Stanley Kubrick - Barry Lyndon (1975)

Prologue 

I'd like to take a minute to close a chapter of my film life before digging into this analysis.  It was about six and a half years ago.  Back then foreignfilms.com was still pretty active (although we had moved to a yuku board) and some of the members had the idea for a review-a-thon.  I can't recall whose idea it originally was, it may well have been mine, but I won't take credit.  Anyways the idea was that we each take turns picking a topic, then the participating members would all write about a different film on that topic.  We covered Tsai Ming-Liang, Aleksandr Sokurov, and a silent French idea was replaced with just a foreign silent film.  Well when it came to be my turn to pick the topic it shouldn't surprise you that I picked Stanley Kubrick.

That first review was on The Killing and shortly thereafter or perhaps even before I ordered Kubrick's early films online and wrote capsule reviews of each of them.  Despite the fact that some of my fellow users offered great analysis I took it upon myself to review all of Kubrick's films with the same care and detail with which I wrote my review of The Killing.  Despite the progress I made during 2006, where I covered a large chunk of Kubrick films the rest were slow coming.  Some of the reviews waited until blu-ray, and others were put off until I read the source material. 

Then there was Barry Lyndon.  When I started this project Lyndon was probably at the top of my list of films to revisit.  Well The Killing was, but after that Lyndon was the Kubrick masterpiece which I was least familiar with and the one I was most convinced I would love a second time around.  Perhaps in part because the film is over three hours long or perhaps because the bare-bones DVD wasn't all loaded with sexy special features and a high definition transfer I put it off.  Then came a day in September of 2007.  A fellow DC major friend of mine was back from her summer at USC and we were hanging out.  After digging through films to watch we decided Barry Lyndon would be a good choice.  However she was pressed for time and when I found out she hadn't seen Citizen Kane, well I couldn't rest another minute knowing that a film major out there hadn't seen the greatest film ever.

So fast forward five and a half more years and here we are.  In preparation for my top 100 list that I've taken the liberty of mentioning in every single blog since I started my research, the time to watch Barry Lyndon again seemed like a perfect chance to kill two birds with one stone. 

End of prologue

Sandwiched between a near perfect run of genre pictures Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon has often been overlooked.  It isn't the mind bending bit of pop culture A Clockwork Orange is, or the groundbreaking science fiction of 2001:  A Space Odyssey, nor is it a highly quotable perfect horror film The Shining.  For this reason it doesn't have the gloss or sheen of those other much better known films and is in the decidedly un-masculine style of a period picture with powdered wigs, lords and noblemen, and the like. 

This can hardly be called a criticism, but it stands to reason at least in part why Barry Lyndon was not nearly as popular as other Kubrick films.  Taking a quick look the film has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so those who have seen the film have pretty much given it unanimous praise.  My theory however is that the majority of the fans of the film are people who may be described as Kubrick "haters".  Not to say that people who dislike Kubrick love Barry Lyndon, it's just that people who find his much celebrated masterpieces overrated tend to prefer the much more understated Barry Lyndon with it's slow and deliberate pace.

Not to say that Kubrick's films were known for being fast paced, with several notable exceptions namely A Clockwork Orange and the first act of Full Metal Jacket.  Here the pace is set deliberately.  You get the feeling that although this film is a few minutes over three hours it could have easily been shorter if Kubrick wasn't so hell bent on taking his time with each scene.

The classic set up for many of the shots is to begin on a close or tight shot and slowly pull back to reveal a long shot without cutting.  I'm not entirely sure if John Alcott was zooming out or tracking back, although there doesn't seem to be a change of depth of field so my guess is on a slow track, but I could be wrong.  Alcott might be familiar as the cinematographer who was one of the first pioneers of the Steadicam, using it on Marathon Man and later much more famously on Kubrick's The Shining.  Philip Stone who played Graham here would also be featured in The Shining as Delbert Grady.  Since this is pre-Steadicam there is at least one scene featuring a hand held camera, which first appears in Barry's fight with another British soldier during his army training.

One of many scenes filmed by candlelight

Alcott won a best cinematography Academy Award for his work here.  The film was very well known for it's use of 100% natural lighting throughout.  In order to shoot literally by candlelight, Kubrick and Alcott got a hold of a super fast 50mm film stock that was used by NASA on the moon landing.  The idea Kubrick had at the time was that he didn't want his film to have the same artificial look of a typical costume drama.  So the theory was proposed that if electric light didn't exist in the time the film was set, then he would try to shoot without it.  This applies to some of the great location shooting outdoors which I am completely guessing at was partially inspired by Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller.  Altman said that when Kubrick saw that film he asked him what effects he used to capture the sky in a particular shot near dusk and Altman said none, they just pointed it and shot.  Perhaps Kubrick was set on recapturing this and it's evident in the scene where Barry (Ryan O'Neal) leaves his house and is later robbed by Captain Feeney (Arthur O'Sullivan).  There are two shots of a particularly colorful sky that I view as an homage to the Altman.

