Barry Lyndon


Barry Lyndon is a 1975 historical drama film written, directed, and produced by Stanley Kubrick, based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. Narrated by Michael Hordern, and starring Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Leonard Rossiter, and Hardy Krüger, the film recounts the early exploits and later unravelling of an 18th-century Irish rogue and gold digger who marries a rich widow in order to attempt to climb the social ladder and assume her late husband's aristocratic position.
Kubrick began production on Barry Lyndon after his 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. He had originally intended to direct a biopic on Napoleon, but lost his financing because of the commercial failure of the similar 1970 Dino De Laurentiis–produced Waterloo. Kubrick eventually directed Barry Lyndon, set partially during the Seven Years' War, utilising his research from the Napoleon project. Filming began in December 1973 and lasted roughly eight months, taking place in England, Ireland, and Germany.
The film's cinematography has been described as ground-breaking. Especially notable are the long double shots, usually ended with a slow backwards zoom, the scenes shot entirely in candlelight, and the settings based on William Hogarth paintings. The exteriors were filmed on location in England, Ireland, and Germany, with the interiors shot mainly in London. The production had problems related to logistics, weather, and politics.
Barry Lyndon won four Oscars at the 48th Academy Awards: Best Scoring: Original Song Score and Adaptation or Scoring: Adaptation, Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography. Although some critics took issue with the film's slow pace and restrained emotion, its reputation, like that of many of Kubrick's works, has grown over time, and it is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time. In the 2022 Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll, Barry Lyndon placed 12th in the directors' poll and 45th in the critics' poll.

Plot

Part I: ''"By What Means Redmond Barry Acquired the Style and Title of Barry Lyndon"''

In the Kingdom of Ireland, 1750, Redmond Barry's father is killed in a duel. Barry, of a genteel but impoverished Irish Protestant family, becomes infatuated with his cousin Nora Brady, and shoots her suitor, Army captain John Quin, in a duel. He flees but is robbed by highwaymen on his way to Dublin. Penniless, Barry enlists in the Army. Family friend Captain Grogan informs him that Quin is not dead: the duel was staged, Barry's bullet having been swapped for a plug of tow, so that Nora's family could get rid of Barry and improve their finances through her marriage to Quin.
Barry serves with his regiment in Germany during the Seven Years' War, but deserts after Grogan dies in combat against the French. Absconding with a lieutenant's horse and uniform, Barry has a brief affair with Frau Lieschen, a married German peasant woman. On his way to Bremen, he encounters Captain Potzdorf, who sees through the ruse and impresses him into the Prussian Army. Barry later saves Potzdorf's life and receives a commendation from Frederick the Great.
At the end of the war, Barry is recruited by Captain Potzdorf's uncle into the Prussian Ministry of Police. The Prussians suspect that the Chevalier de Balibari, an Austrian diplomat and professional gambler, is in fact an Irishman and a spy for Empress Maria Theresa, and assign Barry to become his manservant. An emotional Barry confides everything to the Chevalier and they become confederates. After they win an enormous sum from the Prince of Tübingen at cards, the Prince accuses the Chevalier of cheating and refuses to pay his debt. The Chevalier threatens to demand satisfaction. To avoid a scandal, the Ministry of Police pays off the debt and quietly escorts the Chevalier outside Prussian borders, which allows Barry, disguised as the Chevalier, to leave the country as well, the Chevalier himself having uneventfully crossed the frontier the night before.
Barry and the Chevalier travel across Europe, perpetrating similar gambling scams, with Barry forcing payment from debtors with sword duels. In Spa, he encounters the beautiful, wealthy, and visibly depressed Lady Lyndon. He seduces her, and goads her elderly husband Sir Charles Lyndon to death with verbal repartee.

Part II: ''"Containing an Account of the Misfortunes and Disasters Which Befell Barry Lyndon"''

