5 things you don’t know about the huge Barry Lyndon
The critic Laurent Vachaud tells us everything about the masterpiece of Kubrick, broadcast on Sunday evening on Arte.
Long considered the cursed and mesestimo film of Stanley Kubrick because of its failure in Anglo-Saxon countries, Barry Lyndon has since largely been reassessed to the point of being considered by certain purists as the greatest film of its director. Laurent Vachaud is one of them. Training criticism, historical feather of Positivealso a screenwriter for cinema and television, he is literally obsessed with Barry Lyndon that he sees again regularly and about which he read everything and questioned certain living witnesses.
From the filming of this epic drama, a portrait of an Irish neighbor in the 18th century England, we know certain anecdotes: a project born from the impossibility of setting up a biopic on Napoleon, Robert Redford envisaged before Ryan O’Neal, the lighting of the candle scenes, the interminable shooting … Laurent Vachaud gives us some secrets.
Stanley Kubrick Le Parano
“He was a particularly suspicious filmmaker. He was notably convinced that if he announced his intention to adapt a book fallen into the public domain (Memoirs of Barry Lyndonfrom William Makepeace Thacheray), the BBC would immediately grab the idea and to grill it by hastily turning a dramatic TV! Therefore, when he started to circulate the scenario for funding, Thackeray was mentioned nowhere, the title was changed as well as all the names of the characters. In the script, which can be traveled on the internet, Barry Lyndon was called Roderick James. »»
Harlan Connection
“Credited as an executive producer, Jan Harlan is Christiane’s brother, the wife of Stanley Kubrick. It turns out that Jan and Christiane are related to Veit Harlan, their uncle, this sadly famous German filmmaker for The Jew Süssappalling anti -Semitic drama shot in 1940. Veit Harlan also made The great kingdevoted to the figure of Frédéric Le Grand, whose battles very much recall those of Barry Lyndon. I am convinced that Kubrick saw him, moreover he had planned to make a biopic on Veit Harlan which he had met in his early days. »»
Mad animals
“The famous scene of the death of Barry Lyndon’s son was shot in the castle of Longleat, south of England. This historic place has the distinction of sheltering a safari park from which strident cries of monkeys escaped which embarrassed the concentration of Ryan O’Neal! How to silence them? Production had to transport astronomical quantities of bananas whose monkeys were gone while the cameras were running. The process worked rather well until the monkeys fell ill and were taken from nausea, causing new impossible noises … (laughs) You should know that this particular scene required a hundred catches, spread over several days. »»
The enigma Marisa Berenson
“Kubrick immediately thought of this American actress whom he had spotted in Cabaret of Bob Fosse. Oddly, he practically cut all his dialogues that we can read in the original script -that he never respected. I counted: she has all eleven replicas in the film! From the meal scene where she made her son promise not to approach her horse without her father, she no longer speaks until the end. Bad tongues say it is because Kubrick found her too bad. However, it perfectly corresponds to the character of Lady Lyndon, this somewhat spectral beauty that Kubrick has exploited on a silent cinema register. »»
A killer in the casting
“At the start of the film, when Barry had to engage in the army, he arrives in a village where a recruiter is located. The guy who embodies him is a real London gangster of the time: John Bindon. It had been recommended to Kubrick by Greg Hodal, regular lining of Ryan O’Neal and occasional actor who was to play the role but who was not available on the scheduled date. Bindon, who had appeared in Good Russian kisses,, Performance Or Get Carterwas farted with the idea of meeting Kubrick, he had also vomited before his hearing! Especially famous for having been the lover of Princess Margaret, Bindon finally amazed Kubrick. »»
