Barry Lyndon (1975) – 3/5

Unusual, but solid Kubrick movie

„Barry Lyndon“ is a co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States of America from 1975, so it is not too long anymore until this film has its 50th anniversary and is half a century old. This film is in color already, which should not surprise too many given the age and it is an extremely long film, makes it past the three-hour mark even. I got to watch this on the big screen a few days ago and the reason for the film still being shown at movie theaters so many years later is that the writer and director here is Stanley Kubrick. This is certainly not one of the films that people will immediately think of when hearing the name Kubrick and I even mixed it up a bit by temporarily thinking this is a Francis Ford Coppola film, but it is definitely among Kubrick’s most successful. He won no less than four Oscars for it. Well, it was not him who won the Oscars, but people working on the film. Actually, it was Kubrick who lost the three categories where it was specifically him who was nominated, namely the key categories Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. All these wins went to Cuckoo’s Nest that year. But it is for example interesting to see one of the winners for Best Costume as she not too long ago won another Oscar for a Wes Anderson movie. Ken Adam also won one. I have to mention this as a big James Bond fan. The man who wrote the material that this film was based on carried the interesting name William Makepeace Thackeray, but he died over a century before the making of this movie we have here.

With the cast, it is really nice to see many people still alive in the year 2022, so many years after the shooting. This includes Ryan O’Neal who plays the main character, but also Berenson, Berkoff, Körner, Hamilton and Melvin. Probably more. O’Neal is the one and only lead in here must be said if you look how the poster for example promotes O’Neal and Berenson as shared leads almost. This could not be any further from the truth. I really like Marisa Berenson, also in „Cabaret“, but she is just supporting. Enters the picture relatively late and then her character also does not have the very biggest impact. One thing I realized was that she had almost no dialogue. She had okay screen time and man she definitely must have been among the prettiest women of her era, but maybe this also made it a bit difficult for her to be seen as more than a beautiful face by some. I think she is a decent actress. With O’Neal, I probably think of „Love Story“ first and after seeing this film here, my perception will not change a lot. It is also telling in a maybe not so positive way that he did not score the Oscar nomination for playing a character like this in such a big movie and maybe his performance was one of the weaker aspects of the film. Not that he was bad or anything, not at all, but he was also not as memorable or great as he could have been. Completely aside from that, I find it interesting to see Kubrick direct a period piece set several centuries ago because it differs so much from everything else he had done, but perhaps he kept reinventing himself here and there as he has stuff from all genres almost. Except animation. Now with this film, there is so much to elaborate on in terms of character and story that it is impossible to discuss everything. What I found interesting about the main character is really how much of a double-edged sword he was. I mean he may be a big opportunist, which also had to do with his mother of course, not only him, but he was not totally incompetent. He was a relatively gifted schemer and how he made use of certain situations was impressive in its own, perhaps slightly despicable way. How he turned into a deserter. How he also tricked the Germans then and had a relatively close connection to another Irishman who posed as a French guy and how those two managed to get out of a tricky situation.

He could also be charming if we look at how he won Berenson’s character’s heart, even if he probably cared much more about her background than really for her as a woman or human. It really seemed as if he loved his son though. He despised her son and in the end it was the latter who brought on Barry’s final demise, but these interactions were among the most interesting aspects of the film. Also how said older son never called his „new father“ Barry Lyndon by name. The fella might not have been so happy with the title of this film. Anyway, I mentioned the German guy and he was played by Hardy Krüger. I must point that out as I am German myself and many here still know Krüger. He died not too long ago also at a relatively high age. Leon Vitali, who played Lord Bullingdon did not die at an old age, but sadly he is no longer with us anymore either. I quite liked his portrayal and would have been fine with him scoring an Oscar nomination. The final shootout scene was interesting too. You could wonder why Lyndon there did not take the shot at the man he really despised, even if he knew it could cost him his life. You could also say it was not too realistic, but it shows again that Lyndon is not 100% evil. I will not post in-depth theories about this, but it was scenes like this that gave the character some additional depth, even if you could argue for sure if the depth in this very case is a realistic one. I would maybe say not. This was still (or because of that) one of the most memorable scene from the film and same is true about the shootout at the beginning. By the way, times had changed apparently in terms of what these shootout duels look like. Initially, we had two men fire at the same time and in the end it was one after the other. This was interesting too there when we find out that the first shootout did not lead to the death of the other character as we were led to believe. I kinda liked the guy. It was still funny how he is presented to us as a successful soldier and alpha male when reality was different and people also knew he was a coward, even if he had a lot of money. Interesting what people back then considered a lot of money. We hear the amount. Like four figures starting with a 1 per year it was approximately I think.

Anyway, this revelation easily could have resulted in bringing Quin (Rossiter, who was great with his face expressions, so I am glad to see he got nominated for several BAFTAs, rip) later on in the film, but it was not meant to happen. They surely could have made something more with the Nora Brady character (played by Gay Hamilton) there too, but this chapter was closed. They had no problems in including other stories and new characters to reach the 180-minute mark. I still thought they would bring them back. I thought the same when we see how the main character is robbed, even if in a gentle fashion, by a criminal and his assistant early on in the film, two men he met before that already and who ask him if he wanted to sit with them. But these thugs also do not return. I thought they might and I don’t think I missed them. Anyway, this was another scene there that showed us how Lyndon (or with his original name at that point still) was not incompetent. He was robbed of all his money, but surrender was no option and he managed to go on with his journey. He had some really solid willpower already in his younger years. We were told by a narrator that Lyndon was a man who had a lot of traveling ahead of him. Felt a bit unusual to have a narrator on so many occasions in this film, but I liked it. The voice was good too. This film was also split in chapters and I don’t know if I can even say so. I mean it was in theory, but the first chapter was already almost the entire movie and it was called along the lines of how the main character ended up with the name Barry Lyndon. But as the film is titled like this too, I guess it makes sense. Or look at the epilogue then. It was nothing but a few lines written on the screen. No acting or anything. Just a few seconds of text.

Another interesting aspect for me was that Lyndon is not the character the film ends with. In his final scene, when he is already older and had lost his leg to a bullet, the screen freezes basically and that is the last we see from him. We also find out that his life is not over. But his time as Barry Lyndon pretty much was and he never saw Berenson’s character again. He still made the most of it, received a pension others could only dream about merely for staying away. By the way, what was up with „Guineas“ being the currency there? Almost sounded like guinea-pigs. As a big guinea-pig lover I must bring that to everybody’s attention! That always made me smile when it got mentioned. This film won three Oscars for visual aspects and the fourth came for the music. This refers to the score of course, but the inclusion that caught my attention the most was not composed by Leonard Rosenman, but the Händel’s haunting Sarabande melody. This was played during the duel scenes, but also in the scenes linked to Barry Lyndon’s (biological) son and especially the kid’s tragic horseback accident and death following not long after. I still wonder what he had exactly. Probably everybody else understood immediately. Before I approach the end of my review, I also want to say that I found it memorable how Lyndon was rejected by those around him. There is a scene when we have an influential guy sitting there eating at a table and Lyndon asks him to come over to him and the man lies he is waiting for somebody and he also lies that he has something else to do when Lyndon wants to invite him over. The narrator made a fitting comparison linked to this display of disrespect. What I found even more memorable in this context was the scene in which we have the influential man, I think it was the same, shake some hands and he has only nice words for another man, but what he says to Lyndon was so unpleasant about an actual pleasant deed that I easily remember it. This film had some strong moments. It deserves to be seen.