While the actors are good and the locations/sets are magnificent (great choice of the pidgeon barn for the last duel) I found this just too boring. Didn’t care for any of the characters.

I watched this over the course of two evenings, which made the length (184 minutes) a bit less daunting. Thackeray’s period novel fell into the hands of a master. Stanley Kubrick’s screen adaptation of the book is cinegraphically succulent. Ryan O’Neal somehow pulls off the title role, surrounded by real Europeans. Loved the chamber music throughout. Obviously deserving of the four Oscars it won, though nothing at all like A Clockwork Orange or 2001: A Space Odyssey which preceded it, nor The Shining which followed. Amazingly Kubrick through and through.

Marisa Berenson is actually quite amazing.