Barry Lyndon Duels

The last duel is one of the rare scenes added by Stanley Kubrick to W. M. Thackeray's novel, The Luck of Barry Lyndon: "The duel seemed to me a means both dramatic and more economic" (1). Indeed, this sequence, albeit long (nine minutes) and static, during which Lord Bullingdon assuages his hatred by wounding Barry Lyndon, enables him to omit several scenes from the book.

The scene also allows him to explore the violence of the human species, his inexhaustible subject. The adventures of Redmond Barry are punctuated by rituals of violence, both physical and social. Barry excels in the ceremonial of the duel and in fistfights but also confronts the more refined violence of social relations and human relationships governed by money and 'position'.

The intense, solemn sequence is treated with an extreme ritualisation of the duel (the sole dialogues are those outlining the rules). As always in fights, Kubrick favours the actor by using close shots, but here, the lateral lights, the barn echoing with the cooing of pigeons and the music (Handel's Sarabande, re-orchestrated) participate in the dramatisation of a scene seeming to occur outside of time.

Impassiveness is de rigueur in this high society where emotions must not be revealed. Violence is codified in the static poses of the duellists, frozen faces like those of professional gamblers. Colours participate in the seeming absence of passions: blue, grey and white hues replace brightly-coloured costumes. Yet the conventions of the duel gradually crack. Lord Bullingdon loses his head, perspires, does not aim straight and vomits before pulling himself together and expressing his joy when he succeeds in shooting his stepfather. Such repressed violence gets the upper hand, and in the end, Bullingdon resembles the stepfather he so despises.

With this final confrontation, Bullingdon, humiliated and stripped, regains his rank and puts an end to the adventures of Redmond Barry, which began with a duel for honour.