If Kubrick was going to make a period piece, why choose a story that nobody heard of? I don't think anyone thought "Barry Lyndon? I loved that book!"
I also felt bad that Warner Brothers pretty well forced Kubrick to hire Ryan O'Neal. It didn't help that the film had such a bland lead and O'Neal must have wondered what he had gotten himself into during filming, especially with Kubrick's endless takes.
I read the novel and loved it. To make a film of it was a novel idea and it worked beautifully!
shareHe chose the story he wanted, and the result is one of the best films ever made. What's the confusion?
Having an opinion can save your life. Just ask Marvin.
I ca't imagine. It's a long dull story about a rather unpleasant character. You would have thought theybcould have found something more interesting.
shareHaving dullard Ryan O'Neal as the lead actor didn't help either although casting him was out of Kubrick's hands
shareYou have no idea how happy that makes me to know he didn't cast O'Neal. Actors have one job: to make faces. I don't think O'Neal even mustered that much.
share"He didn't cast O'Neal".
He did. He had an obligation to cast someone who was currently amongst the top 10 most bankable stars - which one in particular, however, was up to him.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
I can't seem to find a list of the top ten most bankable male stars, but it still seems bizarre. Obviously he never would have cast Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Dustin Hoffman, Marlon Brando, Roger Moore, or Paul Newman--who were all already typecast, or too short, or old, or, well, Burt Reynolds.
shareI seem to recall the one Kubrick considered most seriously besides O'Neal, was in fact Robert Redford.
And I found the top 10 most popular list of 1973 (when the casting would have taken place) on Wikipedia: 1. Clint Eastwood, 2. Ryan O'Neal, 3. Steve McQueen, 4. Burt Reynolds, 5. Robert Redford, 6. Paul Newman, 7. Charles Bronson, 8. John Wayne, 9. Marlon Brando, 10. Gene Hackman. Among these, O'Neal actually does seem like the most appropriate choice - although Brando definitely could have done the job (as long as he'd put a lid on his strong tendency towards naturalism).
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
You could say this about 90% of movies made. Oh I guess he could have just made crappy remakes or mindless action flicks like most of Hollywood. Instead, me made brilliant thinking man's films.
He wanted to do Napoleon, but some other studio was doing something too similar. Same w/the Arian papers, but Shindlers List was in production already. I have no complaints about any of his films.
Thackeray in fact was a very well known and widely read author in his time, and was a singular influence on Charlotte Bronte. He was one of the most well known of the Victorian authors, a contemporary and for a time friend of Charles Dickens. Anthony Trollope wrote a biography about him, and while their styles varied it can safely be said that Trollope was influenced to a large extent by Thackeray. For example unlike Dickens Trollope used Thackeray's somewhat common approach of carrying various characters through succeeding novels (although of course Trollope did rather more of this sort of thing).
Now while it is fair to say other than those who have read Barry Lyndon that in general Thackeray's best known novel currently is Vanity Fair, it is also fair to say he is right now not as widely read as Dickens, of course, or of Trollope. But arguably that may merely be a matter of current style, to some extent at least.
But that doesn't really address why Kubrick used the source, or more specifically why we should not criticize him for doing so. Obviously he felt inspired by the work, and I among many think successfully and effectively so.
I think the OP also to some extent contains an implied disdain for adaptations that are not, well, well-known. Is this because adaptations themselves are seen as problematic? I think that is a whole other subject, but unless one is willing to say cinema should not be based on adaptations of works of literature, I am not sure what difference it is supposed to make whether the source is well known or not.
He probably chose it because it's a fantastic story and that it would make a fantastic movie (which it did).
shareI guess he felt it was better to film a book that nobody had heard of.
It's that man again!!
Who's ever heard of a book, Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket and Spartacus? Sometimes you get inspiration and sometimes you don't. ππ
Luke Skywalker, your Mom was hawt! Darth Vader
Spartacus was a potboiler published in the early 50's which was pretty popular right around the time Kubrick decided to film it. The same with A Clockwork Orange by British author Anthony Burgess, which definitely had a large cult following as a book (side note: it actually needed an index to explain "Nadsat" the Russian-influenced argot spoke by the gang members). Full Metal Jacket was based on the novel the Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford, and was probably the most obscure (to the general public at least) of the three you listed. So, one out of three ain't bad.
shareI was around during the 60's and used to visit the paperback stores in the Mall in those days and NEVER heard of A Clockwork Orange. The cult of Burgess must have been a LOT bigger in the UK. ππ¨
Luke Skywalker, your Mom was hawt! Darth Vader
Are you American? I would say Burgess book probably hit a bit later here in the states, in fact the movie may have led to people searching it out. So really you might have had 2 out of 3 and a Meatloaf song. Cheers.
shareKubrick is my favorite director, 2001 and The Shining are my favorite films of all time but I kind of feel the same way sometimes when watching this film. It is amazing to look at and it keeps me interested throughout the first parts of it but once he sees lady lyndon for the first time I kind of start to get bored on repeated viewings and that never happens with kubrick films for me.
shareWhy bother with this question? Why blame Kubrick for doing a period piece on a novel that hadn't been or hasn't since been touched by another director? Would you rather him do another version of Pride and Prejudice, Robin Hood or MacBeth...you know, things that have been re-done to death?
It's a breath of fresh air to view something (semi) original. I never read the book, but I enjoyed the movie, and it wasn't a story I have seen 3 or 4 times on the screen before like every other popular period film based off a novel. If you didn't like the story, that's alright, but saying a director should make a movie based off a popular novel is ignorant and close-minded. Director's should direct films they want to make with stories they want to tell. Us viewer's shouldn't always want to see the same ol' shlop. Then again, you are probably one (of the millions) who has made Hollywood into the sequelitis machine it is today.