Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 epic “Barry Lyndon” is one of the most beautifully photographed movies ever committed to celluloid.
The film’s cinematographer John Alcott had previously shot “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “A Clockwork Orange” for Kubrick, and would win an Academy Award for his work on “Lyndon.” Alcott would also shoot “The Shining,” as well as the sleazy but gorgeous-looking B-movies “Terror Train,” “Vice Squad,” and “The Beastmaster.” The warm, dim, flame-dappled, Vermeer-like shimmer of “Barry Lyndon” came from Kubrick’s insistence that the film be shot entirely with natural light.
Because the film was set in the 1770s and 1780s, that meant there were to be no electric lights whatsoever.
If a scene was set outdoors, the lighting would be dictated by where the sun was — and what the weather was like — at time of shooting.
Indoor scenes set at night would be lit with nothing less than hundreds and hundreds of candles.
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