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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Barry Lyndon (1975)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Drama Theatrical Trailer
Menu Audio
Collector Card
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 1975
Running Time 178
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (88:19) Cast & Crew
Start Up Programme
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Stanley Kubrick
Studio
Distributor

Warner Home Video
Starring Ryan O'Neal
Marisa Berenson
Patrick Magee
Hardy Kruger
Diana Koerner
Leon Vitali
Case Snapper
RPI $36.95 Music Leonard Rosenman


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Not 16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.66:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
French
Italian
Dutch
Arabic
Spanish
Portuguese
German
English for the Hearing Impaired
Italian for the Hearing Impaired
Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Barry Lyndon is Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the William Makepeace Thackeray's novel of the same name. It chronicles the rise and fall of Raymond Barry (Ryan O'Neal). Raymond starts the movie as an innocent soul, but he quickly learns the ways of the world. He encounters an assortment of characters along his life's journey, including the affluent Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson) whom he decides to marry for the sake of his own comfort, but things do not turn out exactly the way he plans.

    Barry Lyndon is a slow, sweeping epic that sedately moves us through the life and times of Raymond Barry, and shows the characters that influenced him and the ones that he influences, not always to the good. In many ways, it is similar in scope to the more recent Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil, in that the goal of this movie is not the end of the journey, but the journey itself, and the characters we meet along the way.

    Sit down, relax, and enjoy the marvellous storytelling that is Barry Lyndon. And take a little break to refresh yourself during the Interval.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.66:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced. It is the same transfer that was used for the previous laserdisc. The transfer has been created from a print element, as reel change markings can be seen periodically.

    The transfer shows its age, and looks like a transfer of a 23 year old movie. No restoration appears to have been done to this image. The image is variably sharp, and would be best described as a soft picture, which tended to be a little blurred at times, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Shadow detail is passable, but not great. Low level noise and grain is present at times, particularly in wide shots of the sky.

    There is a major image skip at 69:01.

    The colours were muted and subdued, once again showing the film's age. A number of scenes exhibited intermittently variable colour saturation (71:18 - 74:45, 109:28 - 110:20, 146:58 - 150:55). Red is the only colour that is really well presented.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen.

    Film-to-video artefacts consisted of numerous and variable artefacts. Telecine wobble was occasionally an issue, with this being particularly a problem in the early part of the movie, which exhibited quite considerable image wobble. Aliasing was a moderate problem at times.

    Film artefacts were a more-or-less constant intrusion, with frequent negative blotches, scratches and various other artefacts present in the image. This was perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this transfer, and the most in need of rectification.

    In addition to the subtitles listed on the back of the packaging, a German subtitle track is also present.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change placed at 88:19, between Chapters 25 & 26. Surprisingly, this layer change is not placed at the movie's intermission point, which would clearly have been the best place for it. Nonetheless, it is not particularly disruptive.

Audio

    There are three audio tracks on this DVD; an English Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack, a French Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack, and an Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack. I listened to the default English Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack.

    Dialogue was clear and easily audible, never being drowned out by sound effects.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The music was a combination of classical rearrangements and original scoring from Leonard Rosenman. It had a suitably English feel about it and enhanced the on-screen action nicely. A significant portion of the soundtrack during battle sequences consisted of a slow melody played very effectively and dramatically on timpani.

    The surround channels were not used.

    The .1 channel was not used.

Extras

    There are only limited extras on this disc.

Menu

    The menu is 16x9 enhanced, unlike the movie and has background Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. Scene selections are via text selections rather than thumbnail images.

Theatrical Trailer

    This is presented at an aspect ratio of 4:3 and with Dolby Digital 1.0 sound.

Collectible Card

    This appears to be simply a small cardboard copy of the theatrical poster.

Production Notes

    These are not really present, but there is a listing of the awards that the movie has won, so these sort of count as Production Notes.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

    There is really no compelling reason to prefer one version over the other.

Summary

    Barry Lyndon is an aged transfer of an excellent movie. Recommended despite the poor quality of the image.

    The video quality is borderline acceptable.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras are limited.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna (read my bio)
Tuesday, July 27, 1999
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV-505, using RGB output
DisplayLoewe Art-95 (95cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL).
Audio DecoderDenon AVD-2000 Dolby Digital decoder. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
Amplification2 x EA Playmaster 100W per channel stereo amplifiers for Left, Right, Left Rear and Right Rear; Philips 360 50W per channel stereo amplifier for Centre and Subwoofer
SpeakersPhilips S2000 speakers for Left, Right; Polk Audio CS-100 Centre Speaker; Apex AS-123 speakers for Left Rear and Right Rear; Yamaha B100-115SE subwoofer

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