In 1773, Barry marries Lady Lyndon, takes her last name and settles in England. The Countess bears Barry a son, Bryan Patrick, whom Barry spoils. The marriage is unhappy: Barry is openly unfaithful and squanders his wife's wealth while keeping her in seclusion. Lord Bullingdon, Lady Lyndon's son by Sir Charles, still grieves for his father and accurately sees Barry as a gold digger who does not love his mother. Barry responds with years of escalating emotional and physical abuse.
Barry's mother comes to live with him and warns him that if Lady Lyndon dies, Bullingdon will inherit everything. She advises her son to obtain a title. To this end, Barry cultivates the influential Lord Wendover and spends even larger sums of Lady Lyndon's money to ingratiate himself with high society. Bullingdon, now a young adult, interrupts a society party Barry throws. He publicly accuses his stepfather of infidelity, abuse, and financial mismanagement, and announces that he will leave the Lyndon estate for as long as Barry remains there. Barry responds by brutally assaulting Bullingdon until they are physically separated by the party attendees. In the aftermath, Barry is ostracised by high society and plunges further into financial ruin.
Barry arranges to give Bryan a full-grown horse for his ninth birthday. An impatient Bryan rides the horse unaccompanied and dies in a riding accident. Barry sinks into alcoholism, while Lady Lyndon seeks religious counseling from clergyman Samuel Runt, who had been tutor to Bullingdon and Bryan and a longtime companion of Lady Lyndon. When Barry's mother dismisses Runt to keep her son from losing control, Lady Lyndon attempts suicide. Runt and Graham, the family's steward, write to Bullingdon, who returns to the estate and challenges his stepfather to a duel.
When the duel takes place, Bullingdon accidentally misfires the first shot, but Barry then deliberately fires into the ground, refusing to exploit his stepson's mistake. Bullingdon refuses to accept this as satisfaction and fires again, shooting Barry in the leg. This wound forces Barry to have an amputation below the knee. While Barry is recovering, Bullingdon takes control of the Lyndon estate. Through Graham, he reminds Barry that his credit is exhausted and offers him 500 guineas a year to leave Lady Lyndon, her estates, and England forever. Barry grudgingly accepts and resumes his former gambling profession, but without any real success. In December 1789, Lady Lyndon signs Barry's annuity cheque as her son looks on.

Cast

Critic Tim Robey suggests that the film "makes you realise that the most undervalued aspect of Kubrick's genius could well be his way with actors." He adds that the supporting cast is a "glittering procession of cameos, not from star names but from vital character players."
The cast featured Leon Vitali as the older Lord Bullingdon, who then became Kubrick's personal assistant, working as the casting director on his following films, and supervising film-to-video transfers for Kubrick. Their relationship lasted until Kubrick's death. The film's cinematographer, John Alcott, appears at the men's club in the non-speaking role of the man asleep in a chair near the title character when Lord Bullingdon challenges Barry to a duel. Kubrick's daughter Vivian also appears as a guest at Bryan's birthday party.
Other Kubrick featured regulars were Leonard Rossiter, Steven Berkoff, Patrick Magee, Godfrey Quigley, Anthony Sharp, and Philip Stone. Stone went on to feature in The Shining.

Thematic analysis

A main theme explored in Barry Lyndon is one of fate and destiny. Barry is pushed through life by a series of key events, some of which seem unavoidable. As critic Roger Ebert says, "He is a man to whom things happen." He declines to eat with the highwayman Captain Feeney, where he would most likely have been robbed, but is robbed anyway farther down the road. The narrator repeatedly emphasizes the role of fate as he announces events before they unfold on screen, like Bryan's death and Bullingdon seeking satisfaction. This theme of fate is also developed in the recurring motif of the painting. Just like the events featured in the paintings, Barry is participating in events which always were.
Another major theme is between father and son. Barry lost his father at a young age and throughout the film he seeks and attaches himself to father-figures. Examples include his uncle, Grogan, and the Chevalier. When given the chance to be a father, Barry loves his son to the point of spoiling him. This contrasts with his role as a father to Lord Bullingdon, whom he disregards and punishes.

Production

Development

After completing post production on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick resumed planning a film about Napoleon. During pre-production, Sergei Bondarchuk and Dino De Laurentiis's Waterloo was released, and failed at the box office. Reconsidering, Kubrick's financiers pulled funding, and he turned his attention towards a film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange. Subsequently, Kubrick showed an interest in Thackeray's Vanity Fair but dropped the project when a serialised version for television was produced. He told an interviewer, "At one time, Vanity Fair interested me as a possible film but, in the end, I decided the story could not be successfully compressed into the relatively short time-span of a feature film... as soon as I read Barry Lyndon I became very excited about it."
Having earned Oscar nominations for Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick's reputation in the early 1970s was that of "a perfectionist auteur who loomed larger over his movies than any concept or star". His studio—Warner Bros.—was therefore "eager to bankroll" his next project, which Kubrick kept "shrouded in secrecy" from the press partly due to the furor surrounding the controversially violent A Clockwork Orange and partly due to his "long-standing paranoia about the tabloid press". Kubrick was initially rumored to be developing an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Dream Story, which would serve as the source material for his later film Eyes Wide Shut.
In 1972 Kubrick finally set his sights on Thackeray's 1844 "satirical picaresque about the fortune-hunting of an Irish rogue", The Luck of ''Barry Lyndon, the setting of which allowed Kubrick to take advantage of the copious period research he had done for the now-aborted Napoleon. At the time, Kubrick merely announced that his next film would star Ryan O'Neal and Marisa Berenson, a former Vogue and Time'' magazine cover model, and be shot largely in Ireland. So heightened was the secrecy surrounding the film that "Even Berenson, when Kubrick first approached her, was told only that it was to be an 18th-century costume piece she was instructed to keep out of the sun in the months before production, to achieve the period-specific pallor he required."