Barry Lyndon with Karina Longworth

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled.

[00:00:27] Good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all podcasts now. So you're starting with the last thing in the movie. I am and I'm essentially equating podcasting to death. I'm saying that it's the ultimate fate that lies before all of us. It's unavoidable.

[00:00:44] Right. We'll all have one. Yeah, that makes sense. Right. That's basically the new Andy Warhol line that everyone will end up having at least 15 episodes of a podcast in the future. Right? Right. And God bless him.

[00:00:58] And yeah, that's my favorite thing in the movie and one of my favorite movies ever is the title, the end title. Is that silly? No, you sort of spoiled it for me, but I didn't understand how it was going to play out. What did I say to you?

[00:01:15] You, I mean, because Ben and I, producer Ben and I saw this movie both for the first time recently playing at the Paris Theater in anticipation of doing this episode. We were lucky enough that like things timed out where we could actually see it on a big screen

[00:01:29] for the first time before recording. And you were talking about it to some other guest of ours. I can't remember if it was on mic or off mic about why it was your favorite Kubrick movie.

[00:01:39] And you just said, you know, the ultimate point of this movie where it doesn't matter, we're all going to end up dead anyway. Right. And I didn't realize it was literally going to be an epilogue, like a title card saying, what is this fucking matter?

[00:01:52] Um, yeah. Do you remember we were just talking about this? Uh, what, why it was playing at the Paris? We were trying to remember. Yes. No, I can tell you it was, they are doing a director select series. Okay. It is that sure.

[00:02:04] I guess it's like four or five of the directors who, uh, have Netflix movies coming out this fall and winter. And this was one of Bomback's picks. Oh, cool. Okay. But his picks were weird. I want to pull them up because they were not what I expected.

[00:02:20] And it feels like different people took the assignment differently where some people were very much curating. These are the films that were the inspiration for my new Netflix movie. And other people were just perhaps using it as an opportunity to

[00:02:32] get movies they love projected on a big screen. Sure. Right. Yeah. I was saying that I think my husband, um, did one of these, but I don't know what movies he picked it, but I think one of them was the last of Sheila. Correct.

[00:02:45] For him, it was like, he wasn't going to be in New York. So it wasn't like he, it was movies that he was excited to see. Yeah. Yeah. His picks all were very, uh, Benoit Blanc adjacent. They were very much like mood

[00:02:57] board mystery ensemble films. Um, I'm trying to get the full list. Last of Sheila. That's on a boat, right? Yeah. And there's, there's a boat in glass onions. And a very young Ian McShane. I should see the last of Sheila. I've never seen the last of Sheila.

[00:03:10] It's fun. Herbert Ross. Yeah. It's a Diane Cannon is playing Sue Mengers basically. And, um, she is that sort of characterization is very influential to the way that Kate Hudson plays her part in glass onion. Sue Mengers. RIP.

[00:03:27] The bomb back list was Barry Lyndon, high and low mash network. Shoot the piano player rolled according to GARP. I guess now that I've seen white noise, that list makes a little more sense. That's a good list. It is a good list.

[00:03:40] If I had more time on my hands, I'd be going all these things. It's tough. I feel bad that I missed some of these, you know, these chances for nice film. And it's a nice theater, the Paris Theater. It's great that you saw Barry Lyndon there.

[00:03:52] Introduce our podcast and our guests. Sorry. It's a podcast called blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

[00:04:07] And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. And today we are talking about a film that was that was a bounce when it came out. I feel like I keep on thinking, well, of course, he had this miracle run.

[00:04:20] Pretty much everything from Dr. Strangelove on is this like miracle run of classics. But this is the one that was the most poorly received at the time. Right? I suppose it's more than it didn't do very well financially.

[00:04:33] I mean, I mean, I was just saying to Karina, like, it did get a Best Picture nomination. And I guess Eyes Wide Shut was maybe received. Eyes Wide Shut was like, but wasn't Eyes Wide Shut like number one at the box office the weekend?

[00:04:46] But then it was just like completely ignored by the Oscars, which is. Yeah. It also dropped like a stone at the box office after the first weekend. It's so big in the middle of summer. It's OK. Yeah. Yeah. This yeah, this movie is a bit of a bounce.

[00:05:01] Sure. That's fine. Or I mean, that's so silly to say about Barry Lyndon. Yeah, well, this is a bounce at the time. It is obviously a movie that has been completely, I feel, vindicated. I think so. But Karina, introduce Karina so I can ask her a question.

[00:05:19] Our guest today, a phenomenal film critic and film podcast host from You Must Remember This, Karina Longworth, one of the most overdue, long demanded guests in years over us doing this show. Hi, thanks for having me. Hi, Karina. Thank you so much for doing this.

[00:05:35] We've so badly wanted you to do the show for a long time now, and you very much wanted to do Barry Lyndon. Is this your favorite Kubrick or is this just sort of the one you're most interested in talking? This is my favorite Kubrick.

[00:05:47] And I mean, for me, it's like this eyes wide shut and then there's kind of a drop. It's like those two are the top. Yeah, I'm with you. Right. Yeah. So for a long time, I mean, you know, people are always like, what's your favorite movie, Karina?

[00:06:02] You must have seen every movie. And I think that's kind of a stupid question because I'm just always watching movies. And like, how could it be kind of fixed in time? You know what my favorite movie is.

[00:06:11] And so in order to avoid having to give an actual answer, I say that I have three favorite movies, which are A Star Is Born from 1954, Barry Lyndon and Ghostbusters, because that just like covers all the bases.

[00:06:25] Although I think I'm going to replace Ghostbusters with Back to the Future. I think Back to the Future is a more perfect movie. But yeah, so like I would just sort of like drop Barry Lyndon's name in that context. But I actually hadn't.

[00:06:38] I had watched the movie a lot in my early 20s, but I actually hadn't seen it in probably 15 years until last night. Oh, wow. Oh, cool. Was it fun to revisit? Did it? It's so fun. It's a comedy, guys. It's so funny. Oh, yeah. It's so funny.

[00:06:54] Oh, Barry's the best. Ben had a real, I mean, we've talked about this, I think on the episodes leading up to this. Ben had something of a life changing experience watching this movie. I feel like this immediately shot up to the list of

[00:07:08] your favorite of the movies we've ever covered on this show, like within the top five. It's just nice to see yourself on the screen. Karina, like five minutes in, Ben turns to me and he goes, these are my people. He's just beaming. Are you Irish?

[00:07:25] Yeah, I'm an Irish scoundrel. Yes, Ben related heavily to the mid talented Irish liar, Barry Lyndon. And who hasn't? Who doesn't watch this movie and kind of go like, huh, yeah, you know. We've all been there.

[00:07:40] Life's some breaks, you know, sometimes they break this way, sometimes they break that way. Nice work if you can get it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is a comedy. This is one of my favorite movies, and I've seen it many times. It is very funny.

[00:07:55] The question I was going to ask Karina, and I feel like this is true, is like, I feel like this was the epitome of when the critical community was like, yeah, Kubrick makes like coffee table books. I cannot deny its beauty, but I am left cold, right?

[00:08:09] Like when that becomes that sort of like, you know, slightly unfair read on Kubrick's filmmaking, like becomes codified around here. Again, I don't agree with that. Certainly not in relation to Barry Lyndon, but like I do feel like that was the reception.

[00:08:27] It just seems so strange in hindsight because all of his movies are satires. Like I can't think of one. I was at, like after we watched it last night, I was like asking the people I watch it with, like, is there one I'm forgetting?

[00:08:41] And the consensus was like, well, Spartacus maybe, but is that even really a Kubrick film? Spartacus, right. Spartacus is not satirical and that is not really a Kubrick film. And that is maybe the only one. I think, yes.

[00:08:55] I mean, it depends on what you say about The Shining, I guess, but The Shining is very funny. Yeah, maybe The Shining is a satire of the novel. I don't know. Sure, yes. I forget which episode it is.

[00:09:12] One of the ones we've recorded already, but hasn't come out yet, where I say that like a big realization for me watching these movies is that I find the comedy in most of Kubrick's other films funnier than Dr. Strangelove, not because I don't think Dr.

[00:09:30] Strangelove is funny, but because I find him putting comedy into a movie like this that is not presenting itself as comedic, but is comedic from beginning to end. It is the thing that surprised me because I feel like the last 10, 15 years I've heard

[00:09:45] major critical reevaluation of Barry Lyndon where it started to become more acceptable to go. That's his best film. Before, I think that was viewed as a contrarian opinion. You know, this and Eyes Wide Shut are the two that it really feels like have gotten their due

[00:09:59] in the last 10 or 15 years and sort of a sea change. And I would always hear people say, the secret to Barry Lyndon is that it's like really funny. And I assumed it was going to be one of these things where it's like, well,

[00:10:10] it's operating satirically on a very quiet wavelength. It must have been missed by audiences at the time. And then you watch this thing and it's pitched like a comedy from beginning to end. It is so plainly a comedy. I don't understand how it was ever misread.

[00:10:25] Well, I do think that the events that happen, especially in like the last half hour are tragic. And I do think like if there is any sort of like genuine emotion to be had, it's, you know, in Brian dying and sort of understanding that like whatever good

[00:10:42] is in Barry Lyndon was in him as a father. Although so many things have to go wrong for that kid to get to the horse. Like so many people have to fall down on the job. Just don't get him the horse. He's so small. He's a slight child.

[00:10:58] It's not just that he's nine years old. He's small. He's a little kid. It's the gone with the wind thing. If a little kid mounts a big horse, I just start covering my eyes. Nothing good will come of this. There's a reason ponies exist.

[00:11:10] And he had one, but he wasn't satisfied with his pony. It's like the whole metaphor of the whole movie. Not to jump to the kid, you know, but that's one of my favorite kid performances. And obviously, I don't usually, I don't like a lot of kid performances.

[00:11:27] And I've always loved little Brian. He's, he's, he's, and I think he never acted again. If he did, he barely acted like he's just a perfect little like Fauntleroy. I was astounded by and felt is one of the best child performances I've ever seen is Little Bullington.

[00:11:47] Yeah, Little Bullington is also good. Is incredible because he really has to set the stage for the entire second half of the movie. He doesn't have that much screen time, but in a couple scenes, a couple lines and more than anything, just his glances, his body language,

[00:12:02] the tension he creates, like this kid just has such absolute contempt for this fucking guy. And the next hour and a half of the movie is just going to spin off of that. Karina, when did you first see Barry?

[00:12:14] Or Karina, what's your Kubrick, your Kubrick take, I guess? Or your general relationship to Kubrick? It's so hard doing this guy on our podcast because it's like, what do you what are you supposed to say?

[00:12:25] But yeah, I mean, I just think he's one of the greatest and like one of the most fascinating characters. And the fact that there aren't that many movies makes each one kind of more important and more interesting.

[00:12:39] I'm actually not sure if I've seen every single Kubrick film or not, but I've definitely seen most of them. And yeah, as I said, like it's this and Eyes Wide Shut. And then, you know, it it's like there's kind of two empty stairs maybe.

[00:12:51] And then it would be like for me, The Shining and Dr. Strangelove. And and then again, there's like maybe two empty stairs. And then there's kind of everything else. Yeah, I'm with you on that, I think. Oh, well, 2001, are you less you're less?

[00:13:06] Well, 2001 is like, I think maybe I just kind of burnt out on it when I was a teenager. Like I was a pretty precocious teenage stoner. And like, you know, at age 13, hanging out with 17 year olds and doing things like

[00:13:19] getting really stoned and going to midnight shows of 2001. And so it's like it's something where I probably haven't seen that movie since I was like 26. So that's 16 years. And I just don't know that I will have a reason where I feel like I need to revisit it.

[00:13:37] So it's just not something I think about very often. But of course, it's a masterpiece. It's like I'm saying like, oh, there's a couple of empty stairs. But it's like it's just because they're all like on Masterpiece Mountain. Pretty much.

[00:13:47] Yeah, there's there's like a collection of the bulk of his movies in the middle for me where I feel like, well, this is undeniably masterpiece. I recognize the excellence of this film. But Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut are the two that feel like they sort of cut

[00:14:02] through to me on a deeper level where I feel genuine warmth and affection for them. That's the other funny thing about this movie is you saying, David, this notion of oh, this is him at his most austere, distant, painterly. Again, I don't agree. No, no, no.

[00:14:18] That's more like when you see the reviews or whatever. Yes. No, no, I know. But I feel like this is kind of his warmest film in a bizarre way. And especially if you look at it being buttressed by 2001 Clockwork Orange on one side,

[00:14:33] Shining Full Metal Jacket on the other side. There is like a gentleness to this movie, despite it being deeply, deeply cynical. And sad. It's a sad movie. Yeah, but I think there is a greater sense of human emotion in this film than the ones on either side.

[00:14:51] Yeah, I would agree. But I also think this is like one of my most... This movie gets such an emotional reaction out of me in all ways. This is Barry Lyndon. This is my favorite.

[00:15:05] I had a wonderful experience with Barry Lyndon recently, which I think I first saw it in college and glommed onto it. I glommed onto it immediately. But I had an experience recently. I have a friend who loves The Shining. He's not like a big movie buff.

