I've read that Kubrick studied Once Upon A Time in America for inspiration in how to synchronise music with visuals for this film.
I also read that Kubrick said "Once Upon a Time in The West" influenced his making of this film, or him in general, but I didn't know the specifics.
She said that when Lord Bulldog walked in on her concert. The scene where Barry manhandles him afterwards.
Ok, so anger might have clouded her judgement during that scene. Often when people are furious they say things they don't mean.
There might be something to the fact that both Barry and Bullingdon are spurred into anger by the event of another older man "claiming" a women that they are both obsessed over, and think should belong to them. And in both instances, the woman actually seems to be preferring the claimant.
Another similarity between the two main duels is, Quinn gave Barry several chances to back down, but he was too stubborn, angry, and immature to realise the mistake he was making.
Barry also gave Bully several chances to back down, but he refused them all because he was too stubborn, angry, and immature to realise the mistake he was making. He got lucky and Barry let him win, but then again, Barry only won because Quinn let him win as well.
Man Barry Lyndon is such a difficult film to converse about. Everyone hides motives and emotions under all that stiff upper-lip attitude of theirs. Many diffrent interpretations may be correct.
This is true, especially in the case of the Countess, she only had 18 lines in the movie or something like that... Was that in the OP? I read it somewhere, but can't remember where.
The characters all change throughout the movie too. Young Barry is a good, but confused, angry, immature man, middle-age Barry is a total asshole, elder Barry is a broken, remorseful, sad alcoholic. The changes happen slowly, which makes their intentions that much harder to gauge, at times.
Where is the line between fooled by one's charm and genuine love drawn?
Much like the candles with three wicks, the line is wide and blurry. I suspect she was probably more confused about her situation than we are.
What was the difference between Bully's love for his mom and Barrys love for her? The difference is only physical... People often confuse love and lust because sex is such a personal thing that you feel a connection to the person, even if you don't love them... Perhaps that's why it's hard to reconcile the way Barry and the German looked at each other with how the narrator spoke of them. What they said and did (in parting ways) wasn't what they really wanted, it was what they had to do, she was married.
Another interesting part was the orgy... or so called orgy scene. Barry looked bored... he made up with his wife after that. He grew up, and got over his obsession with banging every hot chick he saw. He got over his weird sexual aversions through the orgy, and came to appreciate real love.
Everyone's talking about his dad, which I'll get to later, but his cousin was the one really messed him up. It's like having sex in public, it's a form of taboo sex, it's risky. It's the kind of thing that turns one into a pervert. He only slept with married women, or his relatives, then he went to orgies. Sex was purely physical for him. His first relationship was his cousin, the lines between love and lust would surely be blurred in that type of situation, because he loved his cousin long before there were any sexual feelings. His first time was with someone he loved, but not someone he was in love with in that type of way. He fell for her, after she seduced him and stole his heart. Then she left him, and turned his family against him. She destroyed Barry. When Barry left his village (as a naive young boy) he was a mess.
So about the narrator...
I was actually authoring a post while we were still on the first page about the narrator, but I eventually dismissed it since I couldn't conceptualize what I wanted to say, couldn't get the tone and the point right.
But I do think that there is something deeply suspicious... insidious even, about the narrator. Often his comments seem like half-truths, gross simplifications, or just uncontextualized.
*He tells us that Barry became "very far advanced in the science of every kind of misconduct" when he was in the Preussian army. Yet his actions are the excact opposite. And even worse! When Barry rescues the Colonel the officers still take the oppertunity for repremending him when he gets his reward! How callous! Yet he still responds to their insults with humility (though that may be just a lie for well-appearance).
I think that was more a case of the narrator wanting to explain what happened without Kubrick having to make another war movie, which he wasn't trying to do.
Barry was raised well. In the first scene with Barry and Nora he was tormented, his dick was screaming "Do it" but he was trying so hard to resist because he was a well-adjusted, polite, respectful boy, despite not having a father. The Narrator made a point of emphasizing that Barrys mom turned down all the bachelors who sought her hand, she devoted herself to Barry. Barry's father not being around didn't seem to have a big effect on him, he had his cousins and uncles nearby too, and he was raised in a small village, where everyone is basically extended family.
