What filmmaking techniques does Barry Lyndon use?

CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Barry Lyndon (1975): Period Color Separation, Retrospective Voiceover, One-Point Perspective and Tragic Inversion Structure.

Who directed Barry Lyndon?

Stanley Kubrick directed Barry Lyndon, released in 1975. CineCode also covers Fear and Desire (1953), Killer's Kiss (1955), The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962).

What films are similar to Barry Lyndon?

Films that share techniques with Barry Lyndon include The Godfather Part II (1974), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Chinatown (1974), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

Adventure · Drama

Barry Lyndon

Stanley Kubrick, 1975

An Irish rogue rises through 18th-century European society on charm, luck and cunning. Then he loses everything he gained through arrogance, laziness and cruelty. This is Kubrick's most beautiful film in its form. It uses candlelight and narration to tell a story of hollow ambition.

2 Cinematography 2 Narrative

At a glance

Barry Lyndon is a 1975 adventure and drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 cinematography and 2 narrative), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Godfather Part II uses several of the same techniques.

Cinematography

Period Color Separation

Giving each time period or social world in the film its own set of colors. You always know where and when you are, and the colors carry a mood too.

How this film uses it

Kubrick used Zeiss lenses originally developed for NASA to shoot by real candlelight. The interiors he got look like 18th-century oil paintings in the warmth of their color and the quality of their shadows. The film is lit the way the period would have been, so every interior feels like a Hogarth or a Gainsborough.

Where to see it

The candlelit interior scenes. The warm, orange-amber light was achieved with candles, so many interiors are photographed in the actual light of its era.

Narrative

Retrospective Voiceover

Having a narrator tell the story from some point after it happened. The events feel like memory, and you sense early on that something will be lost.

How this film uses it

Michael Hordern's narration tells you Barry's fate before each sequence shows it. His ironic, detached tone makes every apparent triumph feel hollow in advance. The narrator is pretty much history itself, and he doesn't care how highly Barry thinks of himself. The film's comedy is the gap between Barry's self-image and the narrator's account.

Where to see it

The narration announcing Barry's defeats before they happen. Kubrick tells you the future in advance, a device called prolepsis, so you watch every success knowing it's already lost.

Cinematography

One-Point Perspective

Framing a shot so every line in it runs toward 1 point in the center. The picture looks perfectly symmetrical, which can feel hypnotic, stagey or oppressive.

How this film uses it

Kubrick composes Barry Lyndon's country estates, military formations and gambling rooms with the formal symmetry of 18th-century painting. The one-point perspective, where every line runs to 1 central point, makes the society Barry sneaks into look like a stage set. It's beautiful and ordered, and it's open to anyone willing to play the right part.

Where to see it

The gaming room compositions. Aristocratic leisure is staged symmetrically. It's the visual order Barry wants to belong to and can never quite live in honestly.

Narrative

Tragic Inversion Structure

Structuring the story so a character's rise or cruelty is mirrored by its opposite. A parallel story shows a different outcome, or a powerful figure loses everything in ways that echo earlier wrongs.

How this film uses it

Barry's charm, opportunism and talent for reinventing himself make him a successful soldier, spy and social climber. Those same traits cause his complete downfall. He can't be satisfied, his insecurity makes him cruel and he can't hold on to what he wins. The film is shaped like an arc. The traits carry him up and then, unchanged, bring him down.

Where to see it

Barry's treatment of Lady Lyndon. Once he has what he wanted, his charm sours into contempt. The path from seduction to cruelty follows naturally from who he is.

Questions

Barry Lyndon: quick answers

What filmmaking techniques does Barry Lyndon use?: CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Barry Lyndon (1975): Period Color Separation, Retrospective Voiceover, One-Point Perspective and Tragic Inversion Structure.
Who directed Barry Lyndon?: Stanley Kubrick directed Barry Lyndon, released in 1975. CineCode also covers Fear and Desire (1953), Killer's Kiss (1955), The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962).
What films are similar to Barry Lyndon?: Films that share techniques with Barry Lyndon include The Godfather Part II (1974), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Chinatown (1974), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

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