Barry Lyndon

Absolutely loved this movie. Worth 3 hours of your full attention

A cinematic accomplishment that utilizes the full skills and craft of an Hollywood legend filmmaker, in a era biographical piece

Completely boring and overrated, I love Kubrick, but this is like watching paint dry. I kept watching to see, when it would pick up - it never did. Sad, watch other Kubrick movies, this can be avoided, you can spend time on something more worthwhile.

This masterpiece is one of the most elaborately told tales of upward mobility, fall from grace, greed and disppointment ever presented on screen. Kubrick's candel-lit, exquisite sets with dark and moody characters, covered in spectacular period costumes, is a continuous visual delight. GWTW was fabulous, but Kubrick's cinematic telling of the the rise, fall and disgrace of Barry is a delight, if a bit slow and ligubrious at various times. But this tale needs the time Kubrick gave it to unfold. Accompanied by music so well chosen for its dramatic beauty, Ryan O'Neal and Marisa Berenson nearly dissolve into the sounds. For any Kubrick fan, this is a must. For the uninitiated, you are in for a great treat!

I love all things KUBRICK and this is different as all his films are BUT visually amazing! The colors, the textures, the candlelight and the amazing cameras he used the old 70mil awesome! Love it!

Barry Lyndon is old enough for its technical details to have passed into myth… It wasn’t that special film was developed for Kubrick, instead Kubrick, who had been a photographer and cinematographer, was aware of the existence of lenses produced to the theoretical limits of optics in terms of speed. These super speed lenses, around T/0.65, were used for the candlelit scenes, which required the actors’ heads to be propped into position because while the eyes were in focus, the nose and ears were not. Additionally, in the castles used, nothing more than tiny Lowell Lights were allowed. A masterpiece of cinematography where nearly every frame could be pulled and made into a painting, Barry Lyndon is revered as one of the best shot films of all time.

You'll love Barry Lyndon. What a pretentious load of old cobblers.

This film is so slow it will drop your heart and breathing rate. It's three hours long, and it feels longer. That's not a criticism, but it's a warning. In fact, my review is primarily just warnings, so here's a few more: The acting was based on the actual mannerisms and customs of 18th century England, which means that the movement and expressions are actually in many ways foreign to us. If you're not aware of this, large parts of the movie will actually simply seem like blank, dead-pan monotony. Kubrick, as we know from 2001: A Space Odyssey, often favored authenticity over clarity. Barry Lyndon is by far the most extreme example of this tendency. The film also looks a little odd. Kubrick used an f/0.7 lens to film it. If I remember correctly, it's actually the fastest lens ever built, and was originally intended for use by Nasa in photographing the dark side of the moon. It picks up more light than the human eye and Kubrick used it to aid in rendering the candlelit interior scenes without having to use backlighting. A good takeaway from all this: Kubrick was crazy. Crazy can be good, but crazy rarely has universal appeal. This film does not have universal appeal. However, if you're looking for accuracy in a period piece - in terms of acting, story, and visuals - this is almost quantifiably the best film ever made by a long shot, simply because it does things too crazy for any director before or since to bother trying to do. If you know why this movie is famous, then go ahead and watch it. If you're curious but unsure, then you may want to rent this one and try to swallow the idea that you may feel as though you've wasted the four bucks.

Perfect cinematography, perfect script, perfect portrayal of the 18th century, basically perfect everything.

Love the cinematography and editing. A must see.