Anyone who’s spent any decent amount of time watching movies will be very aware that the period costume drama, as well as being one of the most reliable and durable of genres, is almost an unofficial litmus test of a director’s capabilities. In the wrong hands, such a film can be one of the most tediously interminable experiences known to mankind - characters walk around in clothes that seem solely designed to win the costumer an Oscar, dialogue from past centuries is intoned with so much gravity you’d think it had been imported from a black hole, and the whole thing goes on for hours and hours, before the interval arrives to separate the beginning from the next few hours of non-mayhem. Fortunately, done well the period costume drama can resonate with colour, tragedy, life and warmth, making a story set hundreds of years ago completely relevant to those experiencing it today. Barry Lyndon, based on the classic novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, is such a film. However, Barry Lyndon is different to just about any other costume drama you’ve seen. Because Barry Lyndon is directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Young lower-class Irishman Redmond Barry has few prospects in life, living as he does with his mother in a small village, his lawyer father having been killed in a duel some time before. But Barry wants more from life. Initially, he craves love, but when he falls for a local woman who is to be married to a well-off British Army type, he sees red, challenges the Brit to a duel and actually wins. One problem, though - whilst duelling may be considered an honourable way to settle a score, it’s still murder. And so Barry flees to Dublin, only to be robbed of everything he owns along the way; he’s forced to join the army himself to survive and to continue laying low. But when he discovers that the outcome of his duel was not as he thought, Barry’s desires slowly begin to change. He sees the ferocity of war first hand and from that point on vows to be “a gentleman�; soon, after some adventure, he is moving up the social ladder at a remarkable pace. But everything has its price, and for Redmond Barry - now, in his new societal role, renamed Barry Lyndon - the price could be quite catastrophic.

Kubrick paces Barry Lyndon slowly and deliberately - at three hours, it’s one of the director’s longest films - but typically there’s not a dull moment throughout. Not a great deal actually happens to Barry in the larger scheme of things, but Kubrick (who also wrote the screenplay) cannily focuses on detail in such a compelling manner that it’s impossible to stop watching once you’re there. Many of Kubrick’s familiar stylistic moves are very much in use here, as is his ever-present underlying theme of human decay - to many, this may have seemed an odd choice of project after A Clockwork Orange, but in its own way, Barry Lyndon is just as acerbic a piece as its more confrontational predecessor. Barry is portrayed as a sympathetic, “lovable rogue� type on the surface, but underlying his character the entire way through is a disturbing self-interest and arrogance that makes the second half of the film less of a tragedy and more a stately depiction of karma at work. Heading an excellent cast, Ryan O’Neal as Barry is superb, as is co-star Marisa Berenson as Lady Lyndon; indeed, across the board there’s barely a performance that isn’t first-rate; Leon Vitali, who was to go on to work as Kubrick’s assistant on subsequent movies, is wonderfully lurid as Lord Bullingdon. Keep an eye out, too, for Patrick Magee (from A Clockwork Orange and, of course, The Avengers), almost unrecognisable in his role as The Chevalier. The story is narrated in deadpan, folk-story style - but often with dripping irony - by esteemed British actor Michael Hordern.

Of course, Barry Lyndon is renowned for one other thing as well - its visual style. The production design (by the legendary Ken Adam) and costume design won Oscars - as did John Alcott’s remarkable cinematography, which is simply breathtaking in terms of both composition and technical style. Almost every shot in the film was reportedly done using available light, with special lenses fitted to priceless old Mitchell cameras allowing many night scenes to be lit only by the candles on the set. The result is one of the visually beautiful things you’ll ever see; that, combined with the involving story and Kubrick’s highly individual direction, makes Barry Lyndon a must-see for those discovering Kubrick for the first time, as well as those looking for something different in the tried-and-tested world of the costume drama.

Those who bought the original DVD release of Barry Lyndon only to spend three hours balefully looking at a hazy, washed-out picture replete with scratches, dust and dirt and intolerable contrast problems (it was, of course, an ancient transfer done on ancient equipment for VHS use) will be pleased to know that they can now relegate that disc to the status of coffee-mug-coaster. Because Warner has come good for this remastered version with a sparkling new transfer that is utterly magnificent.

Offered in the unusual (but accurate) aspect ratio of 1.59:1 (this was likely due to Kubrick’s use of vintage Mitchell 35mm cameras for the film), Barry Lyndon is a revelation on this new DVD, transferred afresh from the original negatives and almost perfect visually - aside from some minor aliasing on diagonal edges early on, there’s literally nothing to complain about here. Colour saturation is rich and vibrant, the many low-light and candlelit scenes offer plenty of shadow detail and natural contrast balance, and there’s barely a film problem to be seen throughout (some dirt appears at the top of the frame early on, but this was almost certainly caught in the camera gate and captured forever on the negative). The 1975 Oscar winner for Best Cinematography now, finally, is available with a video transfer that does it complete justice. The transfer is not 16:9 enhanced, but the majority of those watching won’t be unduly upset about that, given the film’s aspect ratio. The layer change arrives at a reasonably good spot in the first half of the film, and is negotiated quickly and without any undue interruption to the flow of the film.

Audio for this new release is a Dolby Digital 5.1 remix of what was originally a mono soundtrack (one which was, like A Clockwork Orange, recorded using early Dolby noise reduction). Some effort has been made to pan effects (and some dialogue) across the front sound stage, while the classical music used as the score has been freshly transferred in stereo with some minor, but subtle, extrapolation to the surrounds. The music, while showing the age of its recording, often sounds remarkably vibrant, while the dialogue shows up the limitations of the location recording equipment used at the time - it’s rather biased towards the midrange, but is still perfectly legible and not difficult to listen to at all.

Extras are limited to three text pages listing awards that the film won, and a full-frame theatrical trailer with mono audio that’s in surprisingly good shape. This latter is a “reviews� trailer - it spends its entire running time quoting from the gushing reviews the movie scored upon its release.