tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294916540840535575.post1112151544437651299..comments2024-03-22T08:29:01.459-07:00Comments on Are the hills going to march off?: Barry Lyndon (1975) A Film by Stanley KubrickCarson Lundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10164962777812861110noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294916540840535575.post-77926463217790427722021-11-22T02:36:24.313-08:002021-11-22T02:36:24.313-08:00Thanks for sharing this post with us.WikivelaThanks for sharing this post with us.<a href="%E2%80%9Dwikivela.com%E2%80%9D" rel="nofollow">Wikivela</a><br /><br />sankethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01786904184102440473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294916540840535575.post-16296449341316554642012-01-10T11:26:57.157-08:002012-01-10T11:26:57.157-08:00Thanks for the comment Adam. I'm definitely ye...Thanks for the comment Adam. I'm definitely yearning to talk about this film right now, which totally just blew me away for the first time. It's probably going to jump into the top tier of my favorite Kubrick films.<br /><br />I didn't mean to imply that I wasn't moved by <i>Barry Lyndon</i> on an emotional level just because it's so "detached." In fact, I'm always moved by Kubrick's work, even at its most removed, because I think that his aesthetic distance provides space to paradoxically grow comfortable with the characters. It's an odd paradox indeed, but one that I truly believe works, and I can't understand when people call his work entirely cold and off-putting. Sure, most of the time Kubrick's focusing on concepts that defy the idea of humanism <i>because</i> they're all about how humans are de-individualized and overwhelmed by their own creations, but what I was trying to get across in my last few paragraphs is the way that Kubrick still harbors a ton of sympathy for the people he shows being de-individualized. I found myself really caring for the sad idiots in this film too, especially Lady Lyndon, and definitely Barry in the first half. <br /><br />I guess in some ways the epilogue is optimistic (it just strikes me as rather silly and New-Agey to find comfort in the idea of souls uniting and becoming inextricable from each other after death), but it's also really cynical if looked at from another angle. Yeah, they're all equal now, but equality also implies interchangeability, the idea that there's absolutely no difference between these people. Individuals are subsumed into the whole, which is rather saddening, and certainly indicative Kubrick's career-long concern for the place of humans in the grand scheme of nature. I see <i>Barry Lyndon</i> as a work of lament, almost even anger, at the way the characters fail time and time again to create meaning in their lives.Carson Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10164962777812861110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294916540840535575.post-12884053397608740502012-01-09T22:14:47.820-08:002012-01-09T22:14:47.820-08:00Carson, nice review. I seem to love this movie bey...Carson, nice review. I seem to love this movie beyond all reason. I even connect to it on a strong emotional level, even though it's famous for being one of Kubrick's more "detached" works. Perhaps it's because the more I see it, the more I see myself identifying with each of the principal characters, from Barry to Lady Lyndon to Lord Bullingdon.<br /><br />You've made a lot of great points here about Michael Hordern's narrator, who definitely seems to narrate Barry's story with a disdain of his own for the protagonst. His constant habit of spoiling the suspense in Barry's story seems to be an attempt to remind the audience that Barry is not a significant character in history, and that we have no good reason to care about him. Yet strangely, every time I've seen the film, I always do. <br /><br />The "epilogue" at the end of the film is wonderful. It suggests that no matter what pain Barry caused Lady Lyndon and Lord Bullingdon -- and vice versa -- it doesn't matter anymore, because they're all dead. Class and welfare don't mean a damn thing after death, which is one of death's luxuries. This makes <i>Barry Lyndon</i> a somewhat optimistic film in this regard, which reminds me of Kubrick's infamous quote about how <i>The Shining</i> was optimistic in its own special way (because it suggested the existence of an afterlife).Adam Zanziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14524618281515322239noreply@blogger.com