I was twigged to re-watch Barry Lyndon by some recent great reviews here. My personal goal for this viewing was to try to reconcile why Barry Lyndon works. Not as a masterpiece, but rather how it works at all. After all, it’s a 3 hour and 4 minute period piece based pretty literally on a 19th century text ... that stars Ryan O’Neil.

Cinematography. Let’s get this out of the way first. Kubrick’s ... er, John Alcott’s photography is breathtaking. As beautiful as the paintings of the period. The use of technical and cinematic technique is well covered by some other great reviews here on Letterboxd. Does it make the film work? I don’t think so. It contributes to it…

Sometimes a great film suffers in your estimation because you saw it not long after something even more awesome - in this case Luchino Visconti's Senso, which I watched yesterday. Barry Lyndon has decor and scenery which look like paintings; Senso is like scenes from paintings alive right in front of you. The high emotion of the Italian film wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, but right now, for me, the subtle irony of most of Barry Lyndon is cold and stiff-upper-lipped and simply lacking. Though I couldn't help but be swept along by the dramatically satisfying final half hour.

I've always found Stanley Kubrick's films cold, but his detachment makes him good with the unsympathetic and complex protagonists and stories…

I wish that modern gang warfare consisted entirely of dueling. Demanding satisfaction is a much braver thing to do, than simply driving by someones house, randomly shooting bullets into it, and then driving away. People had much bigger cojones in the 1700s than they do now apparently.

I get a lot of joy out of watching Barry Lyndon. The first half of the film is a fantastic adventure where we follow Redmond Barry as he gets in lots of adventures and lives life. The second half of this movie is a fairly serious costume drama, that I assume accurately depicts the the daily monotony of the time period. While I personally prefer the the first half, both are equally interesting.…

As it's probably been stated before, though I haven't read, this film must have been one of the main inspirations to There Will Be Blood. While it doesn't have a prominent religious factor (there is a factor of religion though) as the aforementioned film, it definitely is as cynical in terms of greed and capitalism. Kubrick delivers yet again, a brilliant piece of work with confounding visuals and music with great characters excellently portrayed.

To first address what brought me to this film, it's aesthetics. Primarily its cinematography. Ever since I had heard of its revolutionary camera used that captured the whole film with natural lighting, I've been wanting to see this. Well, it finally came on TV, and you…

It seemed only fitting to watch a Kubrick as my 1000th film (if the numbers are correct), considering how many of my favourites the man created in his long and fruitful career. Barry Lyndon starts off with a shot so visually arresting I feared my eyes would start melting and although it is common with his films it is always surprising to see just how confident and meticulous Kubrick was in the composition of his shots. It's also a theme throughout the entire 3-hour running time as not a moment is wasted and every single frame offers something to gaze at as if it were a painting. Barry Lyndon showcases Kubrick's sheer mastery at his craft perfectly, combining his usual…

A sort of slice of life of a hard-headed young Irish man but covering nearly his entire life. The sheet over the 'image' of this film reminds me of those films in the 90s and late 80s about fairies and other classical periods, and the way it's executed here makes me wonder if this started that fad.

The film looks into the major parts of Barry's life... I watched this film in parts since its pacing was so boring. But what ended up happening was I watched about 20-35 minutes of the film over a period of four days (watching much of it in the last two) and I watched each stage of his life for each day. It worked…