmEyes Wide Shut (1999).[14]
In 1972 Kubrick finally set his sights on Thackeray's 1844 "satiricalpicaresque about the fortune-hunting of an Irish rogue",The Luck ofBarry Lyndon, the setting of which allowed Kubrick to take advantage of the copious period research he had done for the now-abortedNapoleon.[9][14] At the time, Kubrick merely announced that his next film would starRyan O'Neal (deemed "a seemingly un-Kubricky choice of leading man"[9]) andMarisa Berenson, a formerVogue andTime magazine cover model,[15] and be shot largely in Ireland.[9] So heightened was the secrecy surrounding the film that "Even Berenson, when Kubrick first approached her, was told only that it was to be an 18th-century costume piece [and] she was instructed to keep out of the sun in the months before production, to achieve the period-specific pallor he required."[9]
Kubrick based his adapted screenplay onWilliam Makepeace Thackeray'sThe Luck of Barry Lyndon (republished as the novelMemoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.), a picaresque tale written and published in serial form in 1844.
The film departs from the novel in several ways. In Thackeray's writings, events are related in thefirst person by Barry himself. A comic tone pervades the work, as Barry proves both araconteur and anunreliable narrator. Kubrick's film, by contrast, presents the story objectively. Though the film contains voice-over (by actorMichael Hordern), the comments expressed are not Barry's, but those of anomniscient narrator. Kubrick felt that using a first-person narrative would not be useful in a film adaptation:[16]
I believe Thackeray used Redmond Barry to tell his own story in a deliberately distorted way because it made it more interesting. Instead of the omniscient author, Thackeray used the imperfect observer, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the dishonest observer, thus allowing the reader to judge for himself, with little difficulty, the probable truth in Redmond Barry's view of his life. This technique worked extremely well in the novel but, of course, in a film you have objective reality in front of you all of the time, so the effect of Thackeray's first-person story-teller could not be repeated on the screen. It might have worked as comedy by the juxtaposition of Barry's version of the truth with the reality on the screen, but I don't think that Barry Lyndon should have been done as a comedy.
Kubrick made several changes to the plot, including the addition of the final duel.[17]
Principal photography lasted 300 days, from spring 1973 through to early 1974, with a break for Christmas.[18] Kubrick initially wished to film the entire production near his home inBorehamwood, but Ken Adam convinced him to relocate the shoot toIreland.[14] The crew arrived in Dublin in May 1973.Jan Harlan recalls that Kubrick "loved his time in Ireland – he rented a lovely house west of Dublin, he loved the scenery and the culture and the people".[6]
Many of the exteriors were shot in Ireland, playing "itself, England, andPrussia during theSeven Years' War".[9] Kubrick and cinematographer Alcott drew inspiration from "thelandscapes ofWatteau andGainsborough", and also relied on theart direction ofKen Adam andRoy Walker.[9] Alcott, Adam and Walker were among those who would winOscars for their work on the film.[9][19]
Several of the interior scenes were filmed inPowerscourt House, an 18th-century mansion inCounty Wicklow. The house was destroyed in an accidental fire several months after filming (November 1974), so the film serves as a record of the lost interiors, particularly the "Saloon" which was used for more than one scene. TheWicklow Mountains are visible, for example, through the window of the saloon during a scene set in Berlin. Other locations includedKells Priory,County Kilkenny (the EnglishRedcoat encampment);[20]Huntington Castle,County Carlow (exterior) andDublin Castle,County Dublin (the chevalier's home). Some exterior shots were also filmed atWaterford Castle,County Waterford (now a luxury hotel and golf course) andLittle Island, Waterford.Moorstown Castle inCounty Tipperary also featured. Several scenes were filmed atCastletown House inCelbridge,County Kildare; outsideCarrick-on-Suir,County Tipperary, and atYoughal,County Cork.
