Among the best costume dramas ever made

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2008)

Stanley Kubrick's movies can be divided into two categories. On the one hand there are his "originals", films totally unlike anything else, films like "Dr Strangelove", "A Clockwork Orange" and "Eyes Wide Shut". I would also include among these "2001"; although it can nominally be categorised as science-fiction, it is like no other sci-fi movie I have ever seen.
On the other hand there are Kubrick's genre pieces, such as "Full Metal Jacket" (war) or "The Shining" (horror), in which he works within the confines of an established genre. In my view the greatest example (although he himself did not care for it much)is "Spartacus", made at a time when Classical epics were highly popular, and perhaps the greatest example of that particular genre ever made. "Barry Lyndon" is another genre piece. Although Kubrick was an American by birth, he spent much of his life in Britain, and the film falls within that typically British genre, the historical costume drama. Like many such films, it is based upon a classic novel, in this case by Thackeray.
A number of Kubrick's films fall naturally into two halves. In "Full Metal Jacket", for example, the first part deals with the experiences of the recruits in training and the second with their experiences on the battlefield. In "Lolita" the two acts of the film, before and after the heroine has been seduced by Humbert, correspond to the two parts of Nabokov's novel. "Barry Lyndon" follows a similar structure, with Part I narrating the events prior to the hero's marriage and Part II those following it.
The tone of Part I is fairly light-hearted, in the tradition of the picaresque novel. The hero (or anti-hero), at this stage known as Redmond Barry, is the poor relation of an impoverished family of eighteenth-century Irish gentry. He has pretensions to being a gentleman, but lacks the financial means to support those pretensions. He is forced to go on the run after he believes he has killed a man in a duel (although, unknown to him, his victim has survived). He joins the British army, deserts while fighting in the Seven Years War and is conscripted into the Prussian army where he saves his commanding officer's life. After the war he becomes first a spy for the Prussian police and then a professional gambler. Eventually he meets a wealthy titled lady, the Countess of Lyndon, and marries her after the death of her first husband.
The tone of Part II is more serious. The change in the hero's status is marked by a change in his name; he takes his wife's surname and uses "Barry" as his Christian name, seemingly dropping "Redmond" altogether. There is also a change in his character; in Part I he comes across as a likable rogue, but in Part II we see a darker side to his character. Although Barry has now achieved the wealth he once dreamt of, he is unable to manage the Countess's estates and is soon in financial difficulties. He quarrels with Lord Bullingdon, the Countess's son from her first marriage, who resents his mother's remarriage to a man he sees as an unscrupulous adventurer. Bullingdon is basically a cowardly young man, but eventually his loathing of his stepfather becomes stronger than his cowardice and he challenges Barry to a duel.
This duel comes as the climax to the film and can be interpreted in two ways. Barry refuses to fire at his stepson and fires his pistol into the ground, but his motive for so doing is unclear. It could be that he is motivated by pity for the young man, in which case this can be seen as his redemption scene, in which he redeems himself by a noble, selfless act. On the other hand, it could be that he remains as calculating as ever and, knowing that if he kills, or even injures, Bullingdon, this will lead to a rupture with his wife, makes his gesture in the expectation that his opponent will reciprocate.
Ryan O'Neal, who never brings to the part quite the necessary swagger or roguishness, was perhaps not the ideal choice for the hero, although Kubrick seems to have been handicapped by his financial backers who insisted on a big-name American star. I am not, however, sure that his first choice Robert Redford, who turned the role down, would have been ideal either. As he was to prove a few years later in "Out of Africa", foreign accents are not Redford's forte; at least O'Neal makes a game attempt at an Irish accent. There are, however, some good performances in supporting roles.
One criticism sometimes made of the "costume drama" genre is that it is too static, that it involves too many polite conversations in elegant drawing-rooms and not enough physical action. This is not a criticism which could be made of "Barry Lyndon", which not only incorporates three duels but also battle scenes and the tragic death of Barry's young son Brian in a riding accident. It runs for over three hours, but it is so well-paced that one does not notice its length. Like many films in this particular genre its reconstruction of period detail means that it is beautiful to look at, perhaps the most visually sumptuous of all Kubrick's films. Effective use is also made of music, especially that Schubert piano trio which was also to feature in Tony Scott's "The Hunger". Its use in "Barry Lyndon" is, of course, anachronistic as it was composed several decades after the events portrayed, but it nevertheless complements the mood of the film.
This is not, perhaps, the director's greatest film, but to say that is no criticism, as he was responsible for a number of masterpieces. It is certainly a very good one, and I would rank it in the top few costume dramas ever made. 8/10