“It was all planned ahead of time,” Barry is told about a staged duel in which he unknowingly takes part. Social ritual is also a means by which we can put on a good face while we do horrible things and behave terribly. Remember that in 18th century Europe clothes were beautiful and perfume was popular because no one bathed. Language and euphemisms have always been used to mask questionable activities. Think “1984” or any of the terms surrounding abortions and executions. The film’s opening shot is a duel rendered dryly ridiculous simply by being in such a great longshot. It is followed by Barry’s seduction by his young cousin in which he behaves as a gentleman even as she urges him toward unseemliness; even with his hand on her boob he thinks of a socially acceptable euphemism or doublespeak.
Barry later suffers one of the most polite robberies in the history of cinema (when he begs to keep his horse, the robber replies “I’d like to oblige you, but in our line of business people like us must be able to keep ahead of our clients”). Ritual dampens everything. War is reduced to strict lines. Beautiful uniforms are worn to mask killer intentions. Duels are so tedious and procrastinated that whatever emotion provoked them are long gone by the time the actual encounter comes to pass. When a soldier is whipped by his comrades the entire process moves like a parade or a wedding. The staged duel is, of course, a matter of money.
I read the book and loved it. When seeing a movie adaptation, I don’t want the book read to me. Thackeray’s Barry is self-aware; Kubrick’s is not. Kubrick presents Barry as a man who initially takes all the rules and rituals at face value and is oblivious to the real directives that operate in secret. He begins the film like a boy who has grown up reading the picaresques that Thackeray parodied. He has taken them to heart and has no experience of the real world. He thinks that his cousin truly loves him because she says so and the pleas from his male cousins to let her marry a rich Englishman mean nothing to him. He sees only the surface rules and not the cruelty they are intended to conceal. And we kind of admire him for it, in a fool’s way; when he says he’ll do a thing, he does it, with sword, fists, or pistol.
It’s debatable how much Barry’s philosophy flip-flops in the course of the film. Superficially he behaves as a gentleman ought without any real understanding of it. There’s certainly a part of him that becomes disillusioned when this approach does not provide him with everything he feels a gentleman deserves. Certainly part of him realizes that everything is a sham and he is willing to break every rule. He is a fascinatingly self-unaware character and it would be misguided to think of him as representing “a free spirit” or the embodiment of humanity’s independent ability to choose, the way Alexander Delarge is used in “A Clockwork Orange.” Barry knows what he wants and goes after it, but he wants what everyone else of his time wants, and he doesn’t know why he wants it.
At best, the light bulb above his head flickers. He and the other characters are only briefly able to peek out of the malaise of their rituals. The last of Barry’s several duels includes a glimmer of self-awareness, and the pause before Lady Lyndon’s (Marisa Berenson) writing of a check has that same flicker. The explosive and candid temper of Lady Lyndon’s first husband brings stupefied looks from those around him, like computer programs that have been given instructions that make no sense.
I ponder this in anticipation of the release of “Vanity Fair,” director Mira Nair’s new adaptation of another Thackeray novel. The era and the gender of the protagonist are different but the story of an unscrupulous social climber remains the same. What is also different from Kubrick’s epic, if the previews are any indication, is that Nair’s approach will be that of a conventional narrative, in which there are characters we like and those we dislike, who all move around like normal humans.
“Barry Lyndon” is a funny movie, too, in a very, very dry and cynical way. Think of it as an expensive wine. Fops are inherently hilarious, and Barry is always doing something heartless and selfish when young lovers are proclaiming their love for one another. He is a world class and economical ass-kisser; in a mere smattering of words he can find exactly what someone wants to hear.
I mention humor near the end because it’s easy to overlook the film’s human element. It’s easy to see how awful Barry is and how stupid his culture is. Yet we kind of like him anyway. He wants what he wants and there’s always something admirable in that. He comports himself manfully in several duels, foolish as they are. Kubrick is known as a cold director, sterile, a perfectionist, and not at all sentimental. Yet when we do feel things in Kubrick’s films they are so much stronger than a movie that manipulates us through conventions and music. He is intent on showing us that no matter how awful someone is, we are all still human beings and worthy of sympathy.
How weak is our love (and frankly un-Christlike) if we can only love good people? Think of the exact moment in “A Clockwork Orange” in which we’re suddenly on Alex’s side. Think of the murderous computer HAL singing “Daisy.” Kubrick challenges us to like these scumbags. Similarly, Barry does nothing to earn our compassion besides love his son, as even evil men do, but there he is, a human being, fragile and insecure. Kubrick makes fun of his characters, yes, everybody and everything with a total lack of discrimination. But through his coldness he reminds us how to be compassionate, how to be human. Even the coldness of history and rituals, technology, and warcraft cannot completely smother our humanity. This is what carries “Barry Lyndon” into greatness.
Finished September 3rd, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
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