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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies A to K»Movies B
    Movies B 2 Mins Read

    Barry Lyndon (1975)

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    Master director Stanley Kubrick turned to the 18th-century novel by William Makepeace Thackeray for this costume drama about an Irish rogue who climbs to the top of English aristocratic society.

    Barry Lyndon focuses on poor but handsome Irish boy Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) – describing his rise and fall from grace. Believing he has killed a cowardly English Captain (Leonard Rossiter) in a duel – and stripped of his small fortune by a deferential highwayman – the young Redmond enlists in the army. After his first taste of combat in the Seven Years’ War, he’s caught attempting to desert and is forced to enlist in the Prussian army.

    Taking up with fellow Irishman the Chevalier de Balibari (Patrick Magee), he finally escapes army life and begins a profitable career as a gambler around the courts of Europe.

    barrylyndon9

    He eventually marries wealthy English countess Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson), and squanders the Lyndon family fortune in an attempt to buy the title of Lord, but only incurs the hostility of her 10-year-old son Lord Bullingdon (Leon Vitali).

    Lyndon is eventually undone by his own greed and egotism and we leave him alone, poverty-stricken and minus one of his legs.

    The film was an $11 million production – well made, beautifully photographed and narrated in avuncular form by Michael Hordern – but energy and emotion were sorely lacking, and most moviegoers probably walked out of this three-hour ordeal more dazed than entertained.

    Determined to film by natural or historically accurate light sources, Kubrick and his cinematographer John Alcott acquired super-fast lenses to capture scenes lit only by candles.

    The production was set against the music of Bach, Handel, Schubert, Mozart, and Vivaldi, and the film’s cinematography won Oscars for Art Direction, Costume Design and Musical Score.

    barrylyndon_022

    Redmond Barry (Lyndon)
    Ryan O’Neal
    Lady Honoria Lyndon

    Marisa Berenson
    Chevalier de Balibari

    Patrick Magee
    Captain Potzdorf

    Hardy Kruger
    Lord Ludd

    Steven Berkoff
    Nora Brady

    Gay Hamilton
    Reverend Samuel Runt

    Murray Melvin
    Sir Charles Lyndon

    Frank Middlemass
    Lord Gustavus Adolphus Wendover

    André Morell
    Lischen
    Diana Körner
    Captain Feeny
    Arthur O’Sullivan
    Captain Grogan
    Godfrey Quigley
    Captain John Quin
    Leonard Rossiter
    Graham
    Philip Stone
    Lord Bullingdon
    Leon Vitali
    King George III
    Roger Booth
    Seamus Feeny
    Billy Boyle
    Lt. Jonathan Fakenham
    Jonathan Cecil
    Sir Richard
    Peter Cellier
    Dr Broughton
    Geoffrey Chater
    Seamus Feeney
    Patrick Dawson
    Colonel Bulow
    Ferdy Mayne
    Lord Hallam
    Anthony Sharp
    Doolan
    John Sharp
    Narrator 
    Michael Hordern

    Director
    Stanley Kubrick

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