In 18th-century England, an Irish man and a rich widow fall in love. After he marries her, he spends a lot of the money that she had inherited.
Blaine: Stanley Kubrick was a photographer before he became a filmmaker and he put his photography skills to use during his film career. In the early ‘70s, Stanley bought BNC cameras from a film studio’s camera department and did a little experiment in order to adapt the camera to be able to use super fast and super sharp Zeiss lenses. It was all to prepare for Stanley’s 1975 film, “Barry Lyndon”. Stanley Kubrick didn’t know what led him to make the movies he did. He would read a novel and have ideas of how it could be a film. Every movie he made was so different from the last. Through his research, Stanley looked at a lot of paintings from the 18th century period. Stanley had every book about that time period and a lot of art books as well. Everything about “Barry Lyndon” had to look real because Stanley wanted the audience to feel like they were in that century as they were watching the film.
Stanley would improve a scene from how it was written in the script with his photography skills. “Barry Lyndon” became the first film with a zoom out shot. The zoom lens flattens the shot out like a 18th century painting. A lot of the shots in “Barry Lyndon” are zoom out. When the lens zooms in during the scene when Barry spots Lady Lyndon for the first time it shows him at a distance from where she is, then it zooms in and focusses on her with other people and it becomes an entirely new shot. Same thing with the zoom out shots, they become an entirely new shot when the lens zooms out. They become a wider shot. The biggest problem was filming with candle light. The rooms had to be entirely lit by candle. The candle light was the key part of creating the atmosphere and look of the 18th century period. During the day time the sunlight shines through the windows. Stanley never knew how a scene was going to be shot when he started the day. The shot has to come to you when your working on movie with a photographic style to it. You also have to find the right angle and figure out what position the actors should be in. The actors just sit and stand around like they are posing for a painting. If Stanley Kubrick saw a perfect way for a scene to be shot than more ideas would come to him of how it should be shot. There’s one shot in the movie that is perfectly composed and as well as the action and the music as the camera moves. It stops in different places where they can all be individual shots, but it’s apart of one bigger panning shot.
Stanley wanted to shoot “Barry Lyndon” in real environments. “Barry Lyndon” was going to be shot in the UK, but then at the last minute Stanley decided to shoot in Ireland instead because it looked suitable. It was also shot in Germany. My dad said at the time Potsdam (Germany, which is outside Berlin) was in East Germany. Once they had permissions, the East Germans were very cooperative in shooting there and as the old facades still existed they used them and they also brought out horse coaches from the museum that were from the correct period.
For the costumes, Stanley wanted a realistic look to them. Milena Canonero was in charge of the costumes and Stanley had sent her to all kinds of auction houses to look at paintings of those period costumes. Stanley saw a movie called “The Emigrants” and he was really impressed with the costumes in that film. It really amazed him of how real the costumes look. Stanley called up Jan Troell, the director of “The Emigrants” and told him he was desperate to know who did the costumes. It was Ulla-Britt Soderlund and what she did for “The Emigrants” was age and dye the costumes to make the clothing look like it was used. Stanley had Ulla collaborate with Milena on the costumes.
At one point, Warner Bros. realized that “Barry Lyndon” was going to cost them more money than they thought. Stanley didn’t like the idea of going over budget, but it was the only way he was going to get the “Barry Lyndon” made. Stanley was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to give Warner Bros. their money back because it was an expensive movie and “Barry Lyndon” isn’t the type of movie that would make a whole lot at the box office. It didn’t do so well with critics during it’s opening week because they thought of it as boring and Stanley was hurt by all the bad reviews. Critics weren’t always kind to Stanley and his movies. They just don’t know what talent is and they don’t admire how much gets put into a film. People would always have mixed feelings for a Stanley Kubrick film when it was released, but they are thought of as classics these days. “Barry Lyndon” is like a piece of artwork because Stanley put so much into it like he has done with every other film he has made.
My rating on “Barry Lyndon” is five out of five stars
