Barry Lyndon 4K 1975

I really like Barry Lyndon, but for me it's like walking through the Prado without stopping for lunch. Steven Spielberg's phrase probably most accurately expresses the film's most valuable quality, and this becomes especially clear when you think about what else it had to offer besides its visuals, which remain unsurpassed in their beauty to this day.

To tell the truth, Barry Lyndon is far from being the best novel by William Thackeray, author of the stunning Vanity Fair, and not even one of the best in the general series of 18th-century Enlightenment novels. Its plot is not original either, telling the story of an adventurer who decided to break into high society and paid for it with the most precious thing he had. There are no vivid, memorable characters in it that would have provided the basis for stunning performances, which the film adaptation cannot boast either. In all respects except the visual, it is simply a good, measured film with decent actors who perform at a consistent, solid level and do not stand out from the ensemble, but the point is that this is not what is important in Barry Lyndon.

First and foremost, Barry Lyndon is about the blurred roads that were so lovingly depicted in Dutch landscapes. Barry Lyndon is about Caravaggio-esque chiaroscuro, which could only be achieved with natural lighting. Barry Lyndon is about amazingly constructed mise-en-scènes that at first glance seem completely natural, but at the same time fit neatly into the contours of a circle or triangle. Barry Lyndon is young girls in long silk dresses, as if they had stepped out of Gainsborough's paintings. Barry Lyndon is a baby dressed up like one of the infants in a portrait by Van Dyck. Barry Lyndon is a woman in a white dress hugging a boy in a velvet red doublet. Barry Lyndon is a scene after a feast, copied exactly from one of Hogarth's engravings from the series Marriage à la Mode. Barry Lyndon is a leisurely three-hour stroll through one of the world's finest art galleries to the music of Bach and Handel. And if, like Steven Spielberg, you feel like taking a break for lunch, you can easily do so at the end of the first episode.