[00:15:21] And we were in Vermont. It was late. There was like a fire roaring. And he was talking to me about The Shining. And I was like, Have you ever seen Barry Lyndon? He's like, No. And I'm like, I'm just gonna put it on. And I put it on.

[00:15:33] And the first scene obviously is him digging in a woman's boobs for a ribbon. Yeah, as one does. And he looked at me and he was like, What is this? And I was just like, Let's just stick with it.

[00:15:46] And he within the next month watched Barry Lyndon five times. He caught the bug. And I do feel like this movie has that weird hypnotic quality or however you want to... Maybe it's just it's entrancing.

[00:16:02] It's just so easy for me to have this thing on and to be just sort of drinking it in until the last half hour when I get unspeakably devastated, especially now that I have a kid. But anyway... Don't let her ride a horse. It's very easy.

[00:16:19] Don't let her ride a horse. It's the one thing Ben's parents clearly did correctly was not letting him ride a dang horse until his 30s. When I was ready to. When you were ready. When you were adult. No horses, no skiing. I don't like any of that stuff.

[00:16:32] No, no. David, can I ask you a question? So when you first saw this movie, was it on two VHS tapes? It may have been on DVD. It may have been on the white DVD. You remember the sort of the Stanley Kubrick box set? The white director...

[00:16:47] The Masterpiece Collection or whatever it was called. Did you watch it on VHS, Karina? Yeah, I worked at a video store and I decided that I was just going to like take home all

[00:16:58] the movies one by one that were on two tapes because those were like probably important. And so... They always looked... Because they were so big. Those like brick, you know.

[00:17:08] And a lot of them I had seen before, you know, like my dad had had like the two tapes of The Godfather and the two tapes of Once Upon a Time in America and stuff like that.

[00:17:17] But there was, you know, some that I hadn't seen and Barry Lyndon was one of them. And so I took home the two VHS tapes and like we... I kept... Because at the video store I worked at, like you could take home whatever you wanted.

[00:17:28] You didn't have to check them out on the computer. And I just kept it at my house for a really long time because I just kind of kept watching it. And so nobody could check out Barry Lyndon for a while.

[00:17:39] Were people coming up and being like, Hey, do you have Barry Lyndon? You're like, no. Every now and then, yeah. And I would be like, oh yeah, it's lost. I don't know. This is also a movie that has its proper intermission, its proper break where the

[00:17:53] separation of the two VHS is as clean, I would imagine. Like it works as two meals. Yeah. I know the separation in the story is so perfect. Right. That's what I'm saying. It's designed to be split up into VHS tapes.

[00:18:05] It's almost like that was Kubrick's intent, the ideal way he wanted to be watched. I definitely did first watch it on like a 10 inch TV, though. That would be my... If I was watching it in college, I'm almost certain. And I loved it all the same.

[00:18:19] I mean, we weirdly haven't touched on this at all. But that's this constant source of relitigation with Kubrick's films is what is the correct aspect ratio? Because he was often trying to account for making images that would work well, both on a big screen and on a TV.

[00:18:39] As much as he was framing for theaters, he would sort of make sure there was the contingency plan of it will work on VHS, especially once that took off. And I feel like it's always you would hear about Vitali fighting Warner Brothers, fighting

[00:18:54] fans over what was the way he wanted it to be seen. And should home video presentations of the movies now be the theatrical presentations or what he approved for home video? Now that home video is obviously much higher fidelity and screens are bigger and all of that.

[00:19:09] Yeah, they had like pan and scan. That was like the only way to see it. Right. These like sort of carefully put together pan and scans for like 2001 or whatever. Right. But he would supervise. I don't know. Yeah. Right.

[00:19:22] So Barry Lyndon, Karina, do you know where this comes in his let me let me look at our research here. Yeah, I know where this comes in. In Kubrick's career, obviously, it's after Clockwork Orange. And right. It comes out of he's trying to make Napoleon.

[00:19:37] That's what's happening for him in the early 70s. He's ready to make his period epic. Right. Right. And I feel like we talked about this on the 2001 episode, Griffin, right? Or on the... We've been going wildly out of order.

[00:19:53] So it's hard to know when we've talked about what. But MGM, you know, was going to fund the Napoleon movie that didn't end up happening. Obviously, this movie is Warner Brothers, right? Yes, this is Warner Brothers. But they were going to start...

[00:20:11] We've talked about all of this, but like, you know, he read every single book. He wanted Jack Nicholson to play the role. He was scouting locations for the Napoleonic battle scenes, everything like that.

[00:20:24] And it just never came together because MGM got spooked because big costume war epics were just starting to flop over and over again at the box office. There's these movies like Waterloo and Charge of the Light Brigade and Sailor from Gibraltar,

[00:20:41] like all these movies that just didn't work. Yeah, Hollywood never really got over the failure of Waterloo. It was kind of their Waterloo. All right. Yeah. So there's some... I guess there's always been like, because this movie has people in tricorner hats,

[00:20:57] I think people have long thought that Linden took his Napoleon research and started putting it into Linden, but that's not true at all. Obviously, this is set way before Napoleon was alive. And it's just kind of the classic thing.

[00:21:12] Every time you dig into like, hey, why did Kubrick make this next? He's always just like, oh, I really like the book. He's always drafting off of a book. And he's always just pulling things off of the shelves and finally saying that he tapped into the story.

[00:21:26] Has anyone read? Karina, have you read Barry Linden by Thackeray? No, I've read Vanity Fair. So have I. Vanity Fair is the only one, but like the only Thackeray I've ever read. But I feel like he's the king in the Victorian era of like the antihero or whatever,

[00:21:44] or the non-heroic novels, right? That's sort of his thing. He would dare write these big epics that were not about particularly sympathetic characters. Yeah, Trollope did that too. But Trollope stuff was like serialized and then became novels largely.

[00:21:59] I, God, this is, I had a major Trollope phase as a kid. What's that, you know, that whole series, the Pallister novels, right? I read like four of those. Pallister goes to camp, Pallister scared stupid. Exactly. The Way We Live Now is kind of great.

[00:22:21] The Way We Live Now. I mean, it's like this big, but. I think I saw like a BBC Way We Live Now, possibly with David Suchet. Is that right? I think that checks out. Yes, and I think that is my only, yes, David Suchet, here he is.

[00:22:36] Oh yeah, this looks fun. Matthew McFadden, Shirley Henderson, Killian Murphy. I'm sure this rules. I should rewatch this. But anyway, no, I've never read Barry Lyndon, but Kubrick picks it off the shelf. He had said at one point he considered turning Vanity Fair into a film,

[00:22:52] but he couldn't figure out how to compress it into a feature length because it's so sprawling. But I guess Barry Lyndon, because it's focused on this one guy and it's got the through line of his journey through life, he was much more able to pick it.

[00:23:12] This is one of the rare written and directed by Kubrick, like no co-writing. Yeah, yeah. But you're right. He's not handing it off to someone. You're right, David, that Lyndon as a fictional text and Napoleon as a real guy are not so similar beyond being different eras.

[00:23:31] Their narratives are different. There are certain commonalities, but it does feel similar to Full Metal Jacket coming out of him trying to make a Holocaust movie. His head is in a very general space. He's obsessed with the subject.

[00:23:45] He cannot totally figure out how to get his mitts around. And then he finds a sort of simpler, cleaner narrative that allows him to explore some of the subjects he's been thinking on, but perhaps with a lot less of the pressure.

[00:24:01] He's able to make a period film about society and hubris here with this guy without the having to stage Napoleon's entire life and read 8000 books, as you're saying. Like the years he spent trying to figure out to give himself the confidence to feel like

[00:24:21] he was ready to make Napoleon versus just reading Barry Lyndon once and then going, oh, I could just adapt this. I could just take this book, copy it into a screenplay and make this right now. This narrative is ready. Just. Just, you know. Easy. Yeah. Um, yes.

[00:24:40] This is very cute. He got a big pile of art books for the references for everything they wanted to make all the clothes, the furniture, the vehicles and everything like that. He said that, quote, he had to very guiltily tear up a lot of beautiful art books.

[00:24:56] They were all fortunately still in print, so it felt a little less sinful. It's just funny to think about Kubrick feeling guilty doing this. Just ripping pages and crying. Right. And yeah, this is this is one of those things where because he's the only credited screenwriter,

[00:25:14] no one really saw a script. It's not like The Shining or Eyes Wide Shut or whatever. He's handing it to someone. They make a script for him and then he starts tinkering on it himself.

[00:25:26] Based numerous people involved in the movie just say like he was just working from the book. You know, clearly he did write a script. He had a draft or things like that. But I guess, you know, he really was just taking the book.

[00:25:41] I know I really want to read the book, but he did change the ending in the book. Barry gets pensioned off and Bullington comes back after that happens and finds Barry and beats him up, which sounds fun. So the whole duel is Kubrick's creation? Yes.

[00:26:05] He just thought it was not credible. I think he wanted a slightly more poetic ending, I guess. The ending in the book is truly just like Bullington beats the shit out of him and Barry dies in prison a drunk, which is just maybe just a little too bleak.

[00:26:23] Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. And he really liked the idea of having a big duel in a barn with pigeons. That was what he wanted the ending to be. But then also, like the last image we have of Barry is that like a freeze frame of him

[00:26:39] bent over. I mean, it's like entering a carriage. It's a pretty funny punchline. The freeze frame always startles me. I don't know if you guys felt the same. Like, because it's so out of nowhere in the visual language. It's out of the language. Yeah, it is.

[00:26:56] I understand where he's coming from, where it feels too clean to have this guy end up behind bars in that way. Like the notion of the greatest punishment for this guy isn't being held accountable for his crimes in a prison. It's being sort of made meaningless. Yeah.

[00:27:19] You know, it's like here you go off in a carriage off to the countryside and you're just no longer allowed to speak to any of these people ever again. Also, he's like crippled and living with his mom. Yeah. Right.

[00:27:30] I also just feel though, I like that it's like if Barry Lyndon blows through your life, you're going to end up writing a check to him guiltily at the end of the year. Like every year being like, God, Barry Lyndon. Remember that?

[00:27:41] You know, like that should be the impact of Barry Lyndon. Right. But the fact that you end with the check writing. Yep. You know how much he hates it. Right. Oh, yeah. You're not seeing you don't end the movie with him opening up an envelope, getting a

[00:27:57] check and going, yes, it's that time of the month again. No, I mean, the indignity of this, all he ever wanted was to leave where he came from. And he just ends up right back where he started, but worse off than ever.

[00:28:11] And the money is not going to make him feel any better. No, of course not. He's he's miserable and he has one leg and he's not famous anymore. He's not cool anymore. Yeah. Yes.

[00:28:23] But no, the other massive change that he makes is that the novel is told from Barry's first person perspective. And he is like a classic unreliable narrator who's always going on about how great he is.

[00:28:35] And Kubrick decided that was not going to work in a movie and he wanted the, you know, the objective narrator in the movie. And Ryan O'Neill despised that. And it's why Ryan O'Neill hates the movie, because Ryan O'Neill didn't know that was

[00:28:52] going to, I guess, be put in the movie. He didn't know that would be the narrator. Yes. Was it was that a change that was made midstream or did O'Neill just not know? I think O'Neill just didn't know.

[00:29:03] It's very odd of Ryan O'Neill to hold contempt for anyone. He's such a notoriously chill, collaborative guy. Now, Karina, Ryan has come up on You Must Remember This, right? Surely. Well, yeah, because I did a whole season about Pauly Platt. You did the Big Dan of it.

[00:29:19] You did the Pauly Platt season. Yeah. He wouldn't talk to me. I tried to interview him, but he wouldn't talk to me. I mean, I just have the impression that he is possibly like the most unpleasant star

[00:29:32] in history or at least the most famously unpleasant guy to work with in Hollywood history. Maybe there's a top 10. Like, I almost don't want to give him too much credit for being the worst.

[00:29:44] But, you know, I just find him so funny in this movie because it seems like he's not in control of his performance and because it just feels like Kubrick is like, OK, Ryan, so in the next one, do less.

[00:29:57] And you just see like there's some shots where it's just like Ryan O'Neill, like looking confused and like not really understanding what's happening. And it's just so perfect. It's I mean, it's such good metacasting or not even metacasting.

[00:30:15] I mean, you know, I think there are clever ways in which he's using Ryan O'Neill's baggage as a movie star up until this point. But it also is you're casting a guy who basically feels the way that Barry Lyndon does.

[00:30:29] He so badly wants to prove that he is a serious actor worthy of being the lead in a Kubrick movie and Kubrick's essentially saying, like, just just be yourself. Just sit there and I'll use you the way I want to use you. Totally.

[00:30:43] And it's like I mean, and then it's like this crazy thing where like this model is in the movie with him and it's like she comes off as giving almost a better performance. Absolutely. Undeniably. But but he's perfect in this.

[00:30:57] It's I mean, the other thing I'd heard about this movie for so long is, oh, Barry Lyndon would be good if Ryan O'Neill wasn't so bad in the lead role. It's like one of those movies marred by terrible casting in the lead role.

[00:31:07] And it's one of those things where it's like no one else could have played this. He is perfect. You can argue that he's not a great actor, which I would say. And I don't think this is one of his best performances, but it's the best application

[00:31:19] of him in any movie. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think Bogdanovich got like better performances out of him. Yes, I agree. Paper Moon is probably his best performance, right? Yeah. And What's Up Doc? He's great. Those are the two best.

