Humanity's Lens: Kubrick's B'nL

[IanEye]

Barry


Lyndon


Barry Lyndon

Discuss.

[MacCruiskeen]

The Luck of Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in serial form in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy. Thackeray, who based the novel on the life and exploits of the Anglo-Irish rakehell and fortune-hunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, later reissued it under the title The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Luck_of_Barry_Lyndon

Don't discuss.

[IanEye]

not a big fan of Kubrick, eh Mac?

[MacCruiskeen]

I have enormous respect for Kubrick, Ian. That's one reason I object to seeing his films misused for "keyword hijacking" tomfoolery, especially one named (as is well-known and easy to find out) after a novel written in the mid-19th century.

And it's not as if the real world today offers nothing worth serious examination.

[IanEye]

Well, i guess that will be the last we'll hear from you on this thread then Mac.

Sorry to see you go.

People are free to discuss whatever aspects of the film they want on this thread. I happen to think there is a lot in the film that serves as a mirror for the previous 10 years (65-75) in American Politics.

Those that do not share this viewpoint are free to disagree and give their take on the film and the context of the times in which it was initially released.

[MacCruiskeen]

The tricorn hats are an obvious reference to the Trilateral Commission. The jackboots are a clear warning of coming fascism. The attractive women are keyword hijackings of other attractive women, especially Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. The thrusting branch on the fourth tree from the left is a subtle tribute to John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The idyllic landscape reminds me of Camelot, but that's probably just a coincidence. And the grassy knoll in the foreground? Say no more.

[IanEye]

Don't discuss.

Say no more.

Thanks for showing your true colors Mac!

[Fresno_Layshaft]

I hope this is a joke. These days, its hard to tell around here.

[IanEye]

I hope this is a joke. These days, its hard to tell around here.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lyndon]After 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick made plans for a film about Napoleon Bonaparte. During pre-production, however, Sergei Bondarchuk and Dino De Laurentiis' Waterloo was released and subsequently failed at the box office. As a result, Kubrick's financiers pulled their funding for the film. He was furious, having put considerable time and effort into the development of the Napoleon project. Left with no alternative, he turned his attention to his next film, A Clockwork Orange. Barry Lyndon followed, in part to take advantage of the copious research Kubrick had done for the aborted Napoleon.

The source novel is written by Lyndon while imprisoned looking back on his life. Lyndon is a notable example of the literary device of the unreliable narrator – throughout the novel the reader is constantly asked to question the veracity of the events described by him. Although later editions dropped the frame device of FitzBoodle's (Thackeray's pseudonym) editions, it is crucial in unmasking Lyndon's narcissism through occasional notes inserted at the bottom of the page noting information that is contradictory or inconsistent in relation to what Lyndon writes elsewhere. Andrew Sanders mentions in his introduction for the Oxford Classics edition, these annotations were relevant to the novel as an ingenious narrative device as Thackeray constantly invites the reader to question Lyndon's version of the events.

Kubrick however felt that using a first-person narrative would not be useful in a film adaptation :

I believe Thackeray used Redmond Barry to tell his own story in a deliberately distorted way because it made it more interesting. Instead of the omniscient author, Thackeray used the imperfect observer, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the dishonest observer, thus allowing the reader to judge for himself, with little difficulty, the probable truth in Redmond Barry's view of his life. This technique worked extremely well in the novel but, of course, in a film you have objective reality in front of you all of the time, so the effect of Thackeray's first-person story-teller could not be repeated on the screen. It might have worked as comedy by the juxtaposition of Barry's version of the truth with the reality on the screen, but I don't think that Barry Lyndon should have been done as a comedy.

Barry Lyndon departs from its source novel in several ways. In Thackeray’s writings, events are related in the first person by Barry himself. A comic tone pervades the work, as Barry proves both a raconteur and an unreliable narrator. Kubrick’s film, by contrast, presents the story objectively. Though the film contains voice-over (by actor Michael Hordern), the comments expressed are not Barry's, but those of an omniscient, although not entirely impartial, narrator. This change in perspective alters the tone of the story; Thackeray tells a jaunty, humorous tale, but Kubrick's telling is essentially tragic, with many subtle humorous jabs toward 18th century society, such as how Barry tries to learn the correct behavior for a gentleman, and pays a huge price when he does so.

Kubrick also changed the plot. The novel does not include a final duel. By adding this episode, Kubrick establishes dueling as the film’s central motif. The movie begins with a duel where Barry’s father is shot dead, and duels recur throughout the film.[/url]

I think it would be interesting to be an American in 1975 and go see this film in a theater. No joke.

[lunarose]

hi fresno (ahh, land of my birth........).

"I hope this is a joke. These days, its hard to tell around here."

yeah. i haven't sen the film, but it's hard to imagine a guy like kubrik choosing a text for a film with the express purpose of providing commentary on current social, political, and sexual mores.......

[MacCruiskeen]

And "Ryan O'Neal"? In the lead role? As a womaniser? As a "low-bred ruffian", infiltrating the halls of power? Being shot at? I mean, c'mon, gimme a break, this has CIA written all over it.

RYAN O'NEAL = "OH, KNEEL, RYAN!" = "ABASE THYSELF, O IRISH UPSTART."

A clear, coded warning to Kennedy, delivered only twelve years after his assassination.

Now the only question remaining is this: Did the notoriously naive Stanley Kubrick eventually come to realise how his skills had been manipulated by the PTB/BFEE/Rockefellers/Illuminati/Hollywood Moguls/CIA/William Makepeace [sic!] Thackeray? Or was he in on it from the start?

Where was Stanley Kubrick on November 22, 1963?

[Jeff]

I think what Ian's trying to do here is quite reasonable - discuss a Kubrick film in the political context of its time - and bears only superficial resemblance to what this board knows as "keyword hijacking." The name would have been evocative, and I doubt Kubrick would have been ignorant of that.

Please, let's flame off, and return this thread to topic.

[Penguin]

Guys, what the fuck..
Be civil, please!


Love ya, Penguin

(ps. Have seen most of Kubricks movies several times, but not Barry boy Lyndon. It was so slow moving and I was so stoned trying to watch it, that I fell asleep)

[MacCruiskeen]

Please, let's flame off, and return this thread to topic.

I'd be interested to hear, from Ian, what the topic is, or what he wants it to be.

Thread Title: "Humanity's Lens: Kubrick's B'n'L" - Goldwater and Johnson, allegedly, somehow. Apart from two big photos and movie poster, Ian's post contained only one word -- "Discuss" -- which linked to a speech by Ronald Reagan, the relevance of which to the film is, to say the least, unclear.

So my first response was entirely on-topic, pointing out that the name "Barry Lyndon" (B + L) was in fact invented by Thackeray in 1844.

No response to that fact was forthcoming. None. So then I parodied the whole "keyword-hijacking" shtick, which had been explicitly referenced in the thread-title. That wasn't "flaming". That, too, was on-topic (until Ian explains what the topic actually is, if it's not in fact "keyword-hijacking" "B 'n' L" ad-lib free-association).

A dozen posts on, we've yet to hear from Ian exactly (or even approximately) what he thinks Goldwater and Johnson have to do with this 1975 film adaptation of an early-Victorian picaresque novel. Until he does, surely, anything goes.

[IanEye]

People are free to discuss whatever aspects of the film they want on this thread. I happen to think there is a lot in the film that serves as a mirror for the previous 10 years (65-75) in American Politics.

Those that do not share this viewpoint are free to disagree and give their take on the film and the context of the times in which it was initially released.