FILM REVIEW - BARRY LYNDON
Stanley Kubrick’s lavish groundbreaking 1975 costume drama about the rise and fall of Barry
Lyndon is one of cinema’s greatest achievements.
Kubrick had hoped to follow A Clockwork Orange with a film about Napoleon, but the film about waterloo had been a box-office failure, and the studios refused to invest in another film dealing with the same territory. Kubrick decided to film Thackerey’s Vanity Fair, but the BBC beat him to the rights. Kubrick fell back on a lesser-known Thackerey novel, 1844’s The Luck Of Barry Lyndon, which was set in the period of the Anglo-French Seven Years War 1756-63).
Lyndon, played by Ryan O’Neal, begins the story as a naive working class Irishman, who falls for a lovely farm girl, who is unfortunately betrothed to an English army captain, played by Kubrick favourite, Leonard Rossiter. The betrothal is a loveless one, but promises to gain the girl’s family some financial security.
Lyndon rashly ruins the plans by challenging the captain to a duel (one of several superbly and tensely staged duels in the film). He is led to believe that he has shot the Captain dead, and advised to flee the country (duelling being illegal at the time0. Lyndon will earn too late that the death of The Captain was faked in order to get rid of Lyndon and restore the family’s potential fortunes).
Lyndon heads to England, incredibly polite and gentlemanly highwaymen steal where what little money he has. Lyndon is forced to join the English army as an alternative to starving, but seeing the death of a good friend, he deserts, and ends up posing as a Prussian cavalry officer. A real Prussian Commander discovers his ruse, played by Hardy Kruger, who forces Lyndon to join the Prussian army. Here, Lyndon excels, even saving Kruger’s life, and gains a great deal of respect, but as the war ends, Kruger sends Lyndon to spy on a
Chevalier, played by Patrick Magee, a gambler and a spy. Recognising the Chevalier as a fellow Irishman, Lyndon double crosses the Prussians, and embarks on a hedonistic rise to fortune with the Chevalier.
Lyndon soon falls for a married French Countess, Marrisa Berenson), and marries her soon after her husband dies, which gives great offence to her son from the first marriage, Lord
Bollington, especially as Lyndon womanises and cheats on his new wife. Such will lead to his nemesis in the second part of the film, which runs for over three hours and carries an intermission. Many critics find the film too long and ponderous, but I found it captivating throughout.
While part one shows Lyndon’s rise to fame and fortune, part two is concerned with his tragic downfall.
His affairs are discovered, and realizing that he has upset his wife, he begins to genuinely love her, but his gambling luck has run out and he has plunged the estate into serious debt. He has a son of his own to his wife, and genuinely loves him, fuelling further hatred and jealousy from Lord Bollington, who tries his best to take his frustrations out on the second child, until Lyndon beats him savagely in front of everyone. Lord Bollington leaves home, threatening never to return, but he will.
Lyndon dotes on, and spoils his own son, but fate takes a terrible turn when he buys the boy a horse for his birthday. Riding the horse unsupervised, the boy falls and dies. Lyndon and his wife become inconsolable. Lyndon descends into alcoholism, while his wife seems solace in religion.
Lyndon’s own mother, who he has invited over to stay with him, now intervenes, and dismisses her daughter-in-law’s religious advisors. They retaliate by inviting Lord Bollington to manage the affairs of the crumbling estate he stands to inherit. He arrives intent on revenge, and challenges his stepfather to a duel – one of the best gunfights ever seen outside of a western. Lyndon loses, and he is shot in the leg, which has to be amputated. The estate is saved by Lord Bollington, but only at the cost of Lyndon and his mother being sent away into exile. His wife is allowed to send him an allowance but never to see him again. The film ends with her tearfully writing out a cheque for his future….
The cine-photography won Oscars and has never been bettered. Kubrick makes each frame look like a Gainsborough painting, and the film is wonderful in many respects, funny at times, and harrowingly sad at others. Lyndon’s story remains English Cinema at its finest. The battle sequences are astonishing and a powerful anti-war statement in every respect. Arthur Chappell