Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon was a
serialised novel that established W.M. Thackeray’s reputation as a writer. It was
published in the 1800s and set in the 1700s. It depicted Barry Lyndon as the epitome
of vainglory. The times he lived in were such that gentlemen commonly
settled points of honour by duelling, Ireland was still under English rule, and
Europe was riven by wars. In the story, Redmond Barry (later to become known as Barry
Lyndon), born in Ireland, leaves his home under the pall of a fatal duel, and
ends up on the front line of the war in Europe. He ultimately marries into an
aristocratic family, but his dissolution and self-regard are all-consuming, and
unhappiness is never very far away.
While it is obvious
that Kubrick stays faithful to the original literary version in many respects,
such as the historical setting, the film’s narrative structure and content
differ greatly from those of the book. The film employs a narrator, who speaks in
the third person. It is one of the book’s main methods of imparting the extent
of Barry’s disillusion and delusion that the narrator speaks in the first
person. Thus, while the narration serves much the same purpose in both
versions, to move the story along and fill in gaps, the element of
damning ridicule of Barry’s empty preening, so central to the book’s narrative voice,
is absent from the film. There are several other material differences between the
book and film, the most striking of which occurs in the film’s latter stages, when Barry
loses a leg as the result of a duel, which doesn't happen in the book. Of course, these differences impinge on
our experience of the movie only insofar as we’re aware of them. Overrall, Kubrick’s
modifications are not such as to make the movie unrecognisable from Thackeray’s
original.
“Unrecognisable” is a
key word here, because it is certainly in terms of visual impact that the movie
most succeeds. In this respect, the filmmakers deserve great credit for their
transposition of the literary domain to the screen. Some of the most memorable
are the battle scenes. Here the artful, in the compositional sense, conjunction
of the rank and file, fife and drum, natural settings, and plumes of gunsmoke,
taken all together in the context of a war of attrition, is noteworthy. Another
outstanding visual element are the interior scenes, particularly those
depicting aristocratic gambling evenings. Here the lighting appears to be drawn
from the great chandeliers of candles that hang low from the ceilings, giving
each such scene the air of a painting from the time.