Listening to Stanley Kubrick (31 page)

The second and last time we hear the cue, Barry Lyndon, “utterly baffled and beaten,” returns to Ireland so that he won’t be arrested. He leaves the inn where he convalesced after the duel with Lord Bullingdon and the amputation of his lower leg. With crutches he makes his way to the carriage, his mother by his side, and the narrator explains, as the frame freezes, that “he never saw Lady Lyndon again.” We cut then to the Lyndon estate where Lady Lyndon and Lord Bullingdon sit with Mr. Runt and Graham while she signs notes for payment. The note that she must sign to pay Barry Lyndon’s annuity does not pass her unnoticed, and even Bullingdon waits to see what she will do. This cue features the ending of this movement of the trio, a section of the music we have not yet heard before. There is modal mixture here, both minor and major harmonies, complementing what might be described as Lady Lyndon’s mixed feelings. She pauses briefly at seeing the name “Redmond Barry,” but finally signs. When it is done, she stares straight ahead, perhaps remembering her love for Redmond Barry, Bullingdon watching her closely. The moment passes and she returns to the present, while the trio begins its final cadences. The last chords are heard just as the epilogue title card appears: “It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor they are all equal now.” Schubert began composing the piano trio in November of 1827 and it was likely heard in public in March of 1828, the year he died.
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The slow movement of the trio conveys Schubert’s mastery of the melancholic. Like many of his songs, it mixes major and minor modes and exemplifies the term “bittersweet.”

There are two additional cues that appear in the film, but are not on the recorded soundtrack. Jean-Marie LeClair’s sonata a trois “Le Rondeau de Paris” plays while Kubrick shows what could be a family portrait of Lady Lyndon with young Bullingdon and the infant Bryan. Visually, there is very little movement in this tableau except for Bryan in his bassinet. The narrator explains that Barry and Lady Lyndon are leading separate lives; Barry goes out and enjoys himself while Lady Lyndon stays at home with her two sons. The narrator says, “She preferred quiet, or to say the truth, [Barry] preferred it for her.” As a mother, Lady Lyndon should lavish attention on her children and “should give up the pleasures and frivolities of the world, leaving that part of the duty of every family of distinction, to be performed by him.” The music that is playing under this scene becomes the focal point of the next scene as it is revealed that Lady Lyndon, Mr. Runt, and Lord Bullingdon are performing the music. Bullingdon plays a cello, Lady Lyndon plays harpsichord, and Mr. Runt plays the flute. They would be the picture of a perfect family, but, of course, Mr. Runt is not Lady Lyndon’s husband. Jean-Marie LeClair’s claim to fame is as one of the founders of the French violin school. Although the sonata in the film features the flute as a solo instrument, LeClair was known for writing violin sonatas.
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The other musical cue that does not appear on the soundtrack is a brief excerpt of a Schubert piano piece. It is the first five measures of the first impromptu of the four collected in Schubert’s op. 90. The first chord of this twenty-second clip first appears at the end of part 1, as Sir Charles Lyndon suffers his heart attack (1:42:00–1:42:20). The screen fades to black and the intermission title card appears. The same excerpt is played over the title card for part 2, which reads, “Containing an account of the misfortunes and disasters which befell Barry Lyndon.” Melancholy in character, the Schubert excerpt matches well with the ominous title card. Everything about these five measures conveys a feeling of uncertainty, from the open octaves of the opening chord, which deny a feeling of major or minor, to the presence of a fermata on this chord that thwarts any sense of rhythm we might have. The key signature suggests that we might be in E-flat major or C minor, but the open Gs point to C minor. The phrase that follows this chord, however, meanders from B natural (not in the key signature), up to E-flat, down to A natural (not in the key signature), and back up to D, leaving the listeners with a sense that we still don’t know quite what key we are in. Kubrick was almost certainly unaware of the theoretical reasons that make this excerpt so fitting for the intermission, a point in the story where many things are very much “up in the air,” but it is undeniably an excellent choice.

Differences between Novel and Film

There are two notable differences between Thackeray’s novel and Kubrick’s
Barry Lyndon
, the first of which involves the nature of marriage between Barry and Lady Lyndon. In the film, at least, Kubrick suggests that Barry at some point is inspired to apologize to Lady Lyndon for his indiscretions, and there is no subsequent indication that Barry is unfaithful to her. Only Bullingdon’s speech about Barry’s behavior suggests otherwise. In fact, in the scenes before Bryan’s accident, the family—with the exception of Lord Bullingdon—seems content. Despite their troubles, Barry and Lady Lyndon appear to have genuine feelings for each other. When Lady Lyndon signs for Barry’s annuity, it is an emotional moment; the final sad words about Barry are: “He never saw Lady Lyndon again.” The Barry of the film doesn’t seem as bad compared to the Barry of the book, who comes off as shallow, conniving, and sometimes cruel.

In Thackeray’s book, there is no indication that Barry loves or even likes Lady Lyndon. He says: “Few men are so honest as I am; for few will own to their real motives, and I don’t care a button about confessing mine. . . . I made the acquaintance of Lady Lyndon with ulterior views.”
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After the death of Sir Charles, the Lady Lyndon of the book is being actively courted by Lord George Poynings, a man to whom she eventually turns to help her escape her marriage, which has become unbearable. Barry admits to using her, ignoring her, mistreating her, and not allowing her to see her own son if she is disagreeable. Furthermore, he knows that if he shows her the slightest affection, she will do what he asks. The only reason he is ever kind to her is to gain some sort of advantage.

Although she is described in the film as a woman of great wealth and great beauty, and she is played by actress and model Marisa Berensen, the Barry of the book does not find Lady Lyndon attractive at all. In describing her, and the staff that traveled with her, the Redmond of the book says, “In another [carriage] would be her female secretary and her waiting-women; who, in spite of their care, never could make their mistress look much better than a slattern.”
29
After a year a marriage he says of her:

She had grown very fat, was short-sighted, pale in comparison, careless about her dress, dull in demeanour; her conversations with me characterized by a stupid despair, or a silly blundering attempt at forced cheerfulness still more disagreeable: hence our intercourse was but trifling, and my temptations to carry her into the world, or to remain in her society of necessity exceedingly small. She would try my temper at home, too, in a thousand ways.
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The second important difference between the novel and the film is Kubrick’s addition of the duel between Barry Lyndon and Lord Bullingdon. The event does not happen in the book, but its presence in the film provides a single point of conflict that effectively separates Barry and his mother from the Lyndon family. It puts the dissolution of the marriage in the hands of Lord Bullingdon, rather than Lady Lyndon. The duel also allows Kubrick to show Barry’s basic decency—he refuses to shoot Bullingdon, even when given a clear shot. The reward for his decency is a bullet in the leg. Bullingdon comes off worse here, especially because we haven’t seen more evidence of Barry’s indiscretions. In fact, Barry looks less like an evil conniver and more like a careless spendthrift with ambitions, however foolish, of moving up in class.

Conclusion

The music in
Barry Lyndon
is an extremely important part of the film, but it is Kubrick’s visual achievements that have garnered the most discussion. In addition to Leonard Rosenman’s Oscar for Best Score/Adaptation, the film received three additional Academy Awards. John Alcott won for Best Cinematography; Ken Adam, Roy Walker, and Vernon Dixon won for Best Art/Set Direction; and Ulla-Britt Sölerlund and Milena Canonero won for Best Costume Design. In total,
Barry Lyndon
received seven nominations, including three for Kubrick, for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture, and Best Director.
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Kubrick had beautiful scenery and sets to film, and he took great pains to show the lush rolling green hills and modest homes of Redmond’s native Ireland and the extravagance of the palaces of Europe. Kubrick’s art directors transformed various castles, palaces, and estate houses in Ireland, England, and Scotland (with some exteriors done in Germany) for nearly all of the locations. In filming in these castles, Kubrick was inspired to shoot scenes with natural light whenever possible, and in some cases, to shoot by candlelight. Such a feat would not have been possible were it not for the Zeiss camera lenses Kubrick used on the film. Developed for the Apollo moon landings, the Zeiss lens featured a wide aperture and fixed focal length that allowed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (among others), to take pictures in the low light on the moon’s surface. With the Zeiss lenses, and the modifications made by a few technical innovators, Kubrick was able to capture the candle-illuminated faces in
Barry Lyndon
.
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In such scenes, and in many other conventionally lit scenes, Kubrick opted for a fixed camera and very little movement from the actors. The result in some cases are tableaux—living paintings. This is not surprising as the production lavished the same amount of research on the visual art of the eighteenth century as they did on the music of the time. Among those works they studied were the landscapes and portraits of Thomas Gainsborough, Jean-Antoine Watteau, and William Hogarth. Their influence on the look of the film is clear.

