There is a sense in which any Stanley Kubrick film could be a candidate for classic and it is a mark of his genius that each of his films represents a different genre. Here we have a period drama, based on William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel of 1844, where Kubrick is writer, producer and director. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a really long film – 185 minutes – but, in the cinema, it is shown with an intermission, neatly dividing the rise of the eponymous rogue (the first two-thirds) followed by his tragic downfall (about a third). It is a work which should be seen on the big screen because it is visually sumptuous with gorgeous sets, costumes and locations. I’ve seen it in that format twice – once in Paris and, four decades later, again in London- and it is a joy to behold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Barry Lyndon” was not an immediate or critical success and remains the least-seen of Kubrick’s major works, but it was nominated for no less than seven Academy Awards (it won four artistic ones). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps the sign of a true classic is that it scores in so many ways: here, as well brilliant direction and those period clothes and ancient buildings, we have atmospheric lighting (use of the ‘magic hour’ and candlelight), breathtaking cinematography (John Alcott), classical music (Bach, Handel, Mozart) and a large and distinguished cast led by Ryan O’Neill, as the opportunist who betrays every relation or friend, and Marisa Berenson as his noble, but long-suffering, wife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a sense in which any Stanley Kubrick film could be a candidate for classic and it is a mark of his genius that each of his films represents a different genre. Here we have a period drama, based on William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel of 1844, where Kubrick is writer, producer and director. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29804,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29803\/revisions\/29804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}