THE ROMANCE OF BARRY LYNDON

My Irish friend, Niall, at film school, told me to come round one night to his place as he had some things he wanted to share with me.

"I got some grand Irish whiskey you need to try and a film you absolutely need to watch."

An aspiring cinematographer, Niall always had the confidence of a man possessed by his passion for film which I recognised all too well as I shared that same burning love for the medium.

Starting the evening off with some quality single malt, Niall's emerald green eyes flashed in the dimly lit living room of the large house where he was living as he bitched about certain fellow students that had already royally pissed him off with their pretentious sounding off on their love of European cinema.

"'Last Night At Marienbad' my arse. Feck off you cunts. Yous don't know what you're all talking about.

Downing the last slug of whiskey from a tumbler glass with an emphatic gulp, Niall looked at me with the grin of a man who knew what the finer things in life were all about.

Now then, this is what I'm talking about."

Holding up a thick, double NTSC American copy of 'Barry Lyndon' in his hand, Niall looked as triumphant as Charlton Heston holding a stone tablet brought down from Mount Sinai.

"This is what we're watching tonight."

It's rare for me to let someone dictate the terms of a cultural agenda for the evening without some debate or some frantic counter-offer but I sensed Niall was fanatical in his feelings about this (at the time) rarer seen of the Kubrick canon. Providing me with an Alex Cox 'Moviedrome'-style introduction to the film, Niall stood with whiskey in hand like a grand old orator giving a lecture at a packed out theater, far more convincing than most of our resident lecturers who all seemed to suffer from industry burn out and had come to lick their considerable wounds of pride in front of us students on campus.

"No one could work out why Kubrick felt so compelled to tell the story of a total chancer with almost zero empathy for anyone outside of his mother. In some ways, Barry's like a shark in human form or like an 18th-century Alex from 'A Clockwork Orange'. There's this one scene where he blows smoke in his Lady Lyndon's face which makes him look positively psychopathic."

Satisfied that he had piqued my interest, Niall loaded up the first of the video cassettes as we sat back and watched the slow but strangely hypnotic saga. Sat next to an actual Irishman as I happily helped him work through the large bottle of single malt only added to the legendary first-watching experience of Kubrick's period masterpiece.

"Every frame is a fucking painting man. It's fecking beautiful."

Three hours later after the film had concluded we sat and played the soundtrack of the film into the wee small hours where Handel's 'Sarabande', The Chieftans' wistful playing of the traditional folk tune 'Women Of Ireland' and Bach's 'Concerto For Two Harpsichords' etched into my heart and mind long after myself and Niall lost contact a decade later.

Watching 'Barry Lyndon' these days I always think back to that first, perfect introduction to the film and genuinely lament my losing contact with my Irish friend. Our last significant time spent together was on my first trip to New York where we stayed at his brother's place in Astoria, Queens. We spent a good amount of time hanging out in the city enjoying our many shared cultural affinities including Stanley Kubrick whose final film 'Eyes Wide Shut' was playing in Times Square where we watched a midnight screening which to this day remains iconic to my mind. Walking out of Kubrick's New York into actual New York afterward seemed utterly seamless and we half imagined we were being stalked by dark Illuminati figures of the night as we made our way to a nearby bar to dissect the film post-screening.  

Finally returning to Astoria in the early hours, we got the whiskey going once again and played the 'Eyes Wide Shut' soundtrack til first dawn as we continued to debate its many complex themes and ideas, excitable film students that we were.

The New York I visited back then seems long gone now but for that brief moment in time, its inherent cinematic qualities couldn't have been more evident and Kubrick's spirit seem to be all about the place as myself and Niall were only too happy to believe we were living in our very own version of the master's vision.

Or perhaps we'd simply drunk too much whiskey.

Either way, I'll forever remember that precious time as the 'Barry Lyndon' years.