F-0150

Title:

Barry Lyndon

Category:

S

Produced:

1975

Country:

UK

Released:

Dec 1975 (film, USA); Oct 1998 (CD, Soundtrack); Jun 1999 (DVD); Jun 2001 (VHS, DVD, 9-DVD); Oct 2007 (DVD)

Director:

Stanley Kubrick

Writer:

William Makepeace Thackeray (novel); Stanley Kubrick (screenplay)

Actors:

Ryan O'Neal (Barry Lyndon); Marisa Berenson (Lady Lyndon); Patrick Magee (The Chevalier de Balibari); Hardy Krüger (Capt. Potzdorf - as Hardy Kruger); Steven Berkoff (Lord Ludd); Gay Hamilton (Nora Brady); Marie Kean (Belle, Barry's mother); Diana Körner (Lischen - as Diana Koerner); Murray Melvin (Rev. Samuel Runt); Frank Middlemass (Sir Charles Reginald Lyndon); André Morell (Lord Gustavos Adolphus Wendover - as Andre Morell); Arthur O'Sullivan (Captain Feeny); Godfrey Quigley (Capt. Grogan); Leonard Rossiter (Capt. John Quin); Philip Stone (Graham, accountant)

Description:

In the 18^th Century, in a small village in Ireland, Redmond Barry is a young farm boy in love of his cousin Nora Brady. When Nora engages to the British Captain John Quin, Barry challenges him for a duel of pistols. He wins and escapes to Dublin, but is robbed on the road. Without any other alternative, Barry joins the British Army to fight in the Seven Years War. He deserts and is forced to join the Prussian Army, saving the life of his captain and becoming his protégé and spy of the Irish gambler Chevalier de Balibari. He helps Chevalier and becomes his associate until he decides to marry the wealthy Lady Lyndon. They move to England and Barry, in his obsession of nobility, dilapidates her fortune and makes a dangerous and revengeful enemy. (Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

A gentlemanly rogue travels the battlefields and parlors of 18^th century Europe determined to make for himself the life of a nobleman through seduction, gambling and dueling in this methodical film showing the rhythm and life of the period. (Keith Loh)

Redmond Barry is a young, roguish Irishman who's determined, in any way, to make a life for himself as a wealthy nobleman. Enlisting in the British Army, fighting in the Seven Years War in Europe, Barry deserts from the British army, joins the Prussian army, gets promoted to the rank of a spy, then becomes pupil to a Chevalier and con artist/gambler. Barry then lies, dupes, duels and seduces his way up the social ladder and enters into a lustful but loveless marriage to a wealthy countess named Lady Lyndon, takes the name of Barry Lyndon, settles in England with wealth and power beyond his wildest dreams, then slowly falls dramatically into ruin. (Matthew Patay)

In 1975 the world was at Stanley Kubrick's feet. His films Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange, released in the previous dozen years, had provoked rapture and consternation--not merely in the film community, but in the culture at large. On the basis of that smashing hat trick, Kubrick was almost certainly the most famous film director of his generation, and absolutely the one most likely to rewire the collective mind of the movie audience. And what did this radical, at-least-20-years-ahead-of-his-time filmmaker give the world in 1975? A stately, three-hour costume drama based on an obscure Thackeray novel from 1844. A picaresque story about an Irish lad (Ryan O'Neal, then a major star) who climbs his way into high society, Barry Lyndon bewildered some critics (Pauline Kael called it "an ice-pack of a movie") and did only middling business with patient audiences. The film was clearly a technical advance, with its unique camerawork (incorporating the use of prototype Zeiss lenses capable of filming by actual candlelight) and sumptuous production design. But its hero is a distinctly underwhelming, even unsympathetic fellow, and Kubrick does not try to engage the audience's emotions in anything like the usual way.
Why, then, is Barry Lyndon a masterpiece? Because it uncannily captures the shape and rhythm of a human life in a way few other films have; because Kubrick's command of design and landscape is never decorative but always apiece with his hero's journey; and because every last detail counts. Even the film's chilly style is thawed by the warm narration of the great English actor Michael Hordern and the Irish songs of the Chieftains. Poor Barry's life doesn't matter much in the end, yet the care Kubrick brings to the telling of it is perhaps the director's most compassionate gesture toward that most peculiar species of animal called man. And the final, wry title card provides the perfect Kubrickian sendoff--a sentiment that is even more poignant since Kubrick's premature death. (Robert Horton, Amazon.com)

Language:

English, German, French

Bach's Music:

Adagio (Mvt. 2) from Concerto for 2 harpsichords, strings & continuo in C minor, BWV 1060
Karl Richter / Münchener Bach-Orchester

Karl Richter, Hedwig Bilgram (Harpsichords)
From: J.S. Bach: Die 13 Cembalokonzerte [Box-Set] (Archiv Produktion) [O-6]

Film Company:

Hawk Films Ltd.

Format:

Color (Eastmancolor) film | CD (Soundtrack) | DVD (Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording remastered, Widescreen, NTSC) | DVD (Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Original recording remastered, Widescreen, NTSC) | 2-VHS (Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, NTSC) | DVD (PAL) | 9-DVD (Box set, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC) | VHS (PAL)

VHS/DVD Label:

Warner Home Video [DVD, 2-VHS] | Wea International [CD]

TT:

184 min / 183 min (DVD) / 185 min (2-VHS, Video Download) / 1270 min (9-DVD)

Comments:

9-DVD Set includes: Stanley Kubrick Collection (2001: A Space Odyssey / Dr. Strangelove / A Clockwork Orange / The Shining / Lolita / Barry Lyndon / Full Metal Jacket / Eyes Wide Shut)

Watch selections:

Buy movie at:

Amazon.com [DVD] | Amazon.com [DVD] | Amazon.com [DVD] | Amazon.com [2-VHS] | Amazon.com [DVD-PAL] | Amazon.com [Video Download] | Amazon.com [2-VHS] | Amazon.com [9-DVD] | Amazon.com [Video Download] | Amazon.com [2-VHS-PAL] | Amazon.com [CD]

Source/Links: IMDB
Contributor: Aryeh Oron (November 2007)