the cinematography was one of the best thing about the movie! I never gave you my review. It took me a few days to watch it in full, which I'm sure made it a little less impactful than if I had viewed it in one sitting. I rated it 7/10. That might seem low, but I have my reasons.
Here is archival article from 1976 in which cinematographer John Alcott discusses his work on Barry Lyndon, for which he won an Oscar.
https://theasc.com/articles/flashback-barry-lyndon
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Discussion
I wish there was no foreshadowing from the intertitles and the narrator. I like not knowing where a story is going, so I can be surprised. The narration gave too much away at times. The performances were good and Ryan O'Neal was well-cast. However, his mother chewed the scenery in the scene where she fires the Rev. and that took me out of the movie.
Finally, I found the ending rather abrupt. I don't understand why we end on a freeze-frame of Barry getting into a car.
Basically, Paths of Glory is better.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I believe the foreshadowing is a nod to Thackeray’s novel, The Luck of Barry Lyndon, on which the screenplay is based. Descriptive chapter titles are a trope of 19th century literature, especially among those works which, like Barry Lyndon, were published serially.
I’m not sure what you mean about the ending. The freeze frame is the last scene in which Lyndon appears, but it is not the end of the film. The films ends with the charming and poignant epilogue:
It was in the reign of King George III that the aforementioned personages lived and quarreled; Good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor they are all equal now.
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I forgot that it was based on a book. That's what I dislike about adaptations; it feels like you can't criticize stuff about them because it makes sense in the source material