The importance of the music cannot, however, be discounted. Every single cue for the film was preexistent, and Leonard Rosenman did a brilliant job of arranging Kubrick’s choices into viable music cues. Kubrick once again showed that his instincts were dead on, especially considering the amount of musical excerpts that he must have heard in the course of production. The musical choices convey everything from yearning to delicacy to grief to playfulness to melancholy. The use of a single cue for more than one scene draws those scenes together thematically or recalls earlier references. Kubrick develops a musical language within this score and effectively expresses the hope and then tragic downfall of Redmond Barry.

Final note: The sharp-eyed viewer of
Barry Lyndon
will notice that Kubrick used three actors who appeared in his previous film,
A Clockwork Orange
: the minister from
A Clockwork Orange
, Anthony Sharp, plays Lord Hallom in
Barry Lyndon
, the man with whom Barry discusses getting a title; Patrick Magee, who played the victim and later torturer F. Alexander in
A Clockwork Orange,
plays the Chevalier de Balibari; and Alex’s father in
A Clockwork Orange
, Philip Stone, plays Graham, one of Lady Lyndon’s advisors. Stone also appears in Kubrick’s next film
The Shining
, as the previous caretaker of the Overlook Hotel before Jack Torrance, Delbert Grady, making him the only actor to appear in three consecutive Kubrick films.

Notes

1. Michel Ciment,
Kubrick: The Definitive Edition,
trans. Gilbert Adair (New York: Faber and Faber, 1999), 170.

2. Peter Cosgrove, “The Cinema of Attractions and the Novel in
Barry Lyndon
and
Tom Jones,
” in
Eighteenth-Century Fiction on Screen,
ed. Robert Mayer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 21–22.

3. Kubrick did this to great effect in
2001
, where the music of Ligeti represented encounters with alien intelligence.

4. Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill, “Leonard Rosenman,” in
Encyclopedia of Stanley Kubrick
(New York: Checkmark Books, 2002), 300.

5. Luis M. Garcia Mainar,
Narrative and Stylistic Patterns in the Films of Stanley Kubrick
(Rochester, NY: Camden House, 1999), 57.

6. All letters discussed in this section were found in the Stanley Kubrick Archive, University of the Arts London,
Barry Lyndon
files.

7. Another thing Rosenman had in common with Gerald Fried was writing for
Star Trek
. Rosenman provided the score for 1986’s
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
.

8. Phillips and Hill, “Leonard Rosenman,” 301.

9. Marshal Berges, interview with Leonard Rosenman, “Home Q&A with Marshal Berges,”
Los Angeles Times Home Magazine
, 40.

10. Interview with the author, April 20, 2011.

11. For a complete synopsis of the film, see appendix B.

12. “Chieftans’ Big Chance,”
Evening Herald,
October 24, 1973.

13. Victor Davis, “Film Boost for Chieftans,”
Daily Express
London
, September 30, 1975.

14. Vincent LoBrutto,
Stanley Kubrick: A Biography
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), 398.

15.
http://footguards.tripod.com/06ARTICLES/ART27_BritGren.htm
.

16. William E. Studwell,
The National and Religious Song Reader: Patriotic, Traditional, and Sacred Songs from around the World
(Philadelphia: Haworth Press, 1996), 55.

17.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/institutional/2009/03/000000_ws_sig_tune.shtml
.

18. Reprinted in
Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets
: To which are added the extra songs of
Merry Drollery
, 1661, and
An Antidote against Melancholy
, 1661. Edited, with Special Introductions, and Appendices of Notes, Illustrations, Emendations of Text, &c., by J[oseph] Woodfall Ebsworth, M.A., Cantab. Boston, Lincolnshire: Printed by Robert Roberts, Strait Bar-Gate. 1886, p. 151. From the Ebook and Texts Archive from the University of Toronto Robarts Library
http://www.archive.org/details/choycedrolleryso00ebswuoft
.