[00:31:31] I give him credit for what he's doing performances in his career, I would say. But I think that, you know, because the casting is so perfect in this, even though, you know, what he's showing off is not like virtuoso acting. There is a star power that comes through.

[00:31:48] Yes, I agree. So, you know, some of the people I watch it with last night, like we're not that familiar with his filmography and they're like, did he make any movies after this?

[00:31:57] And yes, in fact, he made quite a few, but they're just none of them are classics on the level of this or the Bogdanovich movies. I think when he's playing Bogdanovich in Irreconcilable Differences, it's really funny.

[00:32:09] But that's kind of the only one I would point to as being something worthwhile. This is the end of like his lucky streak decade. The only other movie I like him in is The Driver and that is a similar, which is that sorry, that is after Barry Lyndon.

[00:32:25] And then it's a similar like, give me nothing, Ryan, like blank, blank, blank, like, you know, just be a good looking guy, which he is good at. There's that anecdote I think about all the time.

[00:32:35] Interview David Fincher did talking about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo casting process and how belabored that was. And it was, you know, it was like the Scarlett O'Hara thing of a year of the press breathlessly writing about every single actress who had tested or read for that.

[00:32:50] And all the people who got close, like Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman until he landed on Rooney Mara. And he said, the thing was, I saw these people who were really, really good actors and were giving really good auditions and were transforming themselves into this character.

[00:33:04] But Rooney Mara was the only person who felt fundamentally weird in the way I wanted the character to be just in her basic being. And I think you need to cast people based on whatever the core fundamental quality you need is for that character.

[00:33:18] Because if it's three o'clock in the morning and you're on a 200th take and you're 100 days into production, you need the thing that's still going to be there in them that cannot

[00:33:26] be, you know, beaten out of them, that they'll never going to be too tired to deliver the core essence. And it's like that's the Ryan O'Neill casting here. I forget who it is.

[00:33:37] And I've quoted this before, but some entertainment writer, it might even been just a tweet asking, is Ryan O'Neill the most fundamentally unlikable actor to ever become an A-list star? And it is funny to think about because outside of Love Story, which is almost bizarre that

[00:33:54] the movie is such a big hit with him in it, the things like the Bogdanovich movies kind of riff off of him being a shitbag, you know? And it's not like he was this sort of cad where it's fun to watch him like work his way through situations.

[00:34:07] It's not like he was Gene Hackman where it's like, oh, he's a compelling son of a bitch. He just always was this guy who was kind of annoying and insincere and arrogant. Yeah, but in a weird way that sets up really good, interesting female performances. Yes.

[00:34:22] You know, like in just in these like four movies that we just mentioned, like Pretty — Pretty Woman, Paper Moon, What's Up, Dog? Barry Lyndon and Irreconcilable Differences. It's like all of them have female performances that like pop out and that he's kind of

[00:34:39] — like what he lacks, it allows the actress to provide. That's an amazing point. I think even Love Story you could say that. Yeah. Yeah. No, and it is — I mean, you know, I think — I don't give him credit for it.

[00:34:56] I don't think it's out of generosity, you know? But people talk a lot about major A-list male stars not wanting to take roles where they're secondary to the female lead, where they're supporting her story.

[00:35:07] I mean, certainly he didn't think that that was what was happening in Paper Moon. And, you know, allegedly he punched Tatum O'Neill when she got an Oscar nomination and he didn't. On the set of this movie.

[00:35:18] I mean, I believe the reason we know that story is because of Kubrick's wife telling it. Yeah. No, yeah. I mean, I think it was a thing that drove him crazy that every time he made a film, the other person popped harder than he did.

[00:35:33] But it is then crazy that he had this run of working with good directors on wildly, you know, beloved films with incredible performances. And then, yeah, it does feel like he just sort of self-destructed after that. And yeah, it is this weird combination.

[00:35:48] I'm talking about like, is he the most despised actor in the history of Hollywood? Is he the most toxic, you know, movie star ever? Maybe he's not number one, but it's the odd combination of there are people who were

[00:36:00] really charming and compelling on screen, and then you hear nightmare stories about them. It's rare that there's a guy like this where his basic movie star quality was being kind of unlikable. And then also you hear that he was even worse off set.

[00:36:16] And yet he was a leading man. He wasn't playing the heavy, you know, he's an odd, odd fucking figure. Yeah, he is. I do love him in this movie. He does seem like a huge asshole. He hated that he wasn't narrating it.

[00:36:33] He said, I didn't see the movie for a year and a half. When I did, I didn't know what I saw. I still don't. Some people like it. Some people fall asleep. But his take is, I was supposed to narrate the movie.

[00:36:44] Kubrick got some bored Englishman to do it. And if he's bored, what's the audience going to be? Weird take, but okay. What's the audience going to be? Having a great time laughing at you. That's the answer. Having a fucking ball rolling in the aisles.

[00:36:59] Stanley, he said Kubrick wrote him a mean letter because he was mad that Ryan didn't like the movie. And I wrote him back saying, look, the movie I saw was like walking through a museum, which is all right, but we shot an adventure story. And that was it.

[00:37:13] But Ryan O'Neal's- He thought he was making an adventure story? Well, the guy doesn't have an adventure. He joins the army and then he's in a different army. There are duels. There's romance.

[00:37:26] But does he think this movie is like an inspirational tale of this guy on the come up? Yeah, maybe he does. On some level it is. On some level it is like the scoundrels' triumph and tragedy. Yeah. I totally understand why he would see that.

[00:37:48] He learned how to sword fight. He probably thought he was Errol Flynn. He goes pretty far. He becomes a gentleman. I mean, when you meet him in the beginning, you don't see him as a gentleman. And then his mom fucks everything up for him. Kinda, yeah.

[00:38:04] I still like his mom, though. She's fun. Oh, she's cool. It's another thing that maybe helps this performance is that he fundamentally thinks he's in a different movie than he is. That he is playing it so thoroughly as the hero of the picture.

[00:38:17] Like he does not play conniving. It's in his core being, perhaps, his competitiveness. But he needs to be stupid enough to do the stuff he does. Does that make sense?

[00:38:31] He is kind of smart and clever in some ways, but he also needs to be so stupid that he'd be like, yeah, I'm like a captain. I'm Captain Soldier. And I'm going to give some papers to General Army. Having no idea where Bremen is. Right, exactly.

[00:38:49] He's got to be a little dumb. At the end of the day, by the way, O'Neill's major take on this movie is I was very well paid. My deal was for 18 weeks. After 18 weeks of work, we'd done about four pages of the script.

[00:39:00] And so everything after that was overtime and I was just like, earning it. Hey, that cool. That cool. It's one of the reasons that a quote unquote better actor in this role would be to the

[00:39:12] detriment of the movie is that there's something kind of inscrutable about Barry and that he's Barry and then he's just kind of operating on animalistic instincts, right? Like he wants to move up. He wants to get rich. He wants to get laid.

[00:39:27] And you never can see the gears turning in his head. I mean, what you're saying, David, about he kind of needs to be this stupid to believe that he can get away with everything. And every time he makes a move, it just feels impulsive. It feels reactionary.

[00:39:40] There's no strategizing in his head. He's never thinking big picture. He's just constantly trying to move forward and move up. Uh, let's yeah, let's talk about the plot of the movie, right? I don't know. Let's go through it a little bit.

[00:39:55] I want to ask one fundamental question before. Sure, go ahead. We get into the plot of it just as we're, you know, closing the book on on Ryan O'Neill's anger about not being the narrator.

[00:40:08] I can't speak for how the novel works on its own, but I think the version of this movie that is narrated by him from his perspective would be so oppressive. Like, I do not want to live in this guy's head.

[00:40:22] I want to observe him almost from an anthropological level, which the narration in this movie provides you like it feels like you're watching a nature documentary about this resilient species. But could you imagine having to like listen to this guy's inner monologue? No, it'd be so boring.

[00:40:39] What if he was no, I mean, yeah, it would just exhaust. I don't know, Karina. I don't know what you think. I don't know how much of an inner monologue he has, you know?

[00:40:50] I don't know that he I mean, I think it is like basically Ryan O'Neill saying like I was it was an adventure. Then I had another great idea. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And women love me. Right. Then I met this lady and she thought it was super cute.

[00:41:06] And so I just I was loving all my stories. He was eating it up. In your research, did Ryan O'Neill say like I read the book and I thought it was going to be like that? Or do you think he didn't bother reading the book?

[00:41:20] He certainly is citing the book that, you know, like in the book, Blunden narrates his own deranged view of things. And I thought that's what made the story work. He was an 18th century crackpot. So that makes it sound like he read the book.

[00:41:37] Now, maybe he just read a script that was going off of the book. I don't know. But like, I guess he certainly had a picture in his head of, quote unquote, playing an 18th century crackpot. And as you said, like he took it seriously. He sword fought.

[00:41:52] He's obviously attempting an accent, you know, sort of not that well, in my opinion. I really care. But and I kind of wonder, like, I feel like Kubrick's the kind of guy where like if O'Neill

[00:42:06] came in with like a thick accent, Kubrick would be like, Ryan, stop doing that voice. And maybe they just compromised on what is in the movie. It seems like a lot of Kubrick's direction was like, chill out and be yourself. Yeah. Which is fine.

[00:42:25] Kubrick's quote here is, he looked right and I was confident he possessed much greater acting ability than he'd been allowed to show in any of the films he'd previously done. Classic Kubrick quote. Classic, like, weird neg.

[00:42:40] He's like, I mean, you're not good in movies that you've done, but I assume you can be. And Kubrick's very much just like we got on fine. I mean, the funniest story in this research is that like, and you hear this about from

[00:42:56] a lot of people who work with Kubrick. It's like when we hung out, we would just talk about sports. Like that's what we did. We just talk about football or whatever. And then Marissa Berenson says, like, he barely talked to me. He approached me with great hesitation.

[00:43:11] He would write me letters instead of coming up to talk to me. With Ryan O'Neill, they would talk about sports and quote, this is her exact words, the way men do among themselves. But for Marissa Berenson, he would send letters that were very personal and arrived whenever

[00:43:28] he felt it was necessary to communicate with me. So Stanley Kubrick, a bit of a shy guy with absolutely stunning, striking ladies. I don't know. Yeah, but also most actors. I mean, the anecdotes we found on Eyes Wide Shut feel like the only time we're reading

[00:43:46] stories of him actually feeling comfortable talking to actors. No, he mostly, yeah, seems fairly shy with actors. Not bossy exactly. Although obviously he would make them do it over and over again. But that's different. That's sort of him searching for whatever it is he wants.

[00:44:03] It's almost him searching for the thing he cannot figure out how to communicate to them. You know, the take after take after take is I'll know it when I see it. I don't know how to put it into words. I mean, we haven't really talked about the movie.

[00:44:15] We should talk about the movie. But like, I feel like people know the other side of things more, which is the movie took a year to make. It was entirely shot on location. So it was extraordinarily expensive for the time.

[00:44:26] And obviously, it's shot with like natural light and candles. And they had to use insane like NASA lenses. Well, we can get into this stuff later. But I feel like this is what Barry Lyndon almost became notorious for in a way that

[00:44:41] almost obscured what's so wonderful about the movie is that it's like, oh, did you know like all of the sort of like Herculean technical effort that went into making it? And obviously, all that stuff is fascinating.

[00:44:55] But it also helps it feel like this hermetic art, you know, hanging on the wall in a museum, right? But it's not. The four movies, you know, on either side, 2001 Clockwork Orange, Shining Full Metal

[00:45:09] Jacket are all movies that are so crisp, like so kind of like knife sharp, ice cold, incredibly controlled, you know, absurdly sharp focus. This movie has this this warmth to it visually, that isn't just the use of candles and

[00:45:32] everything, but the fact that they're, you know, the low light gives it this softness and this warmth. And I do think the compositions in this movie, as much as they're painterly don't feel as controlled. They do feel a little more organic and romantic to me.

[00:45:51] It feels bizarre for this to be the movie where people finally got fed up and said, oh, he's too caught up with his images. Yeah, I don't know. It's the best. It begins with Barry Lyndon in 1750s Ireland. His dad is dead, killed in a duel, right?

[00:46:09] Over the sale of horses or something. He's a bit of a mama's boy. God bless, you know, his mom's great. And he's in love with his cousin Nora and he's, you know, playing flirty ribbon games with her. But she's got to marry a very priggish captain.

[00:46:29] I love that guy, Leonard Rossiter, who plays Captain Quinn. He's got such a face, you know, the whole time when he's like, I'm trying to do his face. Him dancing? Yeah. He's so good. There's such good physical comedy. Such a goof.

[00:46:46] And then the incredible joke later where Ryan O'Neill, where Barry Lyndon has to say, like, wait, are there two Captain Quinns? The idea that this guy makes such a distinct impression that there could be no other guy

[00:46:58] with this name, you know, who could be mistaken for this man possibly. The ribbon scene is, you know, the moment where I was surprised by how immediately the movie is playing fully in a comedic realm, because Kubrick just lets that scene go on forever. It's really long.

[00:47:21] That is what my friend is turning to me being like, what have you put on? Right. What the fuck is this? Can I ask you guys a question? Which, like, I don't know how horny this podcast gets, but... Oh, very. Please go ahead.

