Barry Lyndon, a lesser-known work of Stanley Kubrick, stands up to his great classics with powerful direction and innovative cinematography.
Barry Lyndon (1975), director Martin Scorsese’s favorite Kubrick film, has been treated unkindly by history because it arrived at the wrong time. After a string of three powerfully subversive films – Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and the always controversial A Clockwork Orange – with which Kubrick seemed to single-handedly catapult cinema’s possibilities, the director developed a reputation as the prototypical “modern” filmmaker. It is then no surprise that his following film, a relatively conventional costume drama set in 18th century Europe, considerably disappointed his fans. Notwithstanding expectations, the film also appeared the year that Jaws introduced the blockbuster, and public opinion was that Barry Lyndon represented the boring cinema of old.
Following Kubrick's Style
Although Kubrick chose a somewhat more conventional setting than in his preceding works, Barry Lyndon explores the same themes that Kubrick frequented, and with as much skill. If it is understood that 2001 is about the dehumanization of mankind by technology, that A Clockwork Orange explores the similar effects of government-enforced morality, and Full Metal Jacket equally of the institution of war, then Barry Lyndon argues that the same consequence arises out of obsession with wealth, success and image.
The film’s execution is everything you would expect from Kubrick. A scene in which the titular character and his wife sit by the deathbed of their child is probably the most humanist Kubrick ever directed, and yet is as disturbingly distant an as anything from Full Metal Jacket, in a more subtle way. The gun duel that serves as the climax of the film is one of Kubrick’s most tense scenes, staged in his characteristically clinical, unnervingly drawn-out style.
Innovative Cinematography
Barry Lyndon is also one of the best looking movies ever. In an attempt to provide a washed out, natural look, Kubrick himself helped develop a new type of camera with NASA, which allowed him to shoot indoor scenes in candlelight, without use of artificial light. The effect cannot be overstated; it is as if every shot were an 18th century painting, not only because of the beautiful shot composition, but also because of the dreamlike quality of the light. No film has ever attempted to replicate this, giving Barry Lyndon a special place in the history of cinematography.
Everyone knows Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, and for good reason. But one would be surprised to find how much this lesser-known film stands up to Stanley Kubrick's more time-tested titles.
