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 Despite
racking up multiple Academy Award nominations including Best Picture
(eventually winning four, all in the technical categories) Barry
Lyndon remains one of Stanley Kubrick's lesser-known works and failed
to attract much of an audience at the box office. Perhaps Kubrick's
coldest, most remote film, to be perfectly honest sitting through
Barry Lyndon is about as much fun as watching paint dry.
A miscast Ryan O'Neal toplines as Redmond Lyndon, and while this
was supposed to be a rousing adventure tale (or, at least O'Neal
thought so until he saw the final cut, after which he publicly voiced
his disapproval of the picture and Kubrick never spoke to him again)
Kubrick manages to drain all the life out of the story as is imaginable.
It certainly sounds intriguing enough. Based on William Makepeace
Thackeray's acclaimed novel, the story chronicles the rise and (sort
of) fall of Lyndon, an Irishman with little financial prospects
who weasels his way in to the 18th century English upper class.
While Kubrick would seem a great choice for such a story, the
film ultimately fails due to too many missed grips on good material.
Visually, Barry Lyndon is indeed impressive. Kubrick apparently
drew his inspiration for the look of the film from the works of
18th century painters, but that may be the fundamental problem.
The film simply suffers from a lack of drama. Bogged down by endless
narration, we are being taught this film, not experiencing it. Just
what did Kubrick intend this film to be? An adventure? A satire?
A comedy? A drama? All four? Oddly, much of Kubrick's lasting legacy
is based on his ability to let us experience, without words, a stimulating
story. But photographed so chilly, so at a distance, it is hard
to care about any of the characters in Lyndon. More damaging, especially
since he appears in just about every scene, is that O'Neal's apparently
unpleasant onset working relationship with Kubrick shows through
in his leaden performance. (And sporting the worst Irish accent
ever put on film, I kept expecting O'Neal to break into a jig at
any moment and proclaim "I lost me lucky charms!") Worse,
there is no real chemistry between O'Neal and costar Marisa Berenson.
Where's the heat, the romance, the passion?
Let it be said that Barry Lydon is visually sumptuous. Every composition,
as you would expect from Kubrick, is as pretty a picture as you'll
ever hope to see on film. But none impart any real feeling. This
isn't filmmaking, its construction. If you are a Kubrick lover,
Lyndon may still be one of the director's least rewarding film experiences,
and if you are a Kubrick hater, this will only reinforce the perception
of Kubrick as a intellectual, technically proficient craftsman more
interested in surfaces than in people.
Video: How Does The Disc Look?
This new, digitally restored and remastered DVD of Barry Lyndon
is presented in non-anamorphic widescreen, in an aspect ratio of
approximately 1.66:1 (my own half-ass manual screen measurement
showed closer to 1.57:1.) For the life of me, I can't see why the
people involved with this transfer would make such a decision, especially
after the firestorm wrought by the first disappointing Kubrick Collection
transfers. Let me explain my frustration. When films are "letterboxed"
in a non-anamorphic widescreen presentation, active lines of video
resolution are essentially thrown away as they're used to reproduce
black bars instead of video image. This would not have been the
case had Warner (and the powers that be from the Kubrick Estate)
opted for a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer for Barry Lyndon, with black
bars "window-boxed" on the sides of the image to create
the intended 1.66:1 aspect ratio.
 Speaking
of the intended aspect ratio, the way this disc is presented virtually
guarantees that no one who owns a widescreen display will see Barry
Lyndon in its intended 1.66:1 aspect ratio. To do so on a widescreen
display, one would have to watch in 4:3 mode with black or gray
areas at the sides of the image, with a letterboxed 1.66:1 image
in the middle. This would present black bars on all four sides of
the image, which is ridiculous. The most likely scenario is that
people with widescreen displays will do what I did, and watch Barry
Lyndon in a zoom mode that presents the film in an aspect ratio
of approximately 1.78:1 some image cropped from the top and bottom.
Yee-haw for Kubrick's intentions. And, of course, this is to say
nothing of the option of cropping the top and bottom of the image
to do a straight-up 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, a process that would
still be more benign to Kubrick's vision than theatrical exhibition,
which would undoubtedly have been at 1.85:1. Warner has hardly created
the future-proof DVD that we Kubrick fans have hoped for. Maybe
the third release of the Kubrick Collection will be the one!
Now, this transfer is unquestionably head and shoulders above the
previous DVD release of Barry Lyndon, which I couldn't even stand
to watch. Barry Lyndon's photography is so highly stylized that
it makes a typical evaluation of the image quality on this remastered
DVD somewhat difficult: it's hard to tell if I'm judging the photography
or the transfer. While at times the image quality is somewhat sharp
and detailed, in many scenes it looks downright foggy, as though
someone smeared Vaseline on the camera lenses. But, from what I
can gather, this is how the film is supposed to look. At all times
the presentation is very natural, albeit soft, and is notable for
its almost complete lack of edge enhancement, or any other transfer-related
artifacts. The intended effect of the lush cinematography just fell
apart in the previous transfer, which was sourced from a laserdisc
transfer done around ten years ago. The colors bled badly, there
were artifacts of every kind, and it just looked terrible. The remastered
transfer here has solid colors that don't bleed, and overall image
quality that is pretty good. The legendary candlelit interior scenes
are restored to great effect, and are dreamlike and arresting in
quality. Kubrick, cinematographer John Alcott, and Production Designer
Ken Adam created a film in which every frame is rich and dense,
and as beautiful as a painting. This new restoration effort goes
a long ways toward showing us Kubrick's vision for this uniquely
visual film, which looks better than it ever has outside of the
movie theater. But overall, Barry Lyndon still isn't on par with
the best anamorphic widescreen presentations. (For a closer look
at some screenshots, click here.)
Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
Barry Lyndon boasts a newly remixed Dolby Digital 5.1-channel soundtrack,
which is the only track on the disc (this mix is conformed for downmixing
in your DVD player if your system is capable of only two-channel
playback.) The new mix is very subtle, with a very nice stereo presentation
of the score in the front left and right channels, with dialog anchored
in the center channel. The surrounds are used for ambiance with
some of the score wrapped into them, and are scarcely noticeable.
Dialog is always intelligible, and overall the track sounds clean
with somewhat dated fidelity. The classical music that comprises
Barry Lyndon's somewhat melancholy score is the star here, with
selected pieces from Bach, Handel, Mozart, Schubert, and Vivaldi.
These pieces undoubtedly sound better in stereo.
 Subtitles
in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese are included, as well
as English Closed Captioning.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There?
This short and sweet list of extras for Barry Lyndon consists only
of the trailer, and a list of awards and award nominations garnered
by the film. The trailer spends most of its time recounting praise
lavished on the film by critics, and comes off like its trying to
talk you into seeing the movie.
Parting Thoughts
Warner could have done better in preparing this film for the "digital
age." Widescreen displays are the future, and yet this disc
was created in such a way that owners of such displays will not
be satisfied. As much as I'm happy that Barry Lyndon looks better
than it ever has, I'm also frustrated by the thought that I might
feel compelled, at some future date, to purchase this film again
if it's ever presented with an anamorphic widescreen transfer.
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