[00:47:33] Do you think that he has sex with his cousin or do you think he's a virgin when he meets the German lady? I... He does not operate like a virgin in that scene with the German lady. Yeah.

[00:47:45] I wonder if he has sex with the cousin or not, but I don't feel like that's his first time. If I know Barry the way I do, I have a feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's fucked somewhat. Or at least they, like, roll around.

[00:47:59] They're rolling around in the hay, right? Like, doesn't the whole Barry Lyndon, like, you roll with that guy in the hay at the very least. Maybe you're not going all the way, but... He's not stopping at ribbon stuff. He's going further than that. Yeah. And it's just like...

[00:48:14] Yeah, definitely. If he's... The scene with the German lady, he is so masterful in his manipulation of that situation. That is not someone who feels the pressure of, fuck, fuck, am I about to lose my virginity? Like, that doesn't have the urgency of some high school idiot.

[00:48:30] But I wonder if he's, like, such a sociopath that he's like, I'm going to play this. Like, I do this every day. He, to me, has the sociopath energy of someone who, like, lost their virginity at 12, though.

[00:48:48] I mean, look, my whole thing is there was nothing to do back then. It's so boring. It's so boring that you can have an afternoon just, like, putting a ribbon on someone and then trying to get it. Um, like, surely people were just having sex, right?

[00:49:02] I know it was against the rules. But, like, what else are you supposed to do all day? Yeah, sure. Right. Don't go having sex on me. And it's like, fuck, now what am I supposed to do?

[00:49:11] Karina, you think he's a virgin who's such a gifted liar that even if he loses his virginity at the age of, you know, whatever, 25, he's still just kind of like a smooth operator?

[00:49:24] Well, first of all, I have no idea how old he's supposed to be at any point in this movie. Neither do I. But... Neither do I. I assume that when we first meet him, he's somewhere between like 16 and 18. But who knows? Because Ryan O'Neal is, what, 37? So, yeah.

[00:49:39] So basically, like, one of the things that I love about the character and also why Ryan O'Neal is perfect casting is that he becomes this guy who's like, I know I can just get it.

[00:49:49] Like, I know women just, like, I know how to just get it from women. But what's interesting is that Kubrick, like, doesn't show us any kind of transition between, like, him being sort of an absolute goober with his cousin. Trembling.

[00:50:04] And then, like, you know, being this stud who can just get it with a German lady. And so my question is, like, was he having sex with the cousin, like, in scenes that we don't see?

[00:50:16] And so he knows he does have this ability to, like, manipulate women sexually? Or is he faking it until he makes it with the German lady? And then that unlocks a new level of his sociopathy. The German lady is so nice.

[00:50:32] The German lady is so, like, open and friendly to him that he can almost, like, practice, like, with her, like, without being as scared, right? Yeah. And I think what makes him so nervous about the whole cousin situation is the transgression

[00:50:49] and the fact that it is happening in the middle of everyone's view. Well, also, I mean, truly a terrifying question. I mean, if he's going to go through with the duel, I would say that he's, you know, pretty infatuated, right?

[00:51:05] And maybe, you know, going all the way, right, is going to, like, really motivate him. Are you saying having gone all the way will motivate him? Or the prospect of getting to go all the way once you win the duel? Yeah.

[00:51:19] Like, is he going to kill to get it in? Right. Would you get killed to get it in? It's a really good question. I don't know. I don't either. But I wonder if it's like we're seeing his origin story.

[00:51:34] It's like this is the last time he was scared rooting around in a woman's bosom for a ribbon. Yeah, we all have our first time where we're scared of doing that. But after that, Barry Lyndon was great at three things. Dueling, fucking and I don't know, lying. Gambling.

[00:51:51] Yeah, sure, gambling. Yeah, right. Is he good at gambling or is he just good at cheating? No, no, he's terrible. He's good at lying. He's good at cheating. There's also something to, I mean, at the beginning of this movie, he's, you know,

[00:52:06] there's no social scene in this time, right? There's not a TGI Fridays he can go to pick up women. So there's a pub. There's a pub, but it's still like, what are my options? Fuck, I really want to fuck my cousin. Yeah.

[00:52:18] You know, to some degree, he needs to get out there and find some other people. Well, there's also the class system too, right? Which is like a way of how you decide who you're going to get with in the first place.

[00:52:27] Right, so it's like these, this is where you are. And he's just high enough that he doesn't have to take care of cows all day. But like no higher. And he doesn't get to marry his cousin. It's all the more torturous to him.

[00:52:38] Like the only woman in his immediate vicinity who he is interested in is the woman that he should not be with by any means. And there's no way to keep it a secret. You know, everyone knows they know what the fuck he's up to. Yes.

[00:52:52] And what happens is he has to fight in a duel with the priggish John Quinn, and he shoots him. And so he has to run away. Uh, dueling, obviously, kind of the funniest thing in this very funny movie. Yeah. And kind of the best representation.

[00:53:11] Because like Barry Lyndon is basically about how like, you know, 18th century Europe is just medieval and barbaric. But everyone is dressed up and has fancy wigs and has powdered faces. And it's like, after you, sir. Right, this performative sophistication to let themselves believe they've evolved as

[00:53:32] you know, just evil, amoral muck. And so, of course, the funniest thing is the idea that when we do it, we're just like, well, I shall shoot at you and then you shall shoot at me. You know, this is all very proper.

[00:53:45] It's also just so funny that this is a work that everyone in Barry Lyndon's life conspires together to be like, we got to get rid of this fucking guy. What will actually get him to stay away?

[00:53:56] And it's like, we got to make him think that he will face serious repercussions for a death that in fact never happened. And his only recourse is to run as far away as possible and never look back.

[00:54:08] Hey, but Barry's doing it for love, whereas they're all doing it for money. So who's right and who's wrong? Do you see what I'm saying? Pro Barry, sure. I'm still maybe a little leaning a little pro Barry. You're playing Barry's advocate.

[00:54:22] We are all, I don't know if you feel this, Karina, but like early in the film, you're fairly pro Barry because Quinn is such a jerk and Barry seems like more of an honest boy. And he gets, you know, he gets put in this situation.

[00:54:36] You don't want anybody to fuck their cousin. Even back then when options were limited, especially in England, I can say this as a half English person, you know, I mean, certainly entire families were started amongst cousins, but it's not what you want. And certainly not a first cousin.

[00:54:56] But I also do think that there is something, you know, having seen this movie for the first time as a teenager and then, you know, I think that oftentimes you can have completely different experiences with films as you age.

[00:55:10] And I think that when I was much younger, I did sort of feel like, you know, like Barry is a romantic hero in the beginning. And then watching it at age 42, I feel somewhat differently.

[00:55:22] But then I also am just so annoyed by the children in this movie now. So I mean, there is this puppy dog quality to him up until the duel where even if he's not sympathetic, he doesn't quite seem like a monster yet.

[00:55:39] You know, the movie, I would say, tricks you, but you seem stupid. He seems so stupid. That's the thing. And he's got this dumb fucking look on his pretty face where you can sort of feel bad

[00:55:51] for him by default because you're like, well, this guy doesn't know any better. And so the first couple of times he starts strategically lying, it's almost surprising that this guy has the wherewithal. He's so honest when he's being robbed, you know, he just completely tells the truth and

[00:56:07] it doesn't work out for him. So why wouldn't you start lying? Right. It's just like this guy at the beginning of the movie feels like he doesn't know how to take care of himself. He doesn't know how to protect himself.

[00:56:18] And then he becomes the most incredible sort of strategic thinker. Like right after the duel, his mom and I don't know, his friend, they're talking about him like he isn't there and he's sitting right next to them. You know what I mean?

[00:56:31] Like they're letting the viewer know like this guy is such a moron that people talk about him like this. And also, once again, everyone in his life conspired to get him as far away as possible.

[00:56:43] They all teamed up and we're like, we all agree we want him out of here. Mother included. Everybody was like, we just get him fucking out of here. Bad news. The guy who robs him, Captain Feeny, by the way, is a real highwayman who wrote an autobiography

[00:57:00] that Thackeray loved so much that he was like, I'm going to put you in my book. Wow. So he's being robbed by like a famous highwayman like that. So when that guy's like, look, I've heard a lot of stories. Yours is pretty good. But money, please.

[00:57:14] Like that does not change. So Captain Feeny, the highwayman, steals his money so he has no recourse except to join the British Army. And the first thing he does, well, no, I guess the first thing he does is he fights the guy,

[00:57:29] the other guy in the army, right? Is that before the battle? We must form a square. Yes, right. Another example of ridiculous gentlemanly rules being imposed on like brute violence. But also just immediately wanting to stir up shit when he gets there, you know?

[00:57:46] It almost feels like he's fresh meat at a prison trying to prove his worth so everyone backs off. I love the guy feeding him lines. He's so great in that scene. Yeah. I also love his captain. What's his, you know, his first Captain Grogan.

[00:58:02] Godfrey Quigley is the actor. That guy's a G. He's also kind of a scoundrel and that's why they like each other. Right. I believe he's also, he's a prison warden in Clockwork Orange. There's a lot of overlap with Clockwork Orange in these casts.

[00:58:20] And with The Shining as well, you know, Kubrick reused guys. But it does feel like all these supporting actors are giving Monty Python performances in like a good way, you know? Like they're all on this wavelength that everyone other than Barry is.

[00:58:34] They're sort of all playing the humor that Kubrick recognizes and Barry is very straight and steadfast in it. Corporal Tool is the one he fights at the beginning, right? It sounds right. Who's Pat Roach, who's like that stuntman who exists five times over the Indiana Jones movies,

[00:58:51] plays like the German mechanic and the thuggy guard, whatever. It's just this ultimate like big British unit tough guy for smaller heroes to fight. He's, he was also, he's in, he's the bouncer at the milk bar in Clockwork Orange. Yes. Yes. I really like all of that.

[00:59:09] But I mean, the thing I like the most just is the depiction of the Seven Years War. It's just, it's just, just walk that way slowly. Don't even run. Just walk while we play the fife and the drums.

[00:59:21] And they're just going to keep shooting at you until you get to them. And that's when we'll, then that's, that's when we unleash our deadly counterattack. Song's catchy though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I was whistling it this morning, getting set up for the episode.

[00:59:37] Ben was air drumming in the theater. His head banging too. And then you turned to me and you said, you just never get a good timpani in movies. You don't. But yeah, I don't know what anyone make of all the sort of British war stuff.

[00:59:52] Like it's really just that he deserts pretty quickly. He deserts in like the first skirmish, right? Once Grogan is dead. Yeah, I don't blame him. I mean, I do, you know, every time I, we have to talk about a war movie on this podcast and

[01:00:04] I just spiral at the thought, but it's like, yeah, do what Barry Lyndon does. Do anything you can to get out of there as quickly as possible. Also, like there's no internet, like, you know, nobody's going to be able to Google him and find out who he is.

[01:00:14] So yes, yes, it's true. Yeah. And that's when he encounters the beautiful Frau Leishen. Uh, who's that actress? She's great. Gay something. Um, is it gay Hamilton? No, no, no, no. Gay Hamilton is Nora. Yes. Yeah, I don't. Oh, Diana Korner is her name. Yeah, she's a nobody.

[01:00:38] It's not a nobody. That's rude. But she didn't do a lot of movies. This is maybe her only English language film. It seems like she mostly did German films. But that I feel like that is the first scene like Karina was saying where suddenly it's

[01:00:51] like, oh, Barry is like flexing his charm muscles in ways we haven't seen before. Yeah. And even though he is still a dope who barely knows how to, you know, stay one step ahead of a conversation. But he's weaponized it. Yes.

[01:01:08] And then after that is when he encounters Captain Potsdorf and briefly pretends to be on his level, but is arrested essentially and enlisted in the Prussian army. Okay. It's not that easy to impersonate an officer. Right. Give me some credit.

[01:01:26] I feel like I'm just going to keep defending Barry a little bit here and there. I don't think we could pull that off necessarily. I also just think it's kind of stunning to watch how quickly he swerves. Yeah.

[01:01:38] He's arrested for impersonating an officer and he's like, okay, but hear me out. What if I started fighting for you guys? Right. Well, it's all you can do, really. I mean, it's that or be shot. I don't think he's left with much of a choice. Yeah.

[01:01:50] But you're saying you're impressed that he just... He makes the most of the situation, right? Yeah. Then he saves the guy's life and then the guy is like, okay, well, we're just going to make you a spy. Right. He's like a hermit crab of status.

[01:02:05] He just constantly needs to find the next shell that he can fit into and ride that out as long as he can until something new presents itself. And it's truly just move forward, move up.

[01:02:16] Well, he truly can't go home, especially after he knows that his cousin did marry that guy and everybody in his town conspired to get rid of him. Yeah. You can't go home after that happens. Yeah, that's true. There's no looking back. Yeah.

[01:02:31] He can't go home and be like, I found out that you guys staged an elaborate duel just to make me leave. That's too embarrassing. Yeah. Instead, he joins the Prussian army, which is worse. Yes. I mean, it's almost like...

[01:02:47] Again, being a British person, I have it very deeply in my DNA, this class consciousness and this understanding of how for most people in British history, this feeling that where you're born into is where you die and it's hopeless.

