Foul Play - The Kubrick Edit

When I think of the New Year I think of The Shining, I mean, as far as movies are concerned. Some people think of The Apartment, others The Godfather, Part II and those of lowly breeding, When Harry Met Sally. And it's not like the New Year is even explicitly mentioned in The Shining but between the revellers, the flowing drinks and the men in bear suits giving blow jobs it sure feels like a New Years celebration. Of course, the famous picture at the end says "Juy 4th" and it would have to be since the story goes to great lengths to tell us the Overlook is closed in the winter so clearly it can't be New Years or we have no caretaker shut in with his family with which to propel the plot.

But still, it feels like New Years, and so, that's the movie I think of when December 31st rolls around. And when I think of The Shining, as I did recently, I think of Foul Play with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. Huh? What? Yes, while we cinephiles busy ourselves connecting the dots between the Fords and the Hitchcocks and the Godards the dots between Colin Higgins, writer and director of Foul Play, and Stanley Kubrick go completely unnoticed.

Behold, and Happy New Year:




Go to the actual HD YouTube page for a much bigger, and better, picture.

I Don't Remember, I Don't Recall

Once again, those filmic gurus at The House Next Door got me to thinking (damn their eyes, I do so try to avoid thinking) about film viewership among cinephiles by linking to this post by Kevin Lee on a rather embarrassing article written by Mick LaSalle. I'm not familiar with LaSalle myself and after reading Kevin's post I feel thankful for my lack of familiarity. But all the talk about canons and holes in viewership among cinephiles got me to thinking about holes in viewership for myself, albeit from a different perspective.

Although I have several films in the history of cinema to go before I've seen them all (oh probably around 487,593) I have seen most of the BIG ones; that is, the ones you're expected to have seen as a card carrying cinephile. I've seen all the films on the various Sight and Sound Polls over the years save a couple here and there, all the Best Pictures save one (Chicago - and I still can't bring myself to put it in the queue) and most of the nominees, the AFI top 100, at least two thirds of the Top Foreign list done this year on Ed Copeland's site (It's here I have my biggest gaps in viewing) and the completest assortment of classic Hollywood and Foreign films. I feel confident I can hold my own in a conversation on film with any acknowledged expert but still feel intimidated by many writers and bloggers out there. I have an unfounded suspicion (perhaps we all do) that they have seen much more than me. Whether this is true or not I do know there are certain bloggers who have seen very different sets of films than I have seen and I visit their blogs for ideas on what to see or just to vicariