How the production of ‘Barry Lyndon’ captured the duality of Stanley Kubrick
Almost half a century after Stanley Kubrick‘s historical drama Barry Lyndon first unravelled in stark candlelight across three epic hours, it remains a fascinating chapter in the late visionary’s oeuvre.
The seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey would go on to inspire generations of directors, including a certain Christopher Nolan. The Shining, Dr Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, and Full Metal Jacket further illustrate Kubrick’s unwavering auteurship.
The production of Barry Lyndon, though, displayed Kubrick’s often head-scratching duality as a man on a quest for perfection. He was famously meticulous and pored over even the smallest details extensively in his quest to realise the vision he had in his endlessly creative mind.
Throughout his career, Kubrick was repeatedly labelled as a cold and unemotional filmmaker, which was true to a certain extent. However, several key creatives who worked on Barry Lyndon said any notions that he would instruct his actors to repeat the words on the page verbatim to his satisfaction were wide of the mark.
Dominic Savage and Leon Vitali, who played Lord Bullington as a young man and adult, respectively, painted an entirely different picture of Kubrick. Speaking to Filmmaker Magazine, they recounted how he could switch from the most microscopic detailing to essentially going with the flow.
Apparently, Kubrick’s reputational iron grip on each project was softened by the fact he enjoyed unshackling the cast and allowing them to explore their characters, as Vitali explained: “He’s got this huge reputation for being a control freak, but when he found the right actor for the role, he would just let them go and see what they brought to it.”
Savage, who preferred working behind the camera post-Lyndon, concurred: “He was always trying things out and experimenting. He would improvise, and then if something interesting came out of it he would push it further.” Both stars were originally lined up for much less screentime as the young and older Bullingdon, but Kubrick’s rigorously investigative approach resulted in extended parts.
This element of creative freedom even stretched to a lack of storyboarding. Vitali detailed how “he would take lenses and a viewfinder and get on the set with the actors and maybe a grip with some tape,” with Kubrick happy to think on his feet and let the shot come to him in the moment.
Shelley Duvall may have disagreed based on her experience on The Shining, but Savage intimated that he didn’t quite agree that Kubrick was a hard taskmaster. “He was tough, but he was also incredibly kind and generous,” he commented, with Vitali echoing that sentiment by saying “he never shouted at the actors” at any point during Barry Lyndon.
The film captured the duality of Kubrick perfectly; on the one hand, Vitali acknowledged that “he was a force of nature,” albeit a figure that in a good mood “was almost as difficult to deal with as when he was in a bad mood because he could be overly generous and overly kind.” He was either sunshine and roses or a ball of uncontrollable fury. As the star put it, “There was no middle ground”.
