Barry Lyndon (1975) - Kubrick's underrated masterpiece 🎬
Hello, movie lovers 👋
I'd like to talk about one of my favorite movies, Barry Lyndon.
It's a period piece as well as a drama.
Kubrick's works span different genres and settings and they all deserve to be seen, however when most people think of this important director this won't be their first, or even second, choice.
With this post I'm hoping to change that a little.
I was first exposed to this beautiful movie in high school when the teacher had us watch it.
I'm sorry to say that as a teenager I didn't care for it. At such an age we're often distracted by what seem to be much more important matters. I don't think I particuarly enjoyed the movie then or really retained much of it.
I'm happy to say that with time I've matured and it is now one of my favorites.
More importantly, my personal taste is such that I like movies more when they have strong dialogues or a moving and compelling story. I don't usually care as much for the visuals.
For this reason, when I say that this is one of my favorites ALSO because of its photography and artistic value that should tell you something.
The movie has a runtime of close to three hours so you definetely need to be in the right mood to tackle it and it gets progressively harder to watch in the second half but it's a monumental work, something worth seeing. If you end up checking it out because of this post, I'd love for you to tell me so 😉
The director planned to make a period piece set during the napoleonic wars but eventually changed his mind and ultimately the inspiration for his project was "The luck of Barry Lyndon"" by William Thackeray, a nover written in 1844.
It chronicles the life of our protagonist and it's set around the time of the Seven Years War in Europe.
I read the novel back in May of this year and I will point out some of the key differences and similarities between the two works.
However I should mention that to my estimate the movie is superior to the source material in terms of focus, ambitions and artistic value.
Technical brilliancy
For those that care about the specifics of the photography, know that Kubrick had to work with some constraints as he planned to shoot the whole movie using only natural light to create a greater sense of authenticity. This proved a challenge both outdoors and indoors. In the latter he often relied on special candles that he commisioned to make the light in this period piece more accurate to the time.
This is just one detail that goes to show the dedication to the craft and the director's will to achieve the perfect movie.
Furthermore, if you're interested in movie history this film might be a good excuse to go down some rabbit holes or search for curiosities. Wether it's technical details or anecdotes behind particular scenes, there's plenty that you can find about "Barry Lyndon".
"Every frame a painting"
This expression definetely applies here. Visually, the movie never manages to be boring and whenever there's a panoramic view of a room or a landscape it's like watching a classical painting.
Many of the scenes were indeed coreographed and modeled around old paintings that perfectely capture specific moments from life 300 years ago. This further enhances the aura of authenticity around the movie and as soon as you'll see these scenes you'll understand the vision behind them.
I think these images speak for themselves. There's a special eye for detail that goes into the composition of these scenes. It feels like being transported back in time . It's as if the paintings that Kubrick used as reference were alive!
The dialogues are just as enjoyable as the photography.
Before reading the book I already knew by heart some of the most memorable lines and exchanges in the movie but as I went through Thackeray's work I was surprised to find that many of them had not been changed, essentially. They were just that good.
However I don't think that I would have gotten the most out of them by reading them. There's almost a theatrical quality to some of them and in a few cases the movie did an incredible job of bringing life to these lines that Kubrick, no doubt, made the actors reharse over and over.
Whilst being dramatic the movie still accomodates humor. Especially in the first part, the director inserts some scenes and vignettes that weren't at all present in the novel but do work to great effect to lighten the mood and create a more relaxed atmosphere around some parts of the story.
Sometimes the movie quotes almost directly the book. Such is the case for this short and humorous excerpt here. However it's really the emphatic delivery that sells some of these scenes and makes them truly unforgettable.
Memorable music
Music accompanies most of the movie and it always fits the tone well, enhancing the scenes greatly.
This one theme is heard a few times while Barry, our protagonist, is still in Ireland and perfectly captures the romantic sense of longing that he feels.
This other one is the main theme of the movie. It's heard frequently and with several variations. At times it sounds somber, in other cases dramatic and confers gravitas to the scenes.
Another, that for different reasons, is committed to my memory is the much more whistful military march that is heard on the battlefield and later even at parties, being sung by our reminiscing war veterans.
