Was ‘Barry Lyndon’ from Stanley Kubrick’s movie a real person?
Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 movie Barry Lyndon took his work behind the camera in yet another groundbreaking direction, following landmark successes in three completely different film genres during the preceding decade. Lyndon was a historical epic, with scenes recreating the period of their setting in painstaking detail thanks to the space-age technology Kubrick was able to harness.
In stark contrast to the director’s previous film, A Clockwork Orange, it’s a slow-burning expansion of William Makepeace Thackeray’s dated novel about the fluctuating fortunes of an 18th-century Irish chancer. Protagonist Redmond Barry is born in Ireland but seeks his fortune elsewhere. First, in Germany as a soldier during the Seven Years’ War, then to Belgium as a gambling trickster, and finally to England as he cons his way into bed with the noble Lady Lyndon and kills her husband.
The story’s historical elements are generally accurate, including its portrayal of the war, the British, French, and Prussian Armies, and various European monarchies. But was Redmond Barry, or Barry Lyndon as he comes to be known through his marriage to Lady Lyndon, one of these historical elements?
In short, no. Barry Lyndon was an invention of Thackeray’s. However, he did use two very real people as the inspiration for his novel’s swashbuckling central character.
First, there was Andrew Robinson Stoney, an Irish-born adventurer who conned his way into the English nobility, became a high sheriff, a parliamentarian, and finally died a criminal. Thackeray had heard about Stoney from his friend John Bowes, who was the grandson of Stoney’s second wife.
Thackeray’s second inspiration was James Freney, an Irish road robber who became a folk hero for his dalliances with English law. He cheated death after being arrested, making a plea bargain with the police that allowed him to emigrate in lieu of execution. He went on to publish a best-selling memoir of his life in 1754. Thackeray read this book during his travels around Ireland in 1841.
So, is the movie a true story?
There are many aspects to the lives of these two men that appear in the story of Barry Lyndon. For example, Stoney challenged another man to a duel over the woman he intended to marry, just as Barry does over Nora Brady in the film. Similar to how Barry’s duel was staged by his opponent, Stoney staged his duel in order to convince his second wife to marry him.
As Barry does with Lady Lyndon, Stoney seduced Mary Eleanor Bowes to achieve status and wealth in England. Stoney also treated Bowes terribly once they were married, beating her, locking her away, kidnapping her and stealing her money. This served as the inspiration for how Barry Lyndon treats his wife in Kubrick’s movie.
Meanwhile, Freney’s anti-heroic exploits served as source material for Lyndon’s fraudulent gambling activities and profligacy with money. The two even cross paths briefly in Thackeray’s novel, although Freney doesn’t make it into the film adaptation.
Large parts of Barry Lyndon are based on events that really happened then. On the other hand, we can’t exactly say the movie or the novel it was adapted from is based on a single true story since the narrative arc of their titular character is largely fictional.
Kubrick’s film balances its historical bases and fictional characterisations perfectly, creating an authentic portrayal of a man we can be sure never existed but who certainly has the ring of truth about him. There was no Barry Lyndon, per se, but there were many Barry Lyndons.
