Movie Talk: Barry Lyndon - the Irish Adventurer

    Last Saturday I watched Barry Lyndon, Kubrick's 1975 historical drama set in the regency era of Britain (although the film moves from Ireland, England, to Germany and France.) I actually had no idea this movie even existed until someone I follow on Twitter re-posted it, so it seems that this may be one of Kubrick's underrated classics. You can definitely find remnants of a Clockwork Orange in this movie just by the way the characters move and Kubrick's affinity for challenging and satirizing the systems that be, but I'll get more into that.

   

"..it was at this moment she knew, she fucked up."

    Redmond Barry is what the old world would simply call a brute. He is hot-headed, demands respect rather than commands, and is generally a nuisance wherever he goes. At the beginning of the film, I found him to actually be likable. What young person doesn't feel like they get the short end of the stick? We see Barry struggle with what it means to be a man (a dilemma he unfortunately never seems to figure out.) We watch Barry play with death in his adolescence all the way up through the Seven Years' War, and in that sense I can kind of understand where he's coming from. Being in the front lines of a war is obviously not easy, and if mental health care existed back then he might have found more sympathizers.

    And it doesn't help that he gets robbed before he even gets a chance at making anything of his life after he's told to go to Dublin. Barry likes to think that his hardships don't phase him when they obviously do, and we as an audience get to see that he's much more emotional than what he likes to show. Despite the tough exterior Barry seems to wear his heart on his sleeve (depending on the situation, that is.) Literally the only person he gets to cry in front of is a dead man, and in that moment I actually felt sorry for him. Sorry for his loss, the pains of war he endures, and the expectations of being a man all falling down on him at the same time.

    But like other Kubrick films, there is the first half and then there's the second. Also known as the rise and fall. The moment in which all the momentum Kubrick builds begins to break apart. It slowly becomes evident that Barry is more than just a foolhardy but well-meaning guy. Barry has faced some unfair adversities, but instead of letting those experiences make him wiser, he becomes belligerently selfish and bitter until he takes it out on those he should be caring about the most.

    What at first we think of as honesty turns into a lack of loyalty. A friend to everyone is a friend to no one, and Barry doesn't seem to be on anyone's side but his own. We see him lie and cheat his way into nobility because that's what he thinks will get him far, and it does in a superficial sense, but that's precisely what he doesn't understand. All the wealth, power and women couldn't satisfy him because nothing soothes his appetite. That's why we see him sleep with a married peasant woman in the first half of the movie, because she's unattainable. Barry cannot fathom there is anything in the world that he cannot obtain, and most of the women he seems to be attracted to are ones that are already taken (or ones that aren't his wife.)

    As I've read up on this movie I've observed people idolizing Barry a little bit; I think for the wrong reasons. I'm not surprised that a lot of men see themselves in this character. As I was watching this movie I kept putting myself in his head, and what I heard back was "I'm younger and more inexperienced than you, but I could still do your job better. I deserve better," like a petulant child would overestimate their own abilities. This bratty, entitled attitude would ultimately be what kills his own son later on. I think a lot of men get distracted by Barry's relatable determination and desire for a better life and forget the terrible things he had to do in order to get there. When I watched what Scorsese said about this movie I couldn't help but notice his admiration for the film but not actually getting what was wrong about it (which is similarly how I feel about Scorsese in general, maybe I'll write more about that someday.) Actually as I'm writing this I'm drawing serious parallels between it and Wolf of Wall Street.

"WOLF OF WALL STREET DID NOT RIP OFF BARRY LYNDON!" - some nerd, probably

    Everything Barry obtains is entirely motivated by his shallow perspective. Even in the very beginning of the movie when he falls for his cousin, he shoots her fiance because he cannot have her. It didn't matter what she wanted or what would make her happy, it mattered that she was not his, ignoring the unlikelihood that they would ever be together. Yes, you could argue that Nora was toying with him and that it's wrong, but that's also ignoring her instincts to survive in a world where women don't have many options. Barry is not emotionally intelligent enough to understand that, and subsequently, many men don't understand that. For as much of a masculine character that he's supposed to be, he operates more like what would be considered back then as feminine; entirely led by his emotions. 

    So in that sense, I think some men interpret this film as a man that was wronged and cucked by a woman getting his revenge by grabbing the world by the balls and living as broadly and hedonistic as he could. In some ways that is true. If you're looking at this from a woman's perspective, you can see that clear as day, but to me and many women like me, that translates more to Barry being wronged by one woman and then taking it out on every woman for the rest of his life; something we see every day.

    Am I saying that Kubrick formed this masterful feminist narrative? No. I think his fascination with the evils of man was in the general sense. Kubrick may present the wrongs that are done to women but he never really unpacks that specifically just like he doesn't really unpack anything else. I'm not giving him grief about it, it's only something I find interesting. Besides, the experience of being a woman isn't Kubrick's story to tell anyway. It's not that I feel that men can't write women, but in order to authentically portray someone's life as complex as Barry Lyndon's, you must have some authentic connection to their experiences.

    I haven't read the novel, and maybe I'll get around to that and review that separately and then compare the two. Kubrick is known for tweaking original stories just like he did with the Shining.

    I liked this movie a lot. It's beautifully shot, obviously. Some of the scenes look straight out of a painting, even mimicking the stale expressions that you would often see in those works. I know I didn't talk much about the visual aspects of the movie but it's the story that fascinates me more here. It gave me a lot to think about, reminding me of my love for classic novels. But you know what I would really like to see? These two in the same room:

could you imagine the chaos?