The filming took place in the backdrop of some of the most intense years ofthe Troubles in Ireland, during which theProvisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA) was waging an armed campaign in order to unite the island. On 30 January 1974, while filming in Dublin City'sPhoenix Park, shooting had to be cancelled due to the chaos caused by 14 bomb threats.[18] One day a phone call was received and Kubrick was given 24 hours to leave the country; he left within 12 hours. The phone call alleged that the Provisional IRA had him on a hit list and Harlan recalls: "Whether the threat was a hoax or it was real, almost doesn't matter ... Stanley was not willing to take the risk. He was threatened, and he packed his bag and went home."[7][6] Production of the film was one-third completed when this occurred, and it was rumored that the film would be abandoned. Nonetheless, Kubrick continued shooting the remainder of the film at locations in England, mainlysouthern England, and inScotland,West Germany, andEast Germany.[14]
Locations in England includeBlenheim Palace,Oxfordshire;Castle Howard,North Yorkshire (exteriors of the Lyndon estate, "Castle Hickham");Corsham Court,Wiltshire (various interiors and the music room scene);Petworth House,West Sussex (chapel);Stourhead, Wiltshire (lake and temple);Longleat, Wiltshire;Wilton House, Wiltshire (interior and exterior) andLavenham Guildhall atLavenham inSuffolk (amputation scene). Filming took place atDunrobin Castle (exterior and garden asSpa) inSutherland, Scotland. Locations in West Germany includeLudwigsburg Palace inLudwigsburg andHohenzollern Castle inHechingen, both nearStuttgart.Frederick II of Prussia'sNeues Palais atPotsdam near Berlin, at the time East Germany, was also used as a location (suggesting Berlin's main streetUnter den Linden as construction in Potsdam had just begun in 1763).[21]
The film, as with "almost every Kubrick film", is a "showcase for [a] major innovation in technique".[9] While2001: A Space Odyssey had featured "revolutionary effects", andThe Shining would later feature heavy use of theSteadicam,Barry Lyndon saw a considerable number of sequences shot "without recourse toelectric light".[9] The film'scinematography was overseen by director of photographyJohn Alcott (who won an Oscar for his work), and is particularly noted for the technical innovations that made some of its most spectacular images possible. To achieve photography without electric lighting "[f]or the many densely furnished interior scenes … meant shooting bycandlelight", which is known to be difficult in still photography, "let alone with moving images".[9]
Kubrick was "determined not to reproduce the set-bound,artificially lit look of othercostume dramas from that time".[9] After "tinker[ing] with different combinations oflenses andfilm stock," the production obtained three super-fast 50mm lenses (Carl Zeiss Planar 50mmf/0.7) developed byZeiss for use byNASA in theApollo Moon landings, which Kubrick had discovered.[9][22] These super-fast lenses "with their hugeaperture (the film actually features the lowestf-stop in film history) and fixedfocal length" were problematic to mount, and were extensively modified into three versions byCinema Products Corporation for Kubrick to gain a wider angle of view, with input from optics expert Richard Vetter ofTodd-AO.[9][22] The rear element of the lens had to be 2.5 mm away from the film plane, requiring special modification to the rotating camera shutter.[23] This allowed Kubrick and Alcott to shoot scenes lit in candlelight to an average lighting volume of only threecandela, "recreating the huddle and glow of a pre-electrical age".[9] In addition, Kubrick had the entire filmpush-developed by one stop.[22]
Although Kubrick and Alcott sought to avoid electric lighting where possible, most shots were achieved with conventional lenses and lighting, but were lit to deliberately mimic natural light rather than for compositional reasons. In addition to potentially seeming more realistic, these methods also gave a particular period look to the film which has often been likened to 18th-century paintings (which of course depict a world devoid of electric lighting), in particular owing "a lot toWilliam Hogarth, with whom Thackeray had always been fascinated".[9]