The amazing soundtrack extends further and really elevates the movie. Feel free to check it out to have more of an idea of the different moods that it wants to set.
Along with the beautiful costumes and stunning visual imagery, music is sure to make a strong artistic impression on viewers of this movie.
It's a compelling drama about the human condition
Leaving technical discussions aside, the movie has all the gravity of other serious works.
It deals with themes of identity, paternal influence, luck and destiny, morality and existentialism.
It does all this through a compelling story that you won't be able to predict.
It can be fun, tense, decadent, morally ambiguous. It does it all to great effect.
At the center of it all is solely the protagonist and his adventurous life.
Let's look together at some of the themes that concern this powerful story.
Destiny
Throughout the story there's almost a sense of inevitability. Barry comes from small Irish nobility and his family, at the time when he lives, is markedly past his glory days. He feels, however, destined to become a man of great stature and means and to restore his family honor.
Whatever his ambitions might be there seems to be an almost sinister and inescapable force that at times tries to put Barry in its place.
It's a story of continuous reversals of fortune and in many cases it doesn't feel like deserves what's coming to him, either good or bad. It all feels up to luck or some chaotic pre-ordained design.
Although there are many examples of this in the story, the importance of luck is perhaps best exemplified by Barry's adventures with games of chance and gambling.
Significantly, in the first scene of the movie, Barry is playing cards with his cousin Nora.
As a low-ranking soldier he's introduced to the vice of playing for money and throughout his adulthood gambling will be one of his main preoccupations! As the sardonic omniscient narrator of the movie hilariously puts it, once Barry acquires his wealth he will do his best to host "the doctors of that science" at his house.
Equally important for the sake of this theme are duels. Barry and those close to him fight several times in duels during the story and some of these occurr at extremely pivotal moments.
It's not so much the sword fights, where Barry excels, that drive this point home.
It's really the pistol duels where you can feel this dangerous sense of looming randomness that makes the scenes extraordinarily tense!
Even more so, warfare feels completely chaotic and random. This is aesthetically exemplified by the masses of soldiers marching forward as the enemy formation opens fire, literally being used as meat shield or cannon fodder. There is no individual virtue or decision that can really save a particular soldier at this time and everything seems a cruel game of fate.
Father figures
One of the first things we get to know about Barry is that his father was killed in a duel and he never had much of a chance to influence his life.
Barry tries to compensate for this in various ways.
! [Hidden Spoiler Text] In the first part of the story the english Captain Jack Quinn comes to contend with Brady for the hand of the young Nora Brady.
It's not just love, but also a strong will and a determination to impress others that drives Barry further into this conflict and ultimately sets him on the chaotic path that will influence the rest of his life.
A surrogate father figure will also be his huncle, Jack Grogan. Barry will fight along with him in the army and after a taste of warfare that will claim the life of the uncle Barry will become disillusioned with any idealized concept of military honor that this man might have represented and he will resolve to leave the army by whatever means necessary.
Later in his adventures Barry will come under the service of other powerful men too such as the "Chevalier" and Captain Potzdorf and he will genuinely do his best to help and impress them.
There's one very comical scene that plays off this theme and pertains to the first part of the movie but I will mark as a spoiler nonetheless.
This is not something that is described in the original novel but rather an invention from Kubrick to entertain and further solidify this important theme.
! [Hidden Spoiler Text]
The whole exchange in this scene is hilariously delivered and comes off as one of the funniest of the movie. However, it's very significant that Barry is alone on his path through the woods while his assailants are a father and his son.
There's also an important scene where Barry is being reprimanded by his severe superior.
Barry pleads with him, admitting that he's never had anyone to guide him to justify his conduct.
In his speech he also claims to be "a ruined lad". This is a detail of the movie that never fails to move me.
I think it's deliberately left ambiguous wether or not Barry truly believes this.
In the novel there's an aspect of Barry's character that doesn't come nearly as much into play in the movie but he's essentially a liar and a manipulator. In that sense this might very well just be him trying to employ rethorics to gain good standing with his superiors.
If that isn't the case, however, this would make Barry a much more tragic character.