[01:03:02] And there's so much discouragement to even try to rise. And so when you are somebody like him who's like, I can't go back to where I'm from, so I have to scramble to something else.

[01:03:17] On one hand, it's like there is even more of a desperation than there would be in another society. But on the other hand, you're also hated by everybody else. Karina, I did not know you were British. I am also British. Wait, I'm sorry, what?

[01:03:29] On my dad's side of the family, a Longworth. Sure. It should have been a tell. I'm Eastern European Jew on the maternal side. Karina, we're the same. I mean, we're not exactly the same, but my mother is an Eastern European Jew and my dad was an Englishman. Yeah.

[01:03:47] So I have, you know, I'm short. I don't know what to say. Oh, I'm tall. I have potato farming legs on both sides. Okay, sure, sure. Yes, I am English, Griffin. Did you know that? No, I hadn't heard that.

[01:04:02] I can't believe it's only coming up now eight years into the podcast. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, you're right, of course. And like Barry Lyndon's class, like you say, it's not like he's not when the movie is beginning, he is not like a peasant, obviously.

[01:04:16] He has enough status that he can sort of see into the higher echelon of society. That's why he has enough to know what he doesn't have. Right. He's scraping more acutely aware. Right. And I guess one thing I love is it's like, is Barry good?

[01:04:34] He wins a medal in the Prussian army for saving his captain's life. But we never see him being good at being a soldier. I feel like Kubrick's like, that's irrelevant. I'm not interested in like the heroism. Yeah, he shoots out of the window. Yeah. Yeah, right.

[01:04:50] We get that one thing. The portrayal of war is funny in that no one's screaming. Everyone's just kind of like, just like it's matter of fact, in a weird way. They get shot too fast to scream. Yeah.

[01:05:04] And I think it's also what David's saying of like, this is a time when they are really trying to dress everything up in an air of civility and class to act like war is no longer barbaric.

[01:05:17] It is just so funny to watch a movie like this and think about like, people in war used to dress so fancy. You had to be a gentleman of war. Yeah, right. You know, whereas now everything is like tactical, functional, practical.

[01:05:32] It's like no one looks better than the soldiers on the front line of a war. They have very nice jackets. It's true. Yeah. Gold buttons. Yeah. And they're just going to be shot and fucking pushed into the mud.

[01:05:44] Well, it was partly also like they wanted to, you know, get you into it. They wanted to recruit you, right? It's like, hey, you're going to get a nice uniform. You're going to look fancy. You're going to be a hero.

[01:05:56] It's the best clothes that a lot of people ever had. Right. A hundred percent. And it does, of course, work for Barry. Like it's enough for him to at least get a foothold again. Obviously, the Prussians just want to use him as a spy.

[01:06:09] And it makes sense that they do. But he is also the worst spy ever, because on his first spy mission, he like two sentences into his spy, like, you know, cover story is like, I have to tell you something.

[01:06:21] I'm an Irishman like you, and I think you're just grand and they want to spy on you. But I think you're great. I think he does that on purpose, though. I don't think he's being done. He sees an opportunity. Absolutely. Yeah, I think so. Right.

[01:06:35] To the Chevalier, Patrick McGee as the Chevalier. Great look. Love it. Every performance in this movie is great. Yeah, he's kind of my favorite, though. Well, I do like John Quinn and then Liam Vitale is amazing. And then Merce Barrinson is amazing. Everyone's really good in this movie.

[01:06:56] I feel like the Chevalier, like he almost looks like a wizard or something. Like, does that make sense? The way he's styled, it makes sense that he's a famous gambler because he almost looks like just sort of like a magical being.

[01:07:10] Like, why else would he be so good at this game of chance? It's so great when Barry dresses up like him. Yes. So a couple of diamonds on the face and we're done, right? Little red cheeks.

[01:07:25] So instead of spying on this guy, he becomes a confederate of his and they just go around cheating at cards, cheating the richest people on earth at cards. And anytime they're accused of cheating, Barry duels with them and wins, right? That is essentially their con. Yeah. Right?

[01:07:41] Is there anything more to it than that? I mean, this is the part of the movie that would be a TV show. Like if somebody was like, let's reboot Barry Lyndon, like that's where you start probably.

[01:07:51] So like every week, it's like a new foppish count that they have to get one over on? Yeah. But also, yeah, I mean, like, I do think Paper Moon is probably his best performance in terms of him consciously knowing what he's doing.

[01:08:07] He is incredibly good at playing con men. It is a thing that Ryan O'Neill is perfect fit for the combination of charm and sort of ruthlessness. Yeah, 100%. And he's low-key very funny. And the scenes are very beautiful.

[01:08:29] This is where there's so much of the candlelit, indoor, warm, dark atmospheres, right? And just the way like the negative space, like just these gigantic, empty fucking houses, where like basically none of them are being used.

[01:08:46] Like every time you just see a little table set up in one of those rooms, and there's just nothing around anyone for a mile. I feel like I'm, I mean, I'm always laughing. Like it's so hilariously impractical to live in these houses.

[01:09:00] It's also got to be really cold inside. Like those fireplaces can only heat up so much, which gives them excuses to wear these coats indoors. I mean, my favorite thing about Lincoln, the Spielberg movie,

[01:09:12] is how everyone's got like blankets on all the time because it's so goddamn cold. I wish we saw more of that in these periods. Also, everyone's just wrapped in blankets. He's also cloaked in immense power. I mean, it's both. It's blankets and power. Yeah.

[01:09:26] So yeah, so wait, wait, why does this all fall apart? I guess they eventually get rumbled, and that's when he dresses up as the Chevalier and gets like escorted out of Prussia. But then it gets better. Around, right, then they're just going around Europe having fun.

[01:09:40] And they go to spa. Y'all ever been to spa? Spa Belgium? The town spas are named after? No, no. Is it really? Is that really where the spa comes from? Yeah, that's where he meets Lady, Lady Linden. That's where he meets Marissa Berenson in spa.

[01:09:56] It's literally called spa. It made the list of great spa towns of Europe, which is good. It would be embarrassing if they didn't make that list. You got to keep your legacy upheld. Yeah. But yeah, so this is when the high times are about to be over.

[01:10:11] Part one's about to conclude that the Barry Linden experiment is going to enter the aristocracy. But as Ben said, he's become a gentleman now. Pulled it off. He gets married. But this is pretty much everything is pretty much bad times, right? In part two.

[01:10:30] There's no the comedy is very bitter in the second part of the movie, whereas I feel like it's much more straightforward in the first part. Yeah, he's also reached the ceiling of how high he can possibly go.

[01:10:42] I mean, this guy's survival has been based in just moving forward, right? No one can really catch up to him because he never stops. And now he's very forced to stop. Is he so shitty at being an aristocrat because he knows he's not one?

[01:10:58] Like, is that why he resents Bullingdon so much? Why he's so abusive? Why he's you know, like, is it just because he knows, you know, this isn't him like inherently is sort of a self doubt kind of thing? I think it's part self loathing.

[01:11:15] And I think it's also this guy is insatiable. And now he has nowhere further to go. You know, he starts sort of self destructing. I don't think he really even thinks about it that way.

[01:11:26] I think like, like the scene behind you, Griffin, like that scene to me is him being like, like, I already have everything I want. I will not like I can't lose it.

[01:11:39] And then I don't think he really thinks that he has to try to get more until his mom is like you need a title. Yes, but his mom is sort of right in a way in that she's sort of like you're not you

[01:11:54] know, everyone wants to get rid of you. She's not wrong to notice this. You need an insurance policy. Right. But I just don't like why? Why be so mean to Bullingdon? Like if you just... Bullingdon sucks! Bullingdon's trying to get rid of him.

[01:12:09] The kids in this movie are just like that's when like Barry gets my empathy back is like every time he has to deal with a kid because they're all terrible. I mean, even Brian is like, where's my pencil?

[01:12:23] Yeah, but also, David, you ask, like, why is he so mean to Bullingdon? Bullingdon is born into a status higher than Barry can ever achieve. Like Barry's made it basically to the top of the mountain as far as he can go. And here's this little shit kid.

[01:12:38] And this kid is already a step ahead of him, a step further than he'll ever be. I mean, obviously, the big breaking point for Linden is that he beats up Bullingdon in public. And that is when he basically has to exit high society. But like, but...

[01:12:57] If you're this guy and you've like killed and lied and cheated to get to this point, and then here's this little shit and this is his starting point. This is like home plate for him.

[01:13:06] And also the little shit is like, you know, clearly and incestuously in love with his mother. And like, you know, Barry can spot that from a mile away. It's competition. But you also think, know thyself. Like Barry's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know from being a mama's boy.

[01:13:21] All right. I know your game. We haven't really talked about Marissa Berenson yet. She's incredible in this movie, but she is just kind of like, you know, this like, this painting person. She's so incredible to behold and she's so sort of sad and impressive. I don't know.

[01:13:42] Yeah, in Cabaret a couple years before this, we didn't talk about her much in the Cabaret episode, but she's excellent in that as well. I love how her hair gets bigger as she gets sadder. Like her emotions are feeding up her skull. It feels very real to me.

[01:13:57] It feels like how, you know, like women as like they're trying to hold on to like their youth and like feel things slipping away, get more plastic surgery and start looking like alien monsters. It feels like that time period version of that. Right.

[01:14:10] Let's just make the hair bigger. That'll draw the eye. Yeah. Yeah. He loved her in Cabaret and he called Stanley Donan, I guess who knew her and basically grilled Stanley Donan on everything about her. And then he just offered her the part kind of classic Kubrick.

[01:14:30] He doesn't even he just sort of like talks to you for a while. And then he's like, anyway, you're in Barry Lyndon. She had to stay in Ireland for the first part of the film. She's not in the movie.

[01:14:42] She literally stayed there for three months while they were making all that part of the movie. Basically paid vacation. Yes. Well, OK, if she's on set, then it's not. Well, available. I know. I don't think she was on set. Yeah.

[01:14:55] And as I said, he would write her little letters to talk to her. But she loves him. She says they have people have an image of Stanley's this difficult ogre. He wasn't at all. He's a perfectionist. But every great director I've worked with has been a perfectionist.

[01:15:09] You have to be to make extraordinary films. And yeah, where's Ryan? And she says Ryan O'Neill was OK and would crack jokes and try and make me laugh, which she didn't appreciate. Ryan O'Neill said of her that she was vacuous, giggly and lazy.

[01:15:26] Ryan O'Neill just a huge asshole. And that's a contemporary interview in Time magazine. He's given that interview the week this movie is coming out back. I mean, Karina, I'm sure you encountered this a lot for your own podcast, but people really

[01:15:41] went off in like unlike press day like back then because it was just going to be in a magazine and not get further, I guess, spread around the Internet or whatever. Like, yeah, it'd be so mean. I think there was an element of that.

[01:15:54] But they're also like they didn't do junkets the way they do junkets now where you're just like doing 100 interviews in a day and you just like memorize the thing to say. And then you can kind of go to the other place in your brain and go on autopilot.

[01:16:07] You know, wasn't media training. Yeah. But but I do think there is that thing where it's like even if you're being interviewed by Time magazine, you know, a magazine with this humongous circulation, anything you say in your mind.

[01:16:21] Next week, there'll be another issue like there's no permanence to this. Maybe people remember it, but it'll probably move on. The idea of these things being sort of like cataloged forever and not only that, that

[01:16:33] in our modern world, any outlet you talk to essentially has the same circulation as any other because it's all ending up on the same place. It's ending up on the Internet, which everyone has access to.

[01:16:42] I will say that, like, I think from the in the 70s, 80s, 90s, like something was happening that wasn't happening in Hollywood media before that, which was that if you did like give an incendiary interview to Time magazine or Rolling Stone or something, then they would

[01:16:56] start talking about it on the radio and on TV. And so it would have more of a media life cycle. And like if if they start talking about it on like, you know, Nightline or or 2020 or

[01:17:08] what, like The Today Show, then it becomes national and it like is broadcast to people who would never see the magazine. That's a good point. I mean, obviously, like when the studio system had total control over everything up through about like 1967, then that disappears.

[01:17:25] And but then a new control is attained basically by around the late 70s. Right. The new Hollywood shift of you no longer have Eddie Manix type people who are doing everything they can to manage a very specific image they want each star to represent.

[01:17:41] But then you get Pat Kingsley's. Yes, that's a great point. Yeah. I mean, also, like, again, to be clear, Ryan O'Neill is a special brand of jerk. Like it's not like everyone was dissing their co-stars in Time magazine. But I do think Berenson is amazing.

[01:18:00] I and you know, it is one of those like it's such a quiet performance. So much of it is like still much, you know, like but like when the movie is in its sort

[01:18:14] of desperately sad final act, like she feels very human, like she doesn't feel like some, you know, picture perfect countess like her. Her breakdown does feel like very like romantic and operatic, but it is it is believable. It's a very soulful performance.

[01:18:32] I mean, she does not have that much dialogue in the film. But it's not like Kubrick is just using her as a model, you know, as an object. I mean, there is bone deep feeling and so much of her arc plays out over looks.

[01:18:47] You know, it is her reaction. I mean, when she catches Barry in the act, she plays that so incredibly well. You see, you know, whereas Barry's kind of inscrutable and you cannot figure out what this guy is thinking. I do think you see play across her face.