The film is widely regarded as having a stately, static, painterly quality,[9] mostly due to its lengthy, wide-angle long shots. To illuminate the more notable interior scenes, artificial lights called "Mini-Brutes" were placed outside and aimed through the windows, which were covered in a diffuse material to scatter the light evenly through the room rather than being placed inside for maximum use as most conventional films do. In some instances, the natural daylight was allowed to come through, which when recorded on the film stock used by Kubrick showed up as blue-tinted compared to the incandescent electric light.[24]
Despite such slight tinting effects, this method of lighting not only gave the look of natural daylight coming in through the windows, but it also protected the historic locations from the damage caused by mounting the lights on walls or ceilings and the heat from the lights. This helped the film "fit ... perfectly with Kubrick'sgilded-cage aesthetic – the film is consciously a museum piece, its characters pinned to the frame like butterflies".[9][24]
| Barry Lyndon | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by various artists | |
| Released | 27 December 1975 (1975-12-27) |
| Genre | Classical,folk |
| Length | 49:48 |
| Label | Warner Bros. |
| Producer | Leonard Rosenman |
The film's period setting allowed Kubrick to indulge his penchant for using classical music, and the film score includes pieces byVivaldi,Bach,Handel,Paisiello,Mozart, andSchubert.[a] The piece most associated with the film, however, is the main title music, Handel'sSarabande from the Keyboard suite in D minor (HWV 437). Originally for soloharpsichord, the versions for the main and end titles are performed with strings, timpani, andcontinuo. The score also includesIrish folk music, includingSeán Ó Riada's song "Women of Ireland", arranged byPaddy Moloney and performed byThe Chieftains. "The British Grenadiers" also features in scenes with Redcoats marching.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Performer/conductor/arranger | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Sarabande–Main Title" | George Frideric Handel | National Philharmonic Orchestra | 2:38 |
| 2. | "Women of Ireland" | Seán Ó Riada | The Chieftains | 4:08 |
| 3. | "Piper's Maggot Jig" | traditional | The Chieftains | 1:39 |
| 4. | "The Sea-Maiden" | traditional | The Chieftains | 2:02 |
| 5. | "Tin Whistles" | Ó Riada | Paddy Moloney &Seán Potts | 3:41 |
| 6. | "The British Grenadiers" | traditional | Fifes & Drums | 2:12 |
| 7. | "Hohenfriedberger March" | Frederick II of Prussia | Fifes & Drums | 1:12 |
| 8. | "Lillibullero" | traditional | Fifes & Drums | 1:06 |
| 9. | "Women of Ireland" | Ó Riada | Derek Bell | 0:52 |
| 10. | "March fromIdomeneo" | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | National Philharmonic Orchestra | 1:29 |
| 11. | "Sarabande–Duel" | Handel | National Philharmonic Orchestra | 3:11 |
| 12. | "Lillibullero" | traditional | Leslie Pearson | 0:52 |
| 13. | "German Dance no. 1 in C major" | Franz Schubert | National Philharmonic Orchestra | 2:12 |
| 14. | "Sarabande–Duel" | Handel | National Philharmonic Orchestra | 0:48 |
| 15. | "Film Adaptation of the Cavatina fromIl barbiere di Siviglia" | Giovanni Paisiello | National Philharmonic Orchestra | 4:28 |
| 16. | "Cello Concerto in E minor (third movement)" | Antonio Vivaldi | Lucerne Festival Strings/Pierre Fournier/Rudolf Baumgartner | 3:49 |
| 17. | "Adagio fromConcerto for two harpsichords in C minor" | Johann Sebastian Bach | Münchener Bach-Orchester/Hedwig Bilgram/Karl Richter | 5:10 |
| 18. | "Film Adaptation ofPiano Trio in E-flat, op. 100 (second movement)" | Schubert | Moray Welsh/Anthony Goldstone/Ralph Holmes | 4:12 |
| 19. | "Sarabande–End Title" | Handel | National Philharmonic Orchestra | 4:07 |
| Total length: | 49:48 | |||
| Chart (1976) | Position |
|---|---|
| Australia (Kent Music Report)[25] | 99 |
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| France (SNEP)[26] | Platinum | 300,000* |
* Sales figures based on certification alone. | ||
The film "was not the commercial successWarner Bros. had been hoping for" within the United States,[9] although it fared better in Europe. In the US it earned $9.1 million.[2] The film grossed a worldwide total of $20.2 million against a production budget of $12 million.[2][3]
This mixed reaction saw the film (in the words of one retrospective review) "greeted, on its release, with dutiful admiration – but not love. Critics ... rail[ed] against the perceived coldness of Kubrick's style, the film's self-conscious artistry and slow pace. Audiences, on the whole, rather agreed".[9]
Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four and wrote that it "is almost aggressive in its cool detachment. It defies us to care, it forces us to remain detached about its stately elegance." He added, "This must be one of the most beautiful films ever made."[27]Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times called the film "another fascinating challenge from one of our most remarkable, independent-minded directors."[28]Gene Siskel of theChicago Tribune gave the film three and a half stars out of four and wrote "I foundBarry Lyndon to be quite obvious about its intentions and thoroughly successful in achieving them. Kubrick has taken a novel about a social class and has turned it into an utterly comfortable story that conveys the stunning emptiness of upper-class life only 200 years past."[29] He ranked the film fifth on his year-end list of the best films of 1975.[30]
Charles Champlin of theLos Angeles Times called it "the motion picture equivalent of one of those very large, very heavy, very expensive, very elegant and very dullbooks that exist solely to be seen on coffee tables. It is ravishingly beautiful and incredibly tedious in about equal doses, a succession of salon quality still photographs—as often as not very still indeed."[31]The Washington Post wrote, "It's not inaccurate to describe 'Barry Lyndon' as a masterpiece, but it's a deadend masterpiece, anobjet d'art rather than a movie. It would be more at home, and perhaps easier to like, on the bookshelf, next to something like 'The Age of theGrand Tour,' than on the silver screen."[32]Pauline Kael ofThe New Yorker wrote that "Kubrick has taken a quick-witted story" and "controlled it so meticulously that he's drained the blood out of it," adding, "It's a coffee-table movie; we might as well be at a three-hour slide show for art-history majors."[33]
This "air of disappointment"[9] affected Kubrick's choice for his next film, an adaption ofStephen King'sThe Shining, a project that would not only please him artistically, but was more likely to succeed financially.
Over time, the film has gained a more positive reaction.[10] On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 151 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Visually astonishing and placid as a pond in the English countryside, Stanley Kubrick's maddening and masterfulBarry Lyndon renders a hollow life with painterly poise."[34] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 89 out of 100 based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[35]Roger Ebert added the film to his 'Great Movies' list on 9 September 2009 and increased his original rating from three and a half stars to four, writing, "Stanley Kubrick'sBarry Lyndon, received indifferently in 1975, has grown in stature in the years since and is now widely regarded as one of the master's best. It is certainly in every frame a Kubrick film: technically awesome, emotionally distant, remorseless in its doubt of human goodness."[10]
The Village Voice ranked the film at number 46 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics.[36] DirectorMartin Scorsese has namedBarry Lyndon as his favourite Kubrick film,[37] and it is also one ofLars von Trier's favourite films.[38]Barry Lyndon was included onTime'sAll-Time 100 best movies list.[39] In the 2012Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll,Barry Lyndon placed 19th in the directors' poll and 59th in the critics' poll.[40] The film ranked 27th inBBC's 2015 list of the 100 greatest American films.[41] In the 2022Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll,Barry Lyndon placed 12th in the directors' poll and 45th in the critics' poll.[42]
In a list compiled byThe Irish Times critics Tara Brady and Donald Clarke in 2020,Barry Lyndon was named the greatest Irish film of all time.[43]
The Japanese filmmakerAkira Kurosawa cited the movie as one of his 100 favorite films.[44]
Barry Lyndon was released byWarner Bros. on DVD in 1999.[51] The film was released onBlu-ray by Warner Bros. in 2011. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD byThe Criterion Collection in October 2017, featuring a new remaster in the film's original 1.66:1 aspect ratio (compared to the Warner Blu-ray's 16:9 aspect ratio).[52] The film was released onUltra HD Blu-ray by Criterion in July 2025.[53]
In some instances, I let the natural blue daylight come through in the background without correcting it.
I'm not sure if I can have a favourite Kubrick picture, but somehow I keep coming back to Barry Lyndon.
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| National | |
