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On Kubrick's Humanity in Barry Lyndon

This was written in a thread discussing Kubrick's much-maligned masterpiece BARRY LYNDON, which I consider to be quite possibly the greatest of all his films. The original message text to which I responded to is in italics:

May 24, 2003

I did say earlier that I considered this his most "personal" work (only EYES WIDE SHUT can compare). I think if one sees Kubrick as seeing himself as Barry Lyndon in the way he doesn't quite fit with others the film really starts to open up. But perhaps this is largely conjecture as I don't have anything concrete to substantiate this as anything close to autobiographical -- I guess I feel it's a very personal statement because in this film you get a much more attentive view of how society works, and how one iconoclastic individual fails to fit in, than in his earlier films.

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Have the Kubrick defenders seriously considered the political implications of reducing classes of people to waxworks? Does this mean that some lives have less value than others? And that we are fit to judge them???

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Before I go on, Lee, I will grant that you would have sufficient justification to deem BARRY LYNDON as being overly judgmental towards certain humans, if only given that you have the precedents of DR. STRANGELOVE and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. But I happen to think that this film marks a new era in his regard and treatment of human characters which you see him continuing to develop in his later films (THE SHINING notwithstanding). I'll also say that I agree with your point that it is dangerous to read the film as being critical of the society that spurns Barry Lyndon, because if we spurn that society for what we perceive as its moral foibles, we risk becoming what we behold: contemptuous spectators of human frailty. Fortunately, I think the film surpasses that pitfall.

The last line of the film is, "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." I invoke this line to give evidence that the idea of "equality" weighs heavily on Kubrick's mind in this film, and because of that, he developed a way of seeing the world that treats everyone as equal. Here I will try to characterize that way of seeing:

I think the key to appreciating Kubrick's gift, at least in terms that work for me, is for the viewer to occupy the same moral and philosophical ambivalence towards human beings as Kubrick seems to have. It goes back to what you quoted from me, the not-quite-human, not-quite-automaton -- something in between that makes us ask how much of human beings are wild uncontrollable animals and how much are socially programmed machines. This is the central question that links us to every character in the film -- through this way of seeing the issues of moral judgment are no longer important -- we can see everyone in various phases of conflict between their animal natures and mechanical programming, and morality is the product of that conflict. Barry's animal nature is no more or less noble or ignoble than the high class people's bloodless, programmed etiquette -- it's a matter of how humans inter-relate, how where one comes from determines who they are and who is to be judged as "good" or "bad". This goes beyond morality, but has to do more with how morality itself is a social construct, and from this we can have a better understanding of what morality is and how to apply it to our lives. This kind of insight gives us a better understanding of what determines social values, especially when those values conflict with others' -- the kind of insight, incidentally, that might help us in the world today.

With all due respect to rowesam and his brilliant and heartfelt defenses on behalf of the film, I think at times his argument risks sentimentalizing Barry Lyndon as the victim/hero and moralizing against the high class as villains. While this argument has its virtues, I agree that it doesn't quite overcome Lee's criticisms, and it doesn't elevate Kubrick's achievement above that of a standard Hollywood movie with good guys, bad guys, glorified social outcasts and institutional villains. I personally find Kubrick's brilliance in the way he sees past those social constructs and breaks them down to investigate the internal mechanisms of how humans create a social order and social values by which to regard themselves and others. I think everyone in this film, not just the rich but everyone, can be seen as a kind of machine -- the rich people moreso because they have developed their social order to a state of mechanical precision that has thoroughly drained them of their animalistic spontaneity -- it's no wonder then that Barry's awkward behavior is such a threat to their order (as well as OUR sense of order and propriety as movie viewers-- this is why I think the "annoying" qualities about Barry's character and O'Neal's performance shouldn't be downplayed. WE are challenged and annoyed every bit as much as the polite society that tolerates Barry, and it's worth reflecting on that for what it has to tell us about our expectations and demands in our viewing). EVERYONE is a machine, one way or another -- everyone's life and fate and understanding of the world has in some way been preprogrammed. This is why the story of Lyndon's life begins with the duel that killed his father -- this event programmed his life in a certain direction. And this kind of insight about who we are and how we got this way extends to the audience, and yes, to Kubrick himself.

For that reason, I think the "de-humanizing" theme in Kubrick's movies shouldn't be ignored or downplayed, but neither should it be used to label Kubrick a misanthrope. So I agree with what rowesam has said for a long time, that Kubrick is a misanthropic humanist, though I wouldn't use those words exactly. A "humanist" to me implies that mankind can improve his lot on his own, and I don't think that Kubrick is nearly as optimistic -- but that doesn't mean he is apathetic. In this film, I think he is deeply, profoundly, and personally committed to exploring a certain unique understanding of all mankind.