[01:19:05] Her running through her lack of options. I guess my frustration with Barry in Act Two is it's like, obviously, he's never had any class. That's not the Barry Lyndon experience. But couldn't he have a little class about how he's going to cheat on his countess wife

[01:19:22] or, you know, be mean to his stepson? Like he's just making out with ladies in public like he can't, you know, act the part as required for, you know, high society. He's new money and everyone knows it. He's the newest damn money that could ever be money.

[01:19:42] He's so new. But I also just think that he correctly assesses that she's not going to divorce him. Right. You know, she's not like no matter how much Lord Billington like says, mommy, you must get rid of him. She's not going to unless like something catastrophic happens. Yeah.

[01:20:00] Or unless she meets another dude, which clearly she doesn't. In lieu of him having any further social strata that he can climb, the only way for him to grow is to flex his power within that position, which is just pretty much being flagrant about everything he does.

[01:20:17] He no longer needs to hide it. But he's like a squatter in like some luxury apartment. But that's what I mean. He's a guy. Can you leave? And he's like, no, I ain't leaving. He's a guy who's constantly pushing up against the walls of wherever he is. Right.

[01:20:31] Um, yeah. And so he just gets to this point where he's basically challenging them. What Karina said of like, what are you going to do? You're going to kick me out? No, you're not. I can do whatever the fuck I want. You can't touch me.

[01:20:40] You think that's what it is? Yeah, sure. I don't think it's I don't think he's he could ever verbalize that. I don't think he's thinking about it that way. I think he's animalistic, though. I think it is what drives him. He needs more.

[01:20:53] He needs some new rush when he's conquered something. He needs a new challenge in front of him. He also knows the system's rigged. Yeah. So, I mean, like, why like why not cheat and lie and do all these things if it's like

[01:21:08] rigged against you in the first place? Why play it fair? Why play it straight and end up like a blacksmith or whatever? Not there's anything wrong with being a blacksmith, but it's pretty cool, actually. Hard work. A lot of hammering. Seems like a lot of work.

[01:21:20] I don't want to say I want to do it, but it looks cool. Burning your skin. Yeah, no, it looks cool. Like for like an hour. I mean, you know, there's an open question as to like we see what happens when Barry

[01:21:32] Lyndon is like the most nouveau nouveau riche guy, like at like the top level of the class structure. Would he have been happier being like the big fish and like on the lowest level? Like just being like the hottest guy that like everybody thinks is super cool amongst

[01:21:51] like the working class? I don't think this guy would ever truly be happy. That's the thing. I think he just always will want more. It's why he sort of starts self-destructing once he finally gets to the place he thinks he wanted to be at.

[01:22:08] He would be good, though, as what Karina is talking about, which is essentially like the coolest guy at the soda shop in like the 50s or whatever. Like that. Yeah, I mean, he that probably would be his biggest strength because like he can't handle it.

[01:22:20] He can't his even as a father. He's a bad father, too. It's his most sympathetic, you know, badness or what, you know, his most sympathetic negative quality because he is at least an indulgent father.

[01:22:34] Like he's not like a complete asshole to his kid, but he's still bad at it. He's he's not he's not making any kind of long range thinking and you feel for him when his son dies like terribly. I actually found it difficult to watch this time.

[01:22:50] And I've seen this movie a lot of times because I forgot that it was drawn out. I forgot, you know, the boy goes back to the bed and all that. Don't you think so much of his love for his son, though, is that his son represents it's

[01:23:05] the opposite of everything he hates about bullying? Yeah, right. It's his. Sure. Here's this. It's narcissism. And it's also I think he like. He views him as an object of success. Look, I created someone who was born into a higher class than I. Absolutely.

[01:23:24] It's not just my insurance policy, but it's like what an amazing accomplishment. He'll be raised into a higher class. He'll be educated. Yeah, you know, he'll have everything, you know, that Barry didn't have. He's this tangible evidence that like Barry beat the system.

[01:23:38] And once he's dead, it really is like what is anyone doing here? Right. Everything just kind of collapses into super depression. And it is I do find I find that the last act of this movie like painfully sad, like it does work on me.

[01:23:55] And then I think it kind of has to write like otherwise you would really detach from the movie. Yeah, I agree. We should talk about Vitaly both like in this movie, in this performance, and also just his legacy within the Kubrick sort of world,

[01:24:13] especially because he so recently passed. Having not seen this movie until recently and just knowing the narrative of, oh, here was this promising up and coming actor, and he completely abandons his acting career to become Kubrick's personal assistant.

[01:24:27] I did not realize within that that he is like the third lead of the movie. I always assumed. Oh, he's got some small part in the film. That was the level his career was at.

[01:24:36] And he was so compelled by Kubrick that that's what he was giving up versus this is really kind of a low key star making performance. Yeah, I agree. I think he's excellent in this movie. I mean, it's what I think of when I think of Liam Vitale, obviously.

[01:24:51] But I do think he's really good. Basically carries the last hour of the film. I mean, the most important thing Bullingdon like the most important moment for Bullingdon is when he accidentally shoots when he, you know, when he prematurely discharges.

[01:25:07] And truly, perhaps one of the funniest things I've ever seen in a movie. Right. The real fear and embarrassment on his face, like, especially since like this whole thing has been designed to like, they've summoned him back. Can you please get rid of this guy?

[01:25:21] Like, can we be done with Barry Lyndon? And he blows it. And the like brilliance of everyone having to be like, well, he is allowed to shoot at you now. Sorry. And Barry finally does like his one magnanimous act of not shooting.

[01:25:37] Like Barry should shoot Bullingdon in the head. I don't know what you guys think. Right. I mean, yeah. Yeah. No, it's the one time he stops operating from a place of self-defense. He's trying to be a classy English gentleman, right?

[01:25:52] Even the English gentlemen present are impressed, even though they hate Barry Lyndon. Also, Barry Lyndon has been drinking all night and they like woke him up at dawn in the chair that he fell asleep drinking in.

[01:26:04] And like he can have that, you know, this is how he behaves. So I do think that that is a moment where you can be like, you know what? Maybe he learned something, but it doesn't work out. Right. He pays the price for it. Right.

[01:26:23] Like, you know, his one moment. It's hard to tell, though, if he's learned something or if he's just given up. You know, there's a part of me that wonders, like, is he just so exhausted at this point?

[01:26:34] He knows the end is coming for him one way or another. You know, he can't outrun this forever. The bill's going to come due. It's just much like the ribbon sequence at the beginning. Kubrick just draws out Bullington's reaction to the misfire for so fucking long.

[01:26:53] That's what I think. I think Vitali plays it so well. Right. It's so it's very funny and also a little scary. Yeah, it just truly feels like you're watching him for five minutes as the just the tension

[01:27:03] builds of knowing it's Barry's turn next and him puking him shaking. I mean, all of it is so incredibly funny. It's played so beautifully. And so straight. And so, you know, right. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, obviously he's very pretty. He was a very pretty young Englishman.

[01:27:23] Really feels like one of those sort of like swinging London looks. Yeah. And then and then he pretty much transforms into looking like an incense salesman for the rest of his life. Yeah. He looks like a roadie. Like, I mean, God bless him.

[01:27:35] It was always so odd the last 20 whatever years when he was the spokesperson for the Kubrick estate and he would come out, you're just like aesthetically and vibe wise. This guy feels so different from our cultural impression of Kubrick.

[01:27:54] But yeah, I mean, by all accounts, it was just he was so enamored with Kubrick and his process and his art and his mind that he just kind of felt like serving this guy will be greater than anything I could do on my own. Fair.

[01:28:10] Which is just a yeah. It is hard to even think about anyone doing that today. I mean, I was trying to explain this to Ben in the theater and he was like, what do you mean?

[01:28:21] He did this movie and then he stopped acting and became the guy's personal assistant. He also, you know, he worked on the Todd Field movies, right? Like, yes. He even he would pitch in for like the Kubrick acolytes.

[01:28:35] He was kind of a mentor to the people who were trying to follow in the in the footsteps. And obviously, you know, we will cover in future episodes other tasks. But him being the main person who had to find Danny Torrance for The Shining, being the

[01:28:49] main person coaching Arlie Ermey to be comfortable on camera and then playing like seven different roles in Eyes Wide Shut. I mean, you know, a lot of his time was spent being this guy's body man in like years and years and years of development in between movies.

[01:29:03] But then once the movies were actually going, he was very integral to the productions in all these different ways. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. So, you know, Barry fucks up his entire life. His son dies. His wife essentially first turns to drink. Well, no, Barry turns to drink.

[01:29:21] His wife sort of turns to religion, tries to kill herself. We didn't talk about her sidekick. Oh, the reverend. That weird looking priest guy. His face. Oh my God. He looks like a rat man.

[01:29:33] Also, by the way, like, I just want to say again, like so many people have to like be laying down on the job for Brian to get to the horse. And one of those people is Runt, you know? Yeah, he sucks.

[01:29:48] Even Barry is like, he walked through your bedroom, like to get out of the house and Runt was like, I guess I was asleep. I don't know. I don't know, bro. And where's the mom?

[01:30:00] Like, no servant stopped this nine year old boy from walking out of the house. Everyone fucked up. But is it a commentary on like, obviously, Barry at all are terrible parents. They're not like keeping an eye on him, but because he's like the little Lord, like no

[01:30:15] one else dares say like now, Master Brian, you can't be riding a horse like no one can actually say no to him. Yeah. Also at the stable. Like, I mean, maybe it was so early that everyone was asleep, but like, how does he get to the horse?

[01:30:29] How does he get on the horse? To the stable. Look again, there's nothing to do. Even if you're the richest people in the world in 1773, there's absolutely fucking nothing to do all day. So maybe Brian's been watching people ride horses just for a year and is like, yeah,

[01:30:47] I know how to do this. Like, I know how to get the horse. I know how to get on it. I know how to ride a horse. I love horses. Yeah, and also like the only way Barry really knows how to express love to his son is to

[01:30:57] give him every single thing he wants, you know? And it is that sort of time loop thing of him trying to give this kid the childhood he could not have. So it's like he's never going to say no to this kid because he as a child wanted everyone

[01:31:09] to say yes to him. Even if it is not in the child's instinct, he has no protective nature. Like what could you do back then? You could like play the harpsichord and like read the Bible. Like what is fun? You play cards. Stick and hoop.

[01:31:23] Had stick and hoop been invented at that point? They might not even have stick and hoop yet. The original fidget toy. Shadow puppets are kind of fun. Shadow puppets rule. Yeah. You could play that game they play in Marie Antoinette where you like stick the thing

[01:31:35] on your head. Yeah, Ellen DeGeneres's heads up. I don't know what else you could do. Go look at paintings again. I guess the house is really big. You could hide a ribbon on your cousin.

[01:31:48] Maybe that's the problem is this kid doesn't have a good cousin to hide a ribbon with. Yeah, there aren't any girls around. No. Yeah, well, because you can't have women around Barry.

[01:31:58] He's got to go off off a state to even make out maybe because or maybe that's the problem. They didn't even have a cards against humanity. God, could you imagine the fucked up things that Barry Lyndon would say if you gave him a cards against humanity deck?

[01:32:14] Well, he would cheat, though, because he cheats at cards. So he would find a way to cheat. Right. Is Barry even in the first act? He is genuinely horny. Yeah. In the second act, he almost is going through the motions, right?

[01:32:28] Like he feels more passionless in every respect. Right. Like, you know, even even the affairs, it doesn't like we don't really see any like any of these women or he's dead inside. I do think that's the ultimate reason he gives Bullington the shot at the end.

[01:32:45] It's sort of this moment of like, what am I even fighting to keep at this point? His life is joyless. It's more joyless when he gets sent back home to his mother missing a leg. But he doesn't seem to get any enjoyment out of anything.

[01:32:59] Does Barry get another shot at him or is it over once Barry gets shot in the leg? That's it. That's my memory, right? In the movie, obviously, we don't see anything past Barry getting the shot in the leg.

[01:33:11] But like by all accounts, like shouldn't he get a shot back? Like, you know, one shot a piece. If he can't stand up, do you still get your shot? Yeah. Is that the do you have to be able to stand up?

[01:33:22] Like, I don't know the rules of duels. Lie on the ground and go like, all right, stand still. I mean, one thing we observed when we were watching the movie last night is that it

[01:33:30] seems like the rules of the second duel are different from his duel with Quinn. And so we were somebody asked me, like, is, you know, do they just make up different rules for every duel?

[01:33:40] And I was like, well, maybe just like because it's it seems like maybe 25 years have passed. So, you know, maybe dueling changed. I don't know. But so many of the rules feel so arbitrary. Like it is funny that when Bullington misfires, they're like, well, you know, the rules.

[01:33:57] Check in here in the guidebook. Technically, you are. It is his turn now. What is any of this? I mean, I do think like the duels they're carrying out right there, not like the duels we think of

[01:34:12] from like Hamilton or whatever, where or like, you know, the old West where you're both turning and firing at the same time. Right. Right. Like instead it is this weird like you shoot, then he shoots turn based gameplay. You really want to win the coin flip, right?

[01:34:26] Like that's like huge. But but I too, Karina was wondering, like what changed in between these two duels and maybe because it's a Kubrick movie, it's like you're there's no way it's just like narrative convenience. Like I'm sure he dug into just how this all worked. Right.

