Product Description

Thackeray's tale of a roguishly charming 18th century Englishman, card shark and con-man whose good fortune and luck finally run out.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8963 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-10-23
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Original recording remastered, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, German
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 184 minutes

Amazon.com
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

Customer Reviews

Time to correct and enhance the DVD
It would be nice if someone could reissue the DVD with enhanced, repaired color and grain. Kubrick wanted Barry Lyndon to have a 'washed out' look but the DVD displays the clearly visible degradation of the original film negative.The same could be said for the 2001 DVD. Perhaps HD versions are already on their way!

MASTERPIECE
YES ONE OF THE GREATEST FILMS EVER. AFTER ALL ITS KUBRICK. THE ONLY FLAW EVIDENT IS THAT ITS NOT IN BLU-RAY...YET.

I saw BL twice(!) the month it came out - in 1975...
I was already a devoted fan - after all, "Dr Strangelove", "2001" and "Clockwork Orange" both debuted within the previous 10 years (my teens). In the months preceeding the release of Barry Lyndon I read about several aspects of the filmmaking that piqued my anticipation - and ultimately contributed to my lifelong appreciation for this film: 1. The fact that Kubrick assisted in the development of lenses of heretofore unequaled sensitivity in order to film numerous interior scenes by natural or candlelight; 2. That he chose as subject matter a novel (by Thackery), that the author himself had so disliked that he discouraged its publication during his lifetime; and 3. I read that Kubrick had listened to "every" extant period composition for quartet to choose the accompanying soundtrack. Sure, I was as skeptical as anyone as to how Ryan O'neill - Mr "Love Story" - could possibly have the gravitas for a Kubrickian character, and I knew going in that it was 3+ hours long... but I was hypnotized from the opening frame. The pacing, the sardonic narration, the breathtaking cinematography, the unerring score. Certainly my affinities for photography and art history were well thoroughly rewarded, but I also found the storytelling strangely compelling as well. Which is why I bravely(?) sat through the film twice, on the BIG screen, within the first few weeks that it opened. As an insight into my cinematic preferences, the only other film that I recall seeing twice within a few weeks, was "Natural Born Killers"... The soundtrack to BL is also highly recommended.