hy are you trembling?” As a narrator makes trivial commentary about onscreen actions, young Irish lovers Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) and his cousin Nora Brady (Gay Hamilton) play cards and think about less civil activities. Their ordinary existences take place against the backdrop of the United Kingdom’s concerns over a looming French invasion, which causes red-coated military assemblies throughout the countryside in acts of patriotism. Lyndon is envious of the showiness – and of Englishman Captain John Quin (Leonard Rossiter), who takes a liking to Nora as well.

As he deals with jealousy, familial debts and the designs of patriarchs arranging lucrative marriages, and an inevitable gun duel for the hand of the lady, writer/director/producer Stanley Kubrick (working from the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray) employs stunning cinematography (by John Alcott, boasting a number of sequences that mirror Renaissance paintings) and a marked casualness toward virtually everything. O’Neal himself is largely unemotional, while every endeavor is approached with a strange yet notable insouciance. Chronicling Barry’s destiny as an inexperienced wanderer proves to be an unhurried, placid affair, with the camera often lingering on minimal supporting roles and their seemingly inconsequential interactions. Adding to the general slowness of it all is the almost comical way in which gentlemanly, flowery speech is used to describe various goings-on – including a highwayman run-in and an army-sanctioned fistfight (there’s a certain chivalrous front to underhanded deeds). The old-fashioned savagery makes for a curious contrast with the feigned appropriateness and politeness.

Since “Barry Lyndon” is a historical epic (complete with intermission and a division into two distinct parts), it covers various components of major conflicts, such as the Seven Years War. Amusingly, the specifics aren’t all that important – as even suggested by the narrator. With considerable quantities of costumes, armory, extras, and more (including very fitting, chilling classical music accompaniments [Handel here is exquisite]), battlefield reenactments are quite grand, showcasing the silliness and the deadliness of having lines of soldiers shoot at other lines of soldiers in broad daylight with no cover. The use of sets and landscapes are divine, however; this is a sharply designed picture, despite its insistence on details over expediency. In many ways, Barry’s part seems as if a negligible constituent intended merely as a guide to show the (costume) dramas of the era, the changing times, life in European militaries, and significant historical milestones.

As Barry haphazardly navigates his way through the 1700s, shifting from family politics to service in armed forces to undercover work for a Prussian police minister to hints of nobility, he encounters a wide array of colorful personas, played by expert character actors including Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger, Steven Berkoff, Godfrey Quigley, and more. Despite its continuing authenticity in appearance and form (including plenty of powdery wigs and pasty makeup), a certain uneventfulness routinely plagues the picture. It’s both mesmerizing in its insistence toward allowing the actors to convey a wealth of communication through expressions alone, and ambling in the way it meanders through the life of someone whose tale isn’t exactly heroic or monumental; Redmond is, to say the least, a strangely unassuming, un-cinematic protagonist.

Perhaps most problematic is that Barry is remarkably unsympathetic and unlikable; even with a handful of engaging acts, he essentially thrives on luck to maneuver his way upward through society, before not only behaving ungratefully but also recklessly. He is, though a purposeful study, far from an upright hero. During the second part, when his story could have included a meaningful, sincere romance (with Lady Lyndon [Marisa Berenson]), he’s instead provided further opportunities to distance himself from viewers. This is, indeed, the rise and fall of a character, as his limited intelligence and selfish interests push him to value peerage and place above all else, sacrificing and squandering his fortuitous achievements. Ultimately, the melancholic, nearly unenthusiastic way in which the film’s major points are handled, as well as the interminable length (just over three hours, with the narrator frequently, needlessly reiterating the very depictions onscreen) – and the moral, societal, financial, and psychological decline of the leads – deprive it of much hope for lasting poignancy. And the climax – the most suitably cynical way this saga could conclude – is oddly unsatisfying, particularly after the amount of time dedicated to these characters and their tragedies, as if to impart a clear statement about the disagreeable nature of these people and their ways of life. “To make a long story short …”

– Mike Massie