Barry Lyndon: The Criterion Collection.
Criterion has been selecting quality movies and remastering them to what is probably the best the medium can do at the time. They have not yet jumped to 4k and this movie is a Blu-Ray.
Barry Lyndon is a three hour movie directed by Stanley Kubrick that was released to little public attention in 1975 after Kubrick released 2001 and A Clockwork Orange. It is based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. This unusual movie moves at a slow, deliberate pace that I think may bore some people.
The movie looks spectacular. In fact, it is more of a moving PAINTING than it is a motion picture. But is an incredibly beautiful movie, which looks terrific in Blu Ray. (Let’s hope for 4k one day). In fact, many have complained about Ryan O’Neal’s performance saying it was too “wooden.” Well, everyone in this movie is a “still life” portrait.” Watching this movie is almost like reading the book as things take time, so much time, to play out.
Barry Lyndon is a man without a moral center, without compassion and without any insight or empathy for other people, even those close to him. While he is the center of the movie you never root from him as he goes from one mishap to another.
Kubrick, who gave us stereo in 2001 released this picture in mono. That soundtrack, which is on this disc, is fine. However, a better, 5.1 DTS Master Soundtrack is also included and it really sounds great.
Kubrick’s movies are so different from each other and from what others have put on the screen, that I really have to see each one twice before I fully “get it.” I give this movie a grade of A.
It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.
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