[01:34:46] Like I also wonder since the first duel was basically a sham. And because it is, of course, and they know that they know that Barry, like who is then Redmond, like will not be able to tell if they make up rules that are not conventional, you know?

[01:35:02] And then maybe in the second duel, like those are actually the way duels go. OK. All right. Sorry, I was reading about duels. Yes. First blood would end a duel. First blood ends a duel. OK. So even if a wound is minor, once someone is wounded, it's over.

[01:35:22] So there were other duels where it had to be like to the death. Right. It's funny the way that shifts from it being like no one person leaves like two people enter two people. One person leaves to just being like it's more symbolic.

[01:35:36] You can scrape a guy and win. The method of turning and firing at the same time is called the French method, whereas what they're doing here is more of the British method of dueling, where you're basically just standing still and agreed upon distance and firing at each other.

[01:35:56] It's so stupid. I would say no. I would say no. I decline. I will not be doing this to provide you with satisfaction. Right. What can I do? I'll draw you a picture. Do you want an oil painting? I'll give you money.

[01:36:13] I do not want to just stand 20 paces away from you while you shoot a musket at my face. What's one of those things you have some rando like at tweeting you trying to start a fight. You're like, I have nothing to gain from engaging with you.

[01:36:24] I will not be going to the field of glory with you. I walk away. It's not happening. I mute you. Unfortunately, Barry Lyndon could not just block Lord Bullington. Is Barry Lyndon a shit poster? At the end of the day, is that...

[01:36:38] I think Lord Bullington's more of a shit poster. Bullington becomes practically a troll. Like he's showing up to parties and being like, Barry Lyndon, you suck. But Barry does... What a bore. Barry does kind of have poster's disease.

[01:36:53] Even if Bullington's more of a shit poster, I would say. Yeah. I guess Barry is at his most successful when he's kind of coasting a little under the radar. And once he's above the radar, he really just pings everyone's. Yeah, it's not good. Yeah. Barry Lyndon, he doesn't...

[01:37:13] The more eyes on Barry Lyndon, the worse he's doing. What's that problem of like the type of person who will do anything to make it to the top? And then once they make it to the top, there are so many eyes on them

[01:37:23] and so many witnesses to everything they've done to make it there. I think he's the type of person people don't like for no reason whatsoever. And so it's just... Well, okay. Unfortunately, part of who... Well, I think it's just he's that type of person though,

[01:37:38] where it's just like people inherently don't like him. So when he succeeds, they kind of want to see him fail. Yeah, he also fucks over a lot of people. Yeah, he's a dick. He is essentially unlikable. And he's much like Ryan O'Neal.

[01:37:51] He is both fundamentally unlikable and an asshole who mistreats people. But also has enough charisma that he can sort of coast around for a bit. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was, for reasons that are hard to even trace back, trying to explain the jinx to someone last night

[01:38:11] who didn't know about the Robert Durst story at all. And I was basically outlining the series of events for them. And they just said like, but wait, how did the guy keep on getting away with this for decades? Is he like the most charismatic guy you've ever seen?

[01:38:26] You're like, no, the guy is incredibly off-putting. But yet there is something undeniably captivating about him. And part of it is, despite the fact that he's operating from a very high status and doing insane things and committing like horrible crimes around him,

[01:38:43] he keeps on making you feel like he's the victim. Yes. And there is this fundamental sad sack quality to Barry. Even as he's manipulating the situation, I think it's partially what you said, Karina, too, of just like he comes off dumb.

[01:38:58] You do end up feeling bad for him because you almost question, does he not know any better? Yeah. It's part of what makes this movie interesting is you can never totally crack him. He is a little bit of an enigma,

[01:39:12] and it's why this movie needs to have an impartial third-person narrator. Yes. And of course, he's going to win at the end of the day in the final title card because he's going to be dead like everybody else. That's only when Barry truly triumphs. That's the great equalizer.

[01:39:30] The great equalizer. But I think one reason this movie has such a powerful grip on me is I always can't believe Barry is fucking it up at the same time. What a life! You're married to a beautiful countess, you live in a nice home.

[01:39:44] There is nothing better you could expect in society at this point. Just chill. Just be a chiller. David, to throw something back in your face that you said to me, not in a vindictive way, but just to repeat words back to you.

[01:39:59] To repeat back to you a very salient point I think you made some months ago. When everyone was fucking losing their minds trying to analyze the slap at the Oscars and what happened and what caused Will Smith to snap in that moment, right?

[01:40:14] And you said it's the fact that he was so close to pulling it off. Sure. Right? He's sitting there. He's about to be crowned. Everyone's everything's ready for him. Here's everything this guy's been working for for decades and the pressure of being that close to it broke him.

[01:40:33] Sure. It's that same thing where I think the fear of losing it fucks up Barry to a certain degree. Once he's gotten everything he thinks he wanted, he cannot find peace in it. I don't know if you guys have ever done this, but whenever I watch a medieval

[01:40:52] movie or whatever, I always had the thought of like, who do I want to be here? Because you don't want to be like the king because that's like responsibility and people want to get rid of you maybe.

[01:41:02] But you also don't want to be some favorite who's going to fall out of favor and the king's going to be like, execute that guy. He sucks. Where do you want to be?

[01:41:11] And I just feel like what Barry's got going on where it's like he's on some estate, no one's bothering him. If only he could stay at that level. I mean, you're the one who keeps saying that there's nothing to do. There is nothing to do. So he's bored.

[01:41:27] He's bored. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I'd be a wizard. You'd be a wizard? Great call, man. No, I mean, to quote another one of our favorite movies on this podcast, for Barry, the action is the juice and the life that he's risen to...

[01:41:44] Barry could be played by Tom Sizemore in a different movie. But you know what I'm saying? The life that he's risen to has no action anymore outside of him just stirring shit up, outside of him just fucking making out with other women in public.

[01:41:56] I mean, that's why like that he would probably like live the happiest version of his life if he just kept on like being part of like the card con and like going from town to town, cheating rich people.

[01:42:08] He could still fuck women like Marissa Berenson in every town. Yes. But he starts to... He gets in this situation where he like makes her husband have a heart attack. And then I guess he feels like he has to stick around.

[01:42:23] That is a crazy scene when that guy is so mad at Barry Linton, who isn't even in the room. He's like, I'm going to fucking die right here. You ask why he can't chill. Like he's chilling in that scene. It's the coolest he ever is.

[01:42:38] Talk about cousins marrying each other. That guy is looking rough. Oh, man. He looks like a little potato man. Hey, those are my people. To your point. Yeah, Ben, please watch your language. To your point about like his happiest life is probably him remaining a hustler forever.

[01:43:00] Compare this character to Moses Prey in Paper Moon, a guy who does not want to be a father because the idea of being a father is having to settle down and live a respectable life and create a consistent environment for a child.

[01:43:13] And it is when his child learns how to play the same game as him and he can just bring her along and use her as an additive to the work he's already doing that he's finally comfortable being a dad.

[01:43:25] He's like, oh, if my daughter could be more like me and I don't have to change any aspect of my lifestyle, then it's fine. But he's a shark. He wants to keep moving forward. Yeah. And, you know, she'll come with him. So that's fine. All right.

[01:43:39] Yeah, we're almost done, I feel like. But is there anything else we want to say about Barry Linden? His life and luck. Well, just the ultimate joke, the final mic drop of this epilogue card is just like, and by the way, none of this mattered.

[01:43:56] Everyone ends up in the dirt. What a waste of time and energy. You fuck over so many people to what end? Which is just the final commentary on like the British class system, right? It's like, we lived our lives like either in anxiety or depression or constant striving

[01:44:13] over this thing that we're born into and whether or not we can change it. But what does it really matter? Because you can't take anything with you. And you have at best like 100 years. Right. And especially in this era, you're almost definitely not going to get to 100. Right.

[01:44:29] Right. Especially with those inbred genes. But I also feel like, you know, the basic like core cynicism of Stanley Kubrick. I think sometimes people misread a disdain he has for all of his characters. And I actually think he is fascinated by people.

[01:44:48] And he has a certain love for any individual. But he has a contempt for humanity as a whole. Like what he hates are the structures we create. He hates the society we build, the rules we create of how to interact with each other.

[01:45:03] And this is a time and this is a person who is so obsessed with those systems and working them. I think he does feel some sympathy, some empathy for this character and how broken he is that he cannot be happy. Right.

[01:45:19] That he needs to work the system to an ultimate end. But yeah, it's you know, at the end of the day, it's like, what are you going to fucking do? It doesn't matter. None of this matters. Yeah. I like Philip Stone, who is the butler.

[01:45:38] I'm sorry, you know, not the butler, you know, Grady, the caretaker, the ghost of the caretaker in The Shining. And the dad in Cockroach Orange. He's like the guy at the end of the movie who's helping Barry. He's got the sideburns. Yeah.

[01:45:53] He kind of looks like Dennis from Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Sure. Sure. Well said, then. I just like that he's in a sort of a weirdly sympathetic role here. He's usually kind of scary.

[01:46:07] Mostly, I think of him as the, you know, I corrected her, you know, in The Shining. My wife has seen this movie because I've seen it many times. Humblebrag. Yeah, but I was watching it yesterday.

[01:46:21] While my daughter was rampaging around, my wife was like, is this suitable for her? And I'm like, I was sort of like, it's a very gentle movie visually. It's not really that intense. But anyway, and then my wife was sort of coming around at the end.

[01:46:36] She was like, what happens at the end? And I was like, you know, they basically pay him to go away. And the final shot is practically just them writing a check being like, Barry Lyndon. And she went like, oh, and I was like, you know, but it's poetic.

[01:46:49] It's sad. It's funny. Like, it's everything, you know, this movie should end with. It shouldn't end with some dramatic thing. Should end with just like, Barry, go away! Like, goddammit! How often does this happen to this day in our modern society where someone who has ascended

[01:47:04] to the top of a company, you know, or the highest heights of fame, finally their behavior catches up with them and they're forced to accept a giant golden parachute to essentially go away and never work again, right?

[01:47:19] It's all these quote unquote, canceled men who are furious that they're stuck alone in their giant mansion with a $80 million buyout as a punishment for being shitty for decades. And they're like, why won't people let me do shit anymore?

[01:47:35] Why am I forced to be on my mega yacht for the rest of time? Right, right. There's no ability to enjoy the fact that you basically got away scot-free outside of the fact that you have lost the love or respect of any people around you.

[01:47:49] I mean, you could have more empathy for Barry because, I mean, he lost a leg. Yeah, yeah. At least he lost a leg. Kevin Spacey still got two. All right. I had to pick a specific name. I had to put one person on blast.

[01:48:04] I think he's a fair target. Yeah, he's a fair target. Les Moonves has two legs. Yeah, these people took my career away from me. Oh, I'm so sorry you had 70 years of being at the top of the fucking ant hill and now

[01:48:18] you have to like stay in your giant mansion, one of your eight mansions you own that will never be taken away from you. Some final thing. Obviously, this movie does not have a score. It just has 18th century music. The Chieftains. Yes. The guy who, you know, helped...

[01:48:38] This movie won four Oscars. It won for cinematography, costume design and art direction, but it also won best original song score and adaptation, you know, like, back when they had like a best adapted score category. That's wild.

[01:48:54] So Leonard Roseman won and he was the guy who helped pick the classical music. And I just want to read his quote on this because it's funny. When I saw this incredibly boring film with all this music that I picked out going over

[01:49:09] and over again, I thought, my God, what a mess. I was going to refuse the Oscar. So he didn't like Barry Lyndon. Wow. Movie comes out, doesn't do well. The tagline for this movie is essentially four Oscars.

[01:49:23] If you look at the poster, it says four Oscars, Barry Lyndon. I love the way the songs repeat, though. It's funny. It's actually really funny. It's incredible every time. Yeah, and Kubrick does that so well.

[01:49:38] I mean, that's what Eyes Wide Shut as well uses every cue so powerfully. Women of Ireland is such a good track, though. Whenever I hear any of these songs in any other context, I just immediately think of Barry Lyndon. Lyndon. Yep. Yeah, and the songs immediately become funny.

[01:49:56] It was nominated for Best Picture. Maybe the most stacked Best Picture year of all time, Griffin. So 76 is... Yeah, 75 Oscars. 70, yeah, you know. Is this Network, Jaws, Rocky, Barry Lyndon? Am I mixing up two years here? You're mixing up two years, but yes, Barry Lyndon, Jaws are two.

[01:50:22] Right, Network and Rocky are seven. Right, Network and Rocky are 76. Right, they're the following. Yeah, okay. No, yeah, Nashville, Dog Day Afternoon, and Best Picture goes to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which is probably the worst of those movies, and it's still a pretty good movie.

[01:50:37] Yeah, that's a pretty incredible lineup. Right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, like the 70s are a largely exciting time for the Oscars. Because even, you know, you're looking through, it's like, Isabella, Johnny gets an Oscar

[01:50:50] nomination for the story of Adele H. You know, there's like fun, weird picks in there. It's kind of- Like Carole Kane and Hester Street, Lee Grant and Shampoo, you know, there's a lot of cool stuff. Elena Wurtmiller probably got her nomination sometime around then as well. Yes.

