Run, Kubrick, Run

Barry Lyndon, finally.

I saw Barry Lyndon for the first time at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, part of their incredible 1975 series.

Seeing the film brought up a lot of thoughts — about Kubrick, formalism, and, yes, Forrest Gump.

Barry Lyndon is one of those movies I’ve circled for years, knowing I should commit the time, just give it a night — but like most of us with too many options these days, I always gave up and clicked over to something 90 minutes or less.

I have friends who consider it a masterpiece. But, in general, I’m wary of Kubrick’s pacing.

Here’s the brutal admission: I’ve never seen 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I know. But my parents tried. They sat my brother and me down to watch it when we were kids, declaring it “the best space movie ever made.”

And…we got bored. My mom and dad quickly realized that seeing 2001 in the theater in 1968 (likely with the aid of some good ol’ THC) was very different than watching it with two kids who could quote Star Wars from beginning to end.

In the grand tradition of parents everywhere, they caved to our attention spans, shrugged, decided it “didn’t age well,” and turned it off. I haven’t tried 2001 since.

But I did see The Shining and A Clockwork Orange. Both before the age of 12, which in retrospect, was way too young. They horrified and intrigued me. They didn’t make sense. But they felt important.

I watched them over and over.

When Eyes Wide Shut came out, like a lot of burgeoning cinephiles in the 1990s, I went opening weekend. I agonized through its slow pace, cringed at the piano pounding, walked out feeling like I didn’t “get it.”

Then, I went back to the theater and saw it three more times.

For a teenager becoming obsessed with movies, Kubrick was an outlier. He wasn’t an “awesome filmmaker.” He was a troubling one. Why did he put me through these experiences — and why did I keep coming back?

It wasn’t until my 30s that I discovered The Killing and Paths of Glory. Finally, a glimpse of Kubrick the tight, efficient storyteller. A director with a moral compass, if a complicated worldview.

With these earlier films, I could see how Kubrick charts a tragic, doomed heroism. His protagonists are morally stirred but structurally trapped — they often recognize right from wrong, yet they’re outmatched by the machinery around them: social, economic, political. They see clearly. They just can’t do anything about it.

Which is a powerful perspective, but one that, in terms of story, can be frustrating. You don’t get a happy ending. You don’t get a transcendent hero. At the same time, his movies aren’t simply bleak, or cynical to a degree that I would find fundamentally off-putting.

I could finally see why his movies never “settled” for me, why I had to keep going back.

But even with this newfound appreciation, Barry Lyndon scared me. I knew its reputation: a formal, three-hour epic set in the 18th century. Candlelit interiors (shot on film, lit only by candles!). Zooms. A notoriously controlled visual style. Not a film you casually “put on.”

But when it was playing the Egyptian, at 3pm no less (harder to fall asleep!), I jumped at the chance.

I’m so glad I waited for the big screen. Because if I’d tried at home, I probably would’ve looked at my phone a hundred times. That alone says something about the film: it demands attention not through plot or emotion, but sheer formal control.

Every time it cut to a new shot, I gasped. The compositions are so painterly, so exquisitely framed and staged, it feels like being forced — politely but insistently — to walk slowly through a museum and spend ten minutes at each canvas. Kubrick is the docent, pacing your steps. You want to rush ahead, but you can’t. You will sit with this scene. You will absorb the candlelight. You will stare at wigs and consider the texture of coats.

The story meanders. The tone stays cool. It refuses sentiment, irony, even judgment. That refusal is, I think, both the film’s greatest strength and its biggest challenge. In particular, I kept waiting for the movie to tell me how to feel about Barry himself. Is he a con artist? A tragic wanderer? A selfish climber, or a man just trying to survive the hand he’s been dealt?

Kubrick never says.

And Ryan O’Neal’s performance only deepens the ambiguity. At times he seems earnest, even overcome with emotion; other times he’s so stiff and performative I started wondering if Kubrick cast him because he is Moses Pray, just in powdered wig and waistcoat.

Then, after all the ups and downs, the epilogue hits:

“It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled. Good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.”

That’s the answer. Or the refusal of one. Kubrick isn’t just resisting easy moral judgment — he’s asking us to reflect on the very act of judgment. Why do we try to assign meaning to historical lives from such a distance? Why assume clarity from the actual, messy chaos of real life?

And his cinematic approach illustrates as much: with an intentionally distant, formal approach — an aesthetic, it must be pointed out, directly influenced by the paintings and writings of the period — Kubrick doesn’t pretend to know “what it was actually like” or try to make it feel contemporary. Instead, he frames it, with all the powers of cinema, in visual terms those people, in that time, might appreciate. Would have wanted.

This is different than the way more recent movies have approached period settings — I’m thinking of The Favourite, Little Women. Current filmmakers like to put the camera, script, performances, and soundtrack in the service of rendering “old times” fresh, or at least, relatable. Marie Antoinette, she’s just like us!

At some point watching the film, I had a strange thought: Is this the 18th-century Forrest Gump?

I wasn’t sure what that meant at first, but it stuck.

Both are picaresque tales that chart one man’s passage through history. Both wander from episode to episode without a conventional arc. But while Forrest Gump leans into American sentimentality — strings swelling, tears flowing, Baby Boomer hit songs on cue — Barry Lyndon does the opposite.

It’s the same narrative drift, the same wide-eyed passivity, but without the manipulation. If Forrest Gump bathes you in emotion to smooth over the chaos of history, Barry Lyndon drains the warmth and leaves only the composition. It withholds. It demands that you lean in.

It’s aesthetics as feeling, rather than feelings as aesthetic. And that’s a fundamental difference. Kubrick doesn’t manipulate your emotions — he orchestrates your experience.

Which I respect immensely. It’s a far cry from my natural instincts as a viewer, and filmmaker.

I come from the naturalist school: actor-driven, behavior-first, what would really happen? That’s my bias. It’s American, it’s Hollywood, and its shortcomings become obvious in television, where visual form is often reduced to basic coverage. Talking heads delivering plot. Everything in service of dialogue and performance. Form as vehicle, not independent value.

But Barry Lyndon offers the opposite vision: form as the primary language. Rhythm, symmetry, and light as the emotional architecture. A visual grammar of detachment that somehow makes you lean in harder, not less.

It’s not how I usually watch. It’s not how I usually make.

But sitting in that theater, I surrendered.

And I’m still thinking about it.

Which means, maybe I’m finally patient enough for Kubrick. I always wanted to “get” his work, maybe I simply had to grow into it. And maybe those earlier, frustrating viewings were actually essential to a fuller appreciation…

I guess there’s only one thing left to do: force my kid to watch 2001.