Barry Lyndon
An opera in two acts, ain’t nobody got time for more, what are we, 18th century aristocrats? Pure Kubrickian technical flex, a visual marvel, but the plot itself is pretty alien for modern audiences: not only the Irish are not reviled as philandering devils, pretty much all situations are preposterous by modern standards.
I could buy the original William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel as a positive portrayal at the time, a sort of Shylock figure, but by the time JFK is president? Ridiculous!
Strap on to your sirrups, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, like suspension-less carriages on dirt roads.
Barry is some lowly middle class child, when his father is killed in a duel over some horses. His uncle takes heed of he and his mother, but there’s no drama there.
He spends a lot of time with his cousin, and in the boring rainy days, in between some dull card game, they play nurse and doctor. In the 18th century it means hiding a lace in her boobs and ask him to find it, no matter what. He is so infatuated by the only non-motherly woman he ever saw, she has to shove his hand in there.
Being a naïve child, he doesn’t understand she is only teasing him, she intends to marry some Englishman, a military men with means. She just wants her boobs to be touched. But he takes it as a personal affront, belittles and mistreats his rival so bad, the rest of the family concocts a plan to stage a fake duel, make Barry win, give him some cash and make him escape to Dublin to cool off the heat.
Our boy is still a naïve child, killing in a duel fair and square should have no legal consequences, but he takes the money and runs. The first people he meets on the road are highwayman who rob him blind, not just money, but his horse, sword, and pistol. He has to walk to the next village, where he joins the King’s Infantry to survive.
After a sort of bootcamp, he is sent to the front, (future) Germany, to fight the French and its allies. After experiencing the horrors of war, he just wants to desert ASAP. By luck, he spots two frolicking officers in a river and steals their clothes and horse. Riding to the allied Prussian encampment, he goes in the general Holland directing, but he is detected and unmasked by a Prussian officer. After being busted, he is back on the infantry, this time the Prussian, fighting the same war.
He befriends the officer who captures him, and after saving him from a burning building, gets him into undercover police work in the Prussian court. He needs to spy on a fellow Irishman, some gambling master, but he turns into a double agent. The charade goes on for a long time, but comes to an end eventually, and he join the gambler’s entourage.
Weary of a travelling life with not much fortune, he finds some impressionable aristo, courts her aggressively, then shoves it on the invalid husband’s face, which literally kills him on the spot (with apoplexy). In the next year they are married, and the next there’s a child of their own. After Barry marries into money, he immediately ignores his wife, who was already melancholic by nature. The pettiness of blowing smoke on her face after she asks him not foul up the carriage air.
Of course, the child of the older Lord is still there, and Barry treats him like a dog. This is to be his undoing, for the stepson takes so much shit for years, he snaps one day in public, and Barry brawls with him like the goddamn country bumpkin he is on the inside.
After that scene, Barry is shunned by the other aristos, but at least he has his son, which he pampers like a regular person. It was not to be. His natural child really wanted a motorbike, I mean, horse, so he gives it to him. So filled with child-like glee, he falls and dies of his wounds.
This is the final fall from grace. Barry drinks a lot by then, it’s the only way to dull the pain, since heroine wasn’t invented yet. The wife goes nuts for praying and shit.
The stepson smells blood, comes back and takes over the financial situation. He was always a snivelling aristocrat, someone who never opened a door in his life, but being mistreated by his stepfather and having no support from his mother makes him into an anxiety bundle, weak and coward.
Finally, the stepson tries to duel Barry, but that shitstain goes off half-cocked, and when it’s time to take it in the chin, pukes and recoils in the most undignified way possible. Knowing that it would push him beyond the pale with his wife, Barry shoots the ground, and gives the idiot another chance, which the snivelling shit takes, shooting Barry in the leg.
This being the 18th century, even rich aristos have to be amputated and walk around like an invalid. The stepson gives him a very small allowance, enough to survive on, so Barry and his mother go back to Ireland, waiting for the sweet release of death.
Upon reading her husband’s name on the many, many checks she needs to sign, the wife does a mere double take and looks into the void with her dead eyes, killed by decades of mind-numbing ennui, a lack of agency bordering inanimate objects, barely any human contact, and lack of material hardship. A truly sub-human life.
The main cast is mostly competent, the star was forced by the studio, but for Kubrick I don’t think a creative actor would be a right fit. The male characters are just alien to our modern sensibilities, filled with unbridled pettiness and evil, and the women are just doormats. Napoleon is probably the closest modern equivalent, and it is so very different.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.