Trying to pin down what is Stanley Kubrick’s greatest film is a ruddy hard task! His brilliant burst of creativity from 1956’s The Killing, his collaborations with Kirk Douglas with Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960) through to the broadside at Vietnam and military culture in 1987’s Full Metal Jacket, is one of the hottest streaks in cinematic history. Trying to decide what his best film is, depends on who you talk to, or even what mood you’re in on the day.
Kubrick was the ultimate auteur of his generation, if not ever. The successor to Orson Welles. An idiosyncratic, enigmatic genius who pioneered filmmaking techniques for the purposes of exploring human nature and the struggle within.
Now 41 years old, 1976’s Barry Lyndon is smack dab in the middle of that staggering sequence of films. Based on the William Makepeace Thackeray novel “The Luck of Barry Lyndon,” Kubrick’s period piece qualifies as one of the best satires ever made. Yes, it is a satire, a tragic satire relating the story of the film’s titular character Redmond Barry/Barry Lyndon (Ryan O’Neal), who over-reaches in his quest for status and dooms himself to an ignominious end as a result. A satire clocking in just over three hours with an intermission cutting through the middle – something that today’s blockbusters should adopt – Kubrick’s skewering of high society is a story of subtle savagery.
The beautiful, grandiose, choreographed nature of the civilised aristocracy is merely a ludicrous mask, a theme approached again with his final film Eyes Wide Shut. A thin veneer over man’s duel nature. Everything is seemingly staged managed to the tiniest detail, a play within a film, accentuated by the often stationary camera’s and fixed angles in the banquet halls and bedrooms, with additional tracking shots for the civilised garden walks and carriage rides.
Except those tracking shots never zoom in. They only withdraw or keep their distance, just to emphasise the lack of emotion and how these things only look civilised from a distance. Once the civility is broken with moments of chaotic violence such as the battle scenes in Part I or Barry’s attack on his stepson, Lord Bullingdon in Part 2, the cameras very clearly desert the tripod and we’re handheld. Just to underline that we’re not in control of ourselves as much as we think.
While Kubrick was once again ludicrously robbed of Academy recognition for his work, the attention to detail on Barry Lyndon at least was. It took home four Oscars: Best Art Direction (Ken Adam, Roy Walker & Vernon Dixon); Best Cinematography (John Alcott); Best Costume Design stunningly achieved by Milenia Canonero and Ulia–Britt Soderlund with beautiful late, 17th century costumes and Best Musical Score (Leonard Rosenman). Such attention to detail is best summed up in the letter Kubrick sent to projectionists just prior to the film’s initial release at the tail end of 1975. In the letter Kubrick describes how “an infinite amount of care” was given in attention to detail over his baby and that the finishing touches in completing the film’s perfect look were now in the hands of projectionists.
Hard as it is for us young whippersnappers to imagine now with the invention of digital projection but back in the era of analogue being a projectionist was a job that required great skill, a cinematic education and a creative eye. Kubrick flat-out tells projectionists, although as politely as possible, exactly how to do their job to make the thing work as he bloody well imagined it. When to change the reels and the required lighting and music.
As Kubrick later did with The Shining he took liberties with the source material to deliver a story that was fitting for the big screen. Kubrick invents a climatic pistol duel which was never in Thackeray’s novel as a way to create a running theme of duels through the film. To underpin the duality of man’s pretence of civility supported exclusively by violence and man’s duel, polarised character. Civilised Man and Animal Man. Something studied again in Full Metal Jacket 11 years later.
A word to Ryan O’Neal too starring as the titular character. His performance was met coolly by critics on the film’s release and even today he is criticised for being void of charisma and passion. This is complete nonsense. O’Neal is the only performer demonstrating real emotion for much of the film. The deaths of his best friend Captain Grogan in Part I and then seeing it repeated with his son in Part II are punctuated by Lyndon’s burst of uncontrollable tears above their stricken bodies. His performance is pitch perfect and without it – and the super supporting cameos from the likes of Leonard Rossiter – the whole thing would be blunted in it emotional impact.
O’Neal’s career probably never hit the same level again because he IS Barry Lyndon. The adventurer and gambler forced to wander the world after his own young passion got the better of him. Kubrick’s Icarus who reaches for The Sun, burns up and ends as broken and alone as the Ape with a bone in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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