Note: The twelfth entry in the Allan Fish Bonanza Encore series was selected by WitD site writer extraordinaire Maurizio Roca, who credits this review for his own coming around on the film in a big way. Allan chose it for the No. 4 spot in his 70’s countdown.
by Allan Fish
(UK 1975 187m) DVD1/2
Saraband for Embalmed Lovers
p Stanley Kubrick, Bernard Williams d/w Stanley Kubrick novel “The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon” by William M.Thackeray ph John Alcott ed Tony Lawson md Leonard Rosenman m Franz Schubert, W.A.Mozart, George F.Handel, J.S.Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Giovanni Paisiello, Frederick the Great, Irish folk music art Ken Adam, Roy Walker, Vernon Dixon cos Milena Canonero, Ulla-Britt Soderlund
Ryan O’Neal (Redmond Barry/Barry Lyndon), Marisa Berenson (Lady Lyndon), Patrick Magee (The Chevalier de Baribari), Hardy Kruger (Captain Potzdorf), Leon Vitali (Lord Bullingdon), Gay Hamilton (Nora Brady), Leonard Rossiter (Captain John Quin), Murray Melvin (Rev.Samuel Runt), Godfrey Quigley (Captain Grogan), Arthur O’Sullivan (Highwayman), Diana Koerner (German girl), Marie Kean (Barry’s mother), Frank Middlemass (Sir Charles Lyndon), André Morell (Lord Wendover), Philip Stone (Graham), Steven Berkoff (Lord Ludd), Pat Roach (Cpl.Tool), Ferdy Mayne, Bernard Hepton, Anthony Sharp, Michael Hordern (Narrator),
As the Radio Times put it, a.k.a “1789: A Georgian Odyssey”. How can I put into words my feelings for this incredibly savage film? Taken on face value, it is probably the most pictorially beautiful film ever made; a series of breathtaking painterly images put together with the barest threads of plot, with several exquisite uses of candlelight and sunlight that remain unsurpassed for their beauty, shot by Orange lenser Alcott with equally spectacular clarity and through natural light (and with the help of the groundbreaking lenses of Carl Zeiss). Some have said that as a narrative it’s too drawn out and far too slow. On that score alone they are absolutely right. However, though neither was quite as long, the same could also be said of Kubrick’s two previous visions of the future,2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange. He was forgiven there because they were prophecies of the future that must, by their very definitions, be symbolic to a point. Those who praise A Clockwork Orange praise it not for its plot but for its savage (in more ways than one) damnation of society. That is where people have made an understandable but fatal mistake with regards to this Thackeray adaptation. (more…)