I saw this film many years ago, in pieces (that is, I saw it on television, in chunks, which is never a good way to view anything). I recalled liking it at the time, and only recently have I been able to view it again.
This film is a 1975 film by Stanly Kubrick which is a surprising effort by Kubrick to film William Makepeace Thakeray's novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon. Thackeray's works satired English society of his own time, the 19th Century. The novel, like the film, was set in the late 18th Century and early 19th Century, and it is loosely based on an actual person.
The film follows the life of Redmond Barry, who we understand to be a member of the Irish gentry of that period. Not ever explained, but fairly obvious from the context for a person familiar with Irish history, is that Barry is a member of a minor Irish noble family, hence he's actually an Anglo Irish protestant. While the film does not explain that, an understanding of that serves to make some sense out of the plot which might otherwise be a bit mysterious in some ways.
Barry's story commences with the death of his father in a duel, which effectively places the family into a species of poverty, and goes early on to a doomed romance between Barry and a cousin, who rejects him in favor of an English army office. The film takes place during the Seven Years War, which figure prominently in the plot line. This launches Barry on a series of unlikely, but very well presented and, in the context of the film, and indeed of the times, seemingly plausible adventures and occurrences. Barry is followed through service with the English, and then Prussian, armies and on into his marriage to an English noblewoman. All along, the viewer is left wondering if he likes Barry or not, which would be consistent, apparently, with Thackeray's novel, in which a clueless Barry narrates his own story.
We, of course, review movies not so much for their plots (although we certainly consider that) but also for their service or disservice to history. And Barry Lyndon gets high marks in those regards. The acting in the film is curiously flat by many of the actors, but that actually serves the character of Barry Lyndon, as he is called after he marries Lady Lyndon, and Lady Lyndon, quite well. This is one of two films by Ryan O'Neal, the other being Paper Moon, which was released two years earlier. O'Neal's portrayal in Paper Moon is so different in character that the flat portrayal in Barry Lyndon must seem to be a directors choice, which does indeed serve the film well, given that much of it is a character study of European gentry and nobility of this period. Frankly, the gentry and nobility do not come across particularly well.
Material details are very well done. Clothing styles change appropriately over time. The details of noble English households are very well portrayed, including the peculiar relationship that sometimes existed between Anglican clerics and those households. The moral decline that was going on in this era amongst the well to do is a major subject of of the film and subtly and excellently portrayed. Indeed, moral decline is a frequent subtle topic of Kubrick films, with Kubrick having been a devout Catholic. The strange nature of European armies and their rank and files is excellently portrayed as well. The details of the very strange custom of dueling are accurately portrayed.
About the only real criticism that can be offered here is that it's pretty obvious that Ryan O'Neal didn't know how to ride a horse, and those scenes in which he rides are painful to watch for somebody with knowledge on riding. Otherwise, the film is excellent.
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