[01:51:04] Maybe like 74 maybe? When is Seven Beauties? That's the next year. Yes, 76. Yes, that's Seven Beauties. Yeah. I'd argue it's maybe the best decade for the Oscars in terms of most of their choices holding up pretty well. And a lot of them feeling kind of bold.

[01:51:21] Especially with a movie like Linden, where the reception was mixed at the time, it did poorly domestically, it didn't make its budget back. It did better in Europe. Apparently, it grossed 3 million in Paris alone, which is sort of funny to think about.

[01:51:37] But best city in the world for watching American movies. So makes sense. Yes. Yeah, very true. And in fact, I think I saw Barry Linden in Paris at one point, not to brag. But yeah, it does get enough of a foothold to endure.

[01:51:56] Do you want to play the box office game, Griffin? Yes, I do. This movie did not do well. We're not doing the box office game for Paris, I assume. No, that would be good if I could summon the box office game for Paris. No,

[01:52:08] this movie came out Christmastime 1975. It is not in the top 10. And the number one movie of the year, sorry, of the week, is an action thriller starring James Caan and Robert Duvall. In 75. Do you know this movie, Griffin? Huh, huh, huh.

[01:52:29] It's new this week. It's a fairly famous director late in his career. Okay. He was seen as a bit of a sellout picture for him. Is it like a peck and paw? It's a peck and paw. You nailed it.

[01:52:47] Yeah. What's this movie called? It's not called The Specialist, right? Is it a The title? It is a The title. I was reading this article. I went on a Duvall rabbit hole. I feel like I've been talking about

[01:53:00] him a lot lately. But there's a really interesting People magazine article from I think when Tender Mercy is about to come out that refers to Robert Duvall as America's number one, number two.

[01:53:11] And it was basically about this era of the 70s in which he was like the most reliable and valued second lead or support. But he was never able to make that leading man jump that all of his

[01:53:24] contemporaries were able to do unconventionally. So I fucking know this movie. It's not called The Specialist. What's it called? It's called The Killer Elite. Thank you. Right, because it has the same title as that insane fucking recent Killer Elite movie.

[01:53:40] Yeah. Yeah. James Caan, Robert Duvall. So that's number one at the box office, Christmas 1975. Number two is a spy thriller starring a very, very sexy Robert Redford. The plot of the movie is

[01:53:55] basically Robert Redford is just so hot that everyone is after him, in my opinion. I think that's how you should watch this movie. Three Days of the Condor? It's Three Days of the Condor.

[01:54:05] Karina, do you like Three Days of the Condor? I assume you don't have an opinion on The Killer Elite. Oh, you should see it. It's so sexy. I actually think Robert Redford is somebody who's... I haven't seen a lot of his movies.

[01:54:16] It's very strange. The ones I've seen are like, you know, inside Daisy Clover. Like, I haven't seen some of the big hits. You haven't seen like The Natural or... Oh no, I've seen The Natural because I'm a baseball guy. Right, it's the best baseball movie. Yeah.

[01:54:30] You haven't seen this... Well, you must have seen The Sting. I've seen The Sting. I've seen Butch Cassidy, but like, you know, you get to like... Butch Cassidy, but not like Downhill Racer. Yeah, I've never seen Downhill Racer. He's just like an actor who, you know, for whatever

[01:54:44] reason, like I sort of had... I just haven't gotten around to like doing the filmography. I have... Watching that Paul Newman documentary, honestly, I realized how few of his movies I've seen as well. I am also bad on Paul Newman. Is that documentary good?

[01:54:59] I thought it was great. I thought it was really good. I'm gonna fire you. But you have to not find Ethan Hawke annoying. I find Ethan Hawke like endearingly... I think he's a great actor and I enjoy him on screen,

[01:55:15] but like Ethan Hawke, the guy, I find him endearingly annoying. I was gonna say... I feel like he's sort of self-aware about being kind of annoying. I pretty much come all the way around to finding everything annoying about him kind of tricky. Yeah, yeah.

[01:55:26] I feel like he's like, yeah, look what I write novels. So what? They're kind of bad, but who cares? Maybe they're good. He's such a big dork about all this stuff. He's never trying to play it cool, I find.

[01:55:37] I'm pro Ethan Hawke and I'm pro Paul Newman, another hottie. But like, I think... Redford, it's like he's like a goy god to me. I've just always been kind of like, oh my God, imagine looking like that guy. You could do anything.

[01:55:50] I mean, that's what The Way We Were is about. Right. Right, exactly. Yes. And I mean, if you're Jewish, you grew up going like, well, Paul Newman, that's what we can be. He feels... Even though he's the best of us, he's earthier. There's a sense of hometown pride.

[01:56:07] Yes. Yes. Number three, Griffin at the Box Office is a comedy. Neil Simon comedy based on his play. I'm giving you that clue because there's just so many. California Suite? I'm just gonna pick one. No.

[01:56:25] Let's see. It won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor this year, in fact. Is it... Fuck. Fuck. For its cigar smoking supporting actor. Oh, oh, oh, it's The Sunshine Boys. It's The Sunshine Boys. Yes.

[01:56:42] With Walter Matthau and George Burns. I've never seen The Sunshine Boys. I don't know if you have. I haven't either. I feel like it's a movie I would like a lot. Number four is Best Picture winner. I just mentioned it. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yes. Okay.

[01:56:59] Classic movie I haven't seen since college. Yeah, I think I watched it in high school and probably on my tiny TV while half paying attention to homework I should have been doing. I should give it another spin. Yeah.

[01:57:12] Do you have a Cuckoo's Nest take, Karina? Do you care about Cuckoo's Nest? I don't really care about it. It's another one of those movies that I watched in the 90s when there was sort of a renaissance of the 70s. Yes.

[01:57:26] And also, Milos Forman kind of came back in the 90s and there was sort of an impetus to catch up on his filmography. Yeah, he was making fun biopics in the 90s. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Number five, Griffin, is a comedy starring one of your favorite guys

[01:57:45] and directed by him as well. And I imagine you maybe have seen it. I have never seen this movie. It has a very long title. 75 comedy starring and directed by one of my favorite guys. Huh. Who are your favorite comedy guys? Start there.

[01:58:03] Right. I mean, I'm thinking of the people who either pre-date or post-date this period. Oh, I think I know who this is. It's not Steve Martin. It's not Buster Keaton. Who is it? Is it a Mel Brooks movie?

[01:58:14] It's not a Mel Brooks movie. Although, it has a lot of Mel Brooks guys in it. This is a Mel Brooks guy. So, is it a Gene Wilder movie? It's Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn and Marty Feldman are in it.

[01:58:25] It's the adventures of Sherlock Holmes' younger brother or whatever it's called. I have not seen this movie. It's the adventure of Sherlock Holmes' smarter brother. Right. Which was written and directed by Gene Wilder and starring him. I've never seen it.

[01:58:40] The Wilder directed movies are a weird blind spot for me considering how much I love him. You do love Gene. And he had a pretty successful run of films he directed, starred in and wrote. None of which feels like...

[01:58:53] The World's Greatest Lover, Woman in Red, right? Those are the ones I know. Yeah. Most of his films were hits at the time and it feels like none of them have really lasted culturally. This film was a hit. Yeah. Yeah. Not a huge one, but it did okay.

[01:59:06] Yeah. That's number five. Some other movies, you've got The Story of O, which is an erotic foreign film. So that's sort of probably like an exciting Euro entry at the 75 box office. You've got Swept Away, speaking of Wirt Müller, the Giancarlo Giannini classic. You've got Mahogany,

[01:59:32] which we've talked about before, the Diana Ross movie. Yes. Yes, that came up in some episode. It came up, directed by Barry Gordy with Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams. You've got a reissue of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. And then you've got Let's Do It Again,

[01:59:50] the Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby movie. The second Cosby trilogy movie. It is my favorite thing about playing the box office game, the web version that a listener of the show so wonderfully built out. When you'll see one movie in the top five that has been playing for 4,000 weeks.

[02:00:12] Right. And you're just like, okay, which Disney reissue is this? But yeah, so that's a weird top 10. Barry Lyndon not in it, but it does endure and in the end we're all going to die anyway. We're all going to die anyway. There is a point.

[02:00:28] Kirk doesn't give a shit if his movie isn't hit at the time. He's going to end up dead. He may have given a shit. He got another movie made. I don't know. Who cares?

[02:00:37] Yeah, that's true. His next movie was The Shining. He does swerve towards bestseller after this. Yes. That I think that was notable. And I think he did want to make a successful film. Like he wanted to make it after this.

[02:00:48] Bestseller with huge beloved star in a genre that is easier to market. Right. But yeah, that's the story. Ben, as the resident Irish scoundrel, do you have any sort of final takes you want to throw out on this movie? I guess it's sort of our expert.

[02:01:05] Yeah. Well, we've said a lot about Barry and he's had his ups, he's had his downs, but no matter what, he looked damn good doing it. He had fun and he really

[02:01:18] made it somewhere in his life. It's not easy to make it out of being just a regular peasant. He traveled the world. He did amazing things. I think the guy had an okay life, all things considered.

[02:01:33] The way you describe it, it's like Barry Lyndon's a dude wearing a Live Laugh Love shirt on a beach. Being like, yeah, I can't complain. I mean, he is probably after that freeze frame, he probably goes and lies down in his old

[02:01:48] childhood bed with his one leg and just thinks about that time where he had a shirtless fight and that time where he had a sword fight that he won and that weird threesome he had in

[02:02:00] the middle of the room with all the other people. He did have some good times. He bought some paintings. It's a pretty incredible greatest hits reel if you play it back in your head like that. Yeah, you cut out the bullshit in between. Yeah. God bless him.

[02:02:17] God bless him. And God bless you, Karina. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. Thanks for giving me a chance, an excuse to watch this and talk about it. Happy to provide it. And truly, I mean, your podcast, I feel like it's such an invaluable

[02:02:31] research for anyone doing anything in the world of film. I certainly find myself citing things you've said, both facts that you've pulled up that I hadn't heard before otherwise, but also some of your opinions. You were talking briefly mentioned Ghostbusters at the beginning,

[02:02:46] but we did the whole Ghostbusters franchise on Patreon. And I tried to I probably misquoted and butchered a lot of your points about just the weird magic of why that movie works, despite

[02:02:56] all better logic. And yeah, there's just a lot of things you've said about all sorts of different movies and movie history over the years that will rattle in my head forever. We jokingly refer to ourselves as connoisseurs of context, but you are the person who truly deserves that

[02:03:11] title. Well, thank you. That's really sweet. And I'm glad I can. I hope that other people also like the podcast and I'm glad I can, you know, be a helpful resource. Oh, yeah. No, our listeners have been furiously demanding you end up somewhere in some episode

[02:03:30] for years. I can't think of a better movie for it to finally shake out on. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, people should listen to you must remember this if that isn't enough of an endorsement. So the best movie podcast between seasons right now, but erotic 90s coming up,

[02:03:46] right? Erotic 90s is coming up. I wish I could tell you an exact date. We were going to launch it in November, but now it looks like we might launch it in March instead. It just hasn't been

[02:03:56] decided yet. Part of the problem is that, like, I can't stop adding episodes. And so like it was a lot of eroticism in the 90s. It was supposed to last. Yeah, it was supposed to be 10

[02:04:08] episodes. Now it's 21. So it's just going to take a really long time to make the episodes. I think you realize Y2K really killed horniness. Yep. It's true. We weren't worried about that.

[02:04:21] It drove it underground. It just drove it out of Hollywood. I mean, I'm working on the thesis that Eyes Wide Shut kind of killed a certain type of movie. So all right. I'm interested. Yeah,

[02:04:32] there's an argument. Certainly, I think especially so much of the ire of that movie was people going and expecting the horniest movie ever made and being so furious when it wasn't. I mean,

[02:04:42] they thought it was going to be like Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise having real sex. Yes. Yes. I talk about this. I remember Entertainment Tonight going, we're hearing there might be unsimulated sex in this movie. An insane thing to think about Entertainment Tonight reporting on

[02:04:59] as if like and there might be a cameo from Robert Downey Jr. back as your favorite Iron Man. Yeah, there might be a cameo from Tom Cruise's penis. Yeah, going into Nicole Kidman's vagina. Give me a cameo. Come on.

[02:05:13] Yeah, just yeah, it's been too long. We haven't seen his penis on screen for decades. It's true. Anyway, thank you all for listening. Karina, thank you for being here. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping

[02:05:28] to produce the show. AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing. Lane Montgomery and the Great American for our theme song. JJ Birch for our research. Pat Reynolds, Joe Bowen for our artwork. You can go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon,

[02:05:43] Blank Check, special features. We are finishing up the Roger Moore Bond films, but have also been doing some Kubrick adjacent bonus episodes. We got Dr. Sleep coming up and we'll just have done 2010. Yep, sounds right. Tune in next week for The Shining with our buddy Tim Simons,

[02:06:05] the great actor, long overdue on the show. A very tall man, one of the few guests we've ever had on who is taller than you. That's right. Is that true? He is taller than you. He's very tall. He's

[02:06:15] definitely taller than me. He's like 10 foot 15. Yeah, he's very tall. The lankiest man in the world. He's built like Jack Skellington and I love him and I'm glad he's finally on the show. So thank you all. And as always,

[02:06:27] Barry Lyndon is just kind of a dang ass freak when you get down to it.