An analysis of Stanley Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon'

Stanley Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon'

Barry Lyndon is a stylish 1975 British period drama directed by Stanley Kubrick who also wrote the script based on the 1844 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray called The Luck of Barry Lyndon. At the 48th Academy Awards, it won 4 awards for Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, and Musical Score. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave Kubrick its Best Director award. Though often left out of the conversations among seminal works such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, or Full Metal Jacket, Barry Lyndon is—given its running time of 3hrs and 11 minutes--probably his best film in terms of overall entertainment including a great deal of humor to go along with everything else. 

The film follows the rise and fall of an ambitious Irish commoner named Redmond Barry who sets out in the world to make a name for himself after being dumped by his beautiful cousin for an officer of the military. The film is told in 2 parts: the 1st half of the film follows Barry from his humble beginnings as a naive innocent man who fights for love, honor, and country, a man who gains respect and admiration everywhere he goes, from challenging an English Army captain for the hand of a woman; to signing up to fight in the 7 years war against the French; to standing up to a much bigger man; to saving the life of his captor—through all of these, Redmond Barry makes a name for himself. The 2nd half of the film follows a pivotal point of the film where Barry—to escape the Austrian government using him as a spy—takes on the disguise of someone else to start a new life as a professional gambler in Saxony and sets his sights on the wife of an earl named Charles Lyndon. At this point of the film, Barry’s methods for acquiring a name for himself become dishonorable, openly courting Mr. Lyndon’s wife and upon the husband’s death marrying her and assuming her dead husband’s last name; having open affairs with all of the maids on the estate; flogging her son, Bullingdon Lyndon who hates him with a passion; squandering the estate’s wealth on worthless works of art, etc—in other words, everything he did to earn honor of his original name, he squanders to counterfeit a name stolen from another man. A barrister with influence promises Barry peerage, or a proper title, from the king in exchange for Barry’s “friendship” which involves mingling with the proper people, attending parties, and giving ill advised loans to others of high ranking in society. What he once fought for he now resorts to paying for with disastrous results. Here is more on the key themes in this film.

Pretending to be someone else

Throughout the film, Barry takes on a number of false identities, most of which occur in film’s 2nd act when doing so precedes him taking the name of Lyndon. Along with the false identities are a number of clues that he will assume another man’s wife and name. 

• Barry takes the name of an officer named Fakeham whose horse, uniform and papers he’s stolen
• Barry has a brief love affair with a woman whose husband is away fighting in the war
• assuming the property and wife of this officer foreshadows him stealing the property and wife of earl Charles Lyndon. 
• taking on the identity of the Chevalier Baliberi
• Barry assuming the false identity of lazlo Zilagy, an agent of the Prussian Army

The wrong direction

• Another foreshadowing of Barry’s name change and his methods for gaining respect is him going in the wrong direction. After deserting the British Army, he steals a horse to go to Holland, a neutral region of the 7 years war. On the way there, he is stopped by a Prussian Captain and lies about who he is and where he’s headed, telling the captain he’s headed to Bremen. Captain Potzdorf informs Barry, under the name of Fakeham, that he’s going in the wrong direction and offers to point him in the right direction with a correct map. Barry’s lie is eventually found out but the point is that by 1st deserting his army, then stealing another soldier’s name and horse, Barry is beginning to go in the wrong direction even though following this episode he continues to do honorable things such as saving the life of his captor Captain Potzdorf. 
• Also key to this turning point in the story is Holland being a neutral zone or a midpoint in Barry’s transition away from the honorable acts defining him in the story’s 1st half. 
• Still another foreshadowing of Barry’s turning away from honorable methods is him being a deserter, not just in the Military sense of the word but also in the figurative sense in that he gives up his own name for the name Fakeham.)
• The point of no return occurs in the scene where he fools his captors by disguising himself as Chevalier Baliberi, fooling them into not only setting him free to leave Austria but also receiving from them 2,000 guineas for doing so. 

What’s in a name?

In the beginning, he tries to earn his name; in the 2nd half of the movie, he tries to buy his name or peerage.

Earning a good name

• Challenging John Quinn to a gun duel over Nora Brady and in doing so, earning the respect, admiration and friendship of Jack Grogan
• winning the boxing match against the bully in his regiment
• Saving Potzdorf’s life at the French fort
• As a spy for the enemy, he refuses to sell out a fellow Irishman

Earning a bad name

• Marrying the Countess only a year after her husband’s death
• sleeping with the maids
• gambling
• drinking
• running up bills
• instead of earning a good name by honorable deeds, he sets out to buy a name
• Beating Bullingdon in front of all the important people

The turning point…

…In Barry’s reputation comes when he gives up a good name he earned honestly to steal the name of another man.