He's still very young at this point in the story and yet he feels to be "ruined" in some undefined way.
In the second part of the story Barry is a father to two boys so, of course, the theme keeps playing a part even there.
Love and romance
Again, the novel differs in some ways with the movie. Especially after his encounter with the Chevalier Barry boastfully claims to have seduced many women all throughout the courts of Europe.
Together with the Chevalier he plots to blackmail and seduce various noble women before ultimately getting to marry his wife.
This part of his adventurous life is more or less omitted from the movie and spuriously incorporated into the latter part of the movie.
Regardless, there's essentially three women that have a great influence in Barry's story.
At first Barry is in love with his cousin Nora. This romantic tension is not fully reciprocated in the sense that Nora seems to play with Barry and lead him on while not being serious and much more interested in older men of higher status.
Nora's treatment to Barry humiliates him and drives him to rebel against his own family.
After Barry leaves Ireland and goes to war he seems to manage to forget Nora.
Partially to bide his time and seek refuge from a war he doesn't want any part in, Barry lives for a time with a dutch farmer.
He seems to be genuinely in love with her and she reciprocates the interest, however it's hinted that she might have partially done so out of convenience.
Regardless, she even has a son to look after and Barry seems happy to experience life with this pretend family that he's found for himself but he eventually leaves them.
Meaningfully, Barry stays with this woman under the pretence of being an english officer while he is in fact a deserted or the English army. He presents himself to her as Lieutenant Johnatan "Fakenham" 🤣.
He refuses to give up his real name and this won't be the last act of deliberate deception from Barry.
After many adventures and under the counsel of a squallid man who's taken Barry under his wing, our protagonist resolves to wed a noble woman or heiress of some kind.
While in Spa he finds such a target in the form of the countess of Lyndon. She is married to a much older, dying man and is expected to soon receive a vast inheritance.
Barry manages to seduce her and quickly after that Sir Charles Lyndon dies of natural causes, leaving open the option for Lady Lyndon to marry again.
Once Barry secures all this wealth the more tragic part of his story begins.
Morality
Lastly, this dramatic story serves as a cautionary tale. Barry inherits not only a huge fortune but also many vices. He's seen by many as a vulgar opportunist from a foreign country who would stop at nothing to steal from others.
As we've seen Barry's fond of gambling and flaunting his wealth. He's also deceitful and unfaithful to his wife.
While he didn't have much agency in his youth and adventurous early life and while it's certainly possible to point at specific experiences and traumatic events that made him the way he is the dramatic trajectory he finds himself on in the second part of the story it's of hiw own doing and it's particularly painful to watch.
Let's look at some things that influenced Barry's character.
! [Hidden Spoiler Text] After the war he works for a time as a spy.
He is forced to hide his motives and identity. Speak many languages and lie to people.
At some other point he's put under the service of a renowned gambler. He's exposed to many vices and a decadent life-style.
At the same time Barry is also a victim of some betrayals and humiliations.
! [Hidden Spoiler Text] One such case, as we've seen, is the betrayal by Nora in the beginning of the story. He is humiliated by her and an by an older men of higher wealth and social standing.
As he later finds out, pretty much his whole family deceived him so that they could secure a lucrative marriage.
We can definetely see how these events shaped his life and values.
At the same time, when he's finally given the opportunity to carve his own path in life Barry makes, more often than not, the wrong choices.
I don't think the movie wants to either condemn him or absolve him. It is all told rather objectively and in a matter-of-face kind of way. We're called individually as viewers to make that judgment.
Structure
The movie somberly opens by announcing the general scope of the first part of the story, which is the uphill battle our protagonist will fight to change his social status and destiny.
Once Barry marries Lady Lyndon we reach the intermission, which sets the dramatic tone for the rest of his tragic story.
Of course, I won't say what happens exactly but at the end of it all Kubrick decides to leave this taunting message.
The movie is very long and there's much that I've omitted or left vaguely, especially when it comes to the second part of it. I hope I've done a good job of conveying while this movie deserves to be seen.
If I've inspired you to watch it, let me know! Similarly if you've already seen it and you have something to add feel free to reach out!