The film began as Kubrick's long standing dream of making a film about Napoleon, but as often happened repeatedly throughout his life that plan fell through.  More specifically a costly failure known as Waterloo came out and scared studios away from giving Kubrick money for a Napoleon picture.  So Kubrick did the next best thing and adapted a story set in pre-Napoleonic times but not by much.  The source novel was by Vanity Fair author William Makepeace Thackery, entitled The Luck of Barry Lyndon.  Kubrick wrote the screenplay by himself, which he also did for A Clockwork Orange.  There have been several references to dialogue in this film as with nearly every Kubrick film, including Rushmore and Dogville among others.  The principle photography was started in spring of 1973 and lasted into 1974, with a break for Christmas.  Sure this was an epic, but Kubrick was always known for taking his sweet ass time shooting, and filming scenes to an absurd degree.

The book apparently didn't feature a third person narrator which Kubrick uses to varying degrees, punctuated by a few title cards to separate the sections.  Michael Hordern provides the voice of the narrator here and plenty of commentary has been written about his occasionally unreliable remarks.  Thackery's novel was considered by some historians to be the first English language novel to feature an anti-hero because clearly Barry is not entirely a good guy.  He isn't exactly villainous and the character is rich enough to have multiple dimensions.  However he is first motivated by an absurd young love and jealousy but spends the rest of the film chasing his ambitions and unscrupulously worming his way into society.  He deserts the British army and later turns on the Prussian army when he simply here's his native Irish tongue in the personage of the Chevalier du Balibari (Patrick Magee).  Before Sir Charles Lyndon (Frank Middlemass) is even dead he's making advances on his soon to be widow.  Almost immediately after their wedding he defiantly blows smoke in her face after she asks him to stop smoking.  His amorous attentions turn instantly cold as he indulges in affairs with every available maid and holds his own orgies letting Lady Lyndon to raise her son in seclusion.  

Barry on his honeymoon

His saving grace can be seen as his fanatical devotion to his own son who he spoils horribly at nearly every opportunity.  He lets his son get away with murder and it of course is his ultimate undoing.  Not only does it lead to his son's tragic end, but ultimately sets in motion the chain of events that will send Barry back to his native Ireland a wounded man.  However the "good" in Barry doesn't exactly die when his son does, although you can make the claim of how honorable his choice to accept the 500 guineas every year to stay the hell out of the country is.  When locked in the absurd duel with his step son he purposely misfires to spare his son because we know even if he doesn't that Barry is an excellent shot, although this good deed would not be to Barry's benefit, although his profitable banishment may indicate all's well that ends well.  This may be some of the "luck" implied in Thackery's title, which may seem ironic when confronting how many wrong turns Barry seems to take throughout.

Musically Kubrick continued his long standing obsession with classical music, using all previously written material again.  The film's theme was Handel's Sarabande, which was given an expanded orchestral treatment considering it was originally written as a solo piece for the harpsichord.  Following the success of 2001, I suppose Kubrick felt that in this film period music would be even more appropriately used, and I'm sure studio executives were perfectly fine with not having to pay for an original score to be commissioned. 

As a whole this is arguably Kubrick's most emotionally wrenching film.  You don't expect to see a great deal of tears of grief in Kubrick's film and even when you do they're typically tempered by something else.  Several scenes in this film have the markings of a tragedy but early on so many of the potential pratfalls all seem to work out, which somewhat lulls us into a sense of false security.  When Barry shoots the Captain John Quin (Leonard Rossiter) in a duel we find out that the bullet was actually tow, which apparently is used in upholstery according to it's Wikipedia page.  He is robbed, but stumbles upon the army with a chance to make a living, he deserts and is caught, but put into service rather than turned over as a deserter.  He constantly gets in a jam and finds a way to come out of it on top.  For this reason when his son falls off his horse it's particularly devastating that he doesn't recover.  Lady Lyndon (Marissa Berenson) takes it particularly hard attempting to poison herself, but as the narrator points out with only enough to "make her sick". 

Barry's final affront is in the wound he needlessly suffered in the final duel.  Rather than receive satisfaction, Bullingdon (Leon Vitali) proceeds to fire at Barry again.  The rules of this duel allow for shots to be taken in turn rather than at the same time, which seems particularly cruel and barbaric.  Since he is far worse a shot than his step-father the bullets shatters Barry's bone in his lower leg.  Obviously we're talking another century here so of course it involves an amputation.  His final banishment might seem like the just desserts piled on top of his downfall, but well he's going to be paid quite handsomely for his exile.  The last image we see of Lady Lyndon is of her signing the equivalent of a check for that money to be paid per annum.  We then get some information from the narrator on Barry's subsequent profession in Ireland as a far less successful gambler.  The epilogue however points to the rise of the French revolution and of course the abandonment of the old class system, which might make Barry seem a little luckier to be without title.

The film is a masterpiece, and was part of that string Kubrick made where it seemed like he could do no wrong.  It would be the last of his films to be nominated for best picture, which was his fourth in a row to receive the honor, so in some ways it is the end of an era, at least in terms of industry recognition.  It's four Academy Awards were all technical and Kubrick would remain a bridesmaid in that regard until his death, despite his special Oscar for 2001.  A modest success in it's time it's status has only increased over the years.  Martin Scorsese for one has cited it as his favorite Kubrick film, and plenty of others regard it right alongside 2001, Dr. Strangelove, and his very best work.  Perhaps it's a shade beneath those staggering masterpieces, but this is easily the only Kubrick film (aside from perhaps The Killing) that you can make a case for it being underrated.