Quinn was an outsider, much like Barry was to Bully.
Barry was corrupted by love, as all people are. We're born pure, if we have good childhoods then the first thing that really corrupt us is lust. We'll lie, cheat, change who we are, dress in ways we think are dumb, we become corrupt through our efforts to get laid. Then we become corrupted by our careers (like Barry did in the army) then we become corrupted by the aristocrats and our leaders. Still today, these seem to be the main factors that corrupt people. Kids are all pure, no elderly people are pure and innocent, we all become corrupted as we age... This was one of the more subtle themes in the movie.
You could say it's a story of aging, of growing up and growing old. Of hopes and dreams, that eventually turn into nightmares... it's a story about humanity and society.
The narrator comments about him and the German girl are simplistic, he dismisses the sensetivity they shared with tawdy comments. He misses the tenderness of their encounter completely. It is as if he did not notice it at all!
Perhaps your mistaking their tenderness for love, when it was really an illustration of Barry's sexual immaturity and inexperience. There was sex scene between Barry and the Countess that was filmed but left out of the movie. I wonder if it was passionate or more angry and physical?
It's kind of like the difference between making love and fucking. You can fuck angrily and violently, or powerfully. Making love involves tenderness. Was Barry tender because he learned from Nora, or was he tender because he loved her? It seems the former is more likely.
Maybe Barry fell in love with the Countess (after the apology) (if he did, I'm still not sure, I might need to re-watch) because she made love to him with passion, unlike the people in the orgies.. Did you notice how Barry looked bored at the orgy?
*The narrator says that Barry has Lady Lyndon confined to the home, and actively makes sure to keep her away from social occasions. Yet, later, (after Barry has offered his apologies to his wife), we see her leading an musical group before a well-assembled crowd. Obviously she must have some sort of social life if she can be leading a social occasions like that.
Barry did confine her to home, with Bully. Then he changed after the apology and treated her as a human again. Assumedly she was given her freedom again after that. You're the one that's convinced they're in love, no one who really loves someone locks them up at home all day, then goes out to orgies.
I think my above theory about the orgies boring Barry might explain it.
*The narrator says that Lady Lyndon spent her days in melancholy with Barry. Yet, she seems more sad in the ending when she was with Lord Bulldog than she was with Barry. Nor does the narrator explain or even mention Barry's apology towards Lady Lyndon. It's clearly in contrast to what he said. So why no comment? He could even have said that Barry lied and was just fooling the poor girl but we get nothing of that either.
There was no need for the narrator to say she was unhappy with Bully, you could see it on her face that she missed Barry. Sex was the only honest and real thing in her life. Maybe she missed that, more than she missed Barry?
*He completely misses the trauma about Barry Lyndon's fathers death. He descirbes it cooly. Never do we hear what Barry felt having lost his father like that, how it affected him as a person. And considering Barry's extreme involvement in his own son, it must have infected him greatly.
Covered that earlier in the post. I'm not convinced that his Fathers death traumatized him. Perhaps he showered his son with affection because that's what his mom did to him? Perhaps his son reminded him of himself and he was just selfish?
I know people who have great parents and are extremely involved in their children... Just because he loved his son greatly doesn't mean it was because of his dad.
*Also, if Barry is such an oppertunistic rouge as the narrator and many other claims him to be, then why did he not agree to spy on Chevailer? If he was an ruthless oppertunists, then that would have been the PERFECT oppertunity for an oppertunist to improve his lot in life. Instead he does the excact opposite, and helps the man, forming even a father-son bond with him.
He saw how easy the Chevalier's life was. If the Chevalier was killed or arrested then he goes back to the army, he didn't want that. The army didn't reward him for saving his Corporal, not really.
Perhaps that's why they mentioned that the army made Barry a crook. That was how they explained his affection towards the Chevalier, he saw him as a master scammer, and he wanted that easy life... That's why he married the countess the narrator said... yet his affection, the lust was real. Things are never simple, Barry didn't do things for one reason alone. Everything tied together, Barry was a victim of society and the times. He wasn't born evil, he wasn't raised bad, he was a good, honourable, if confused man when he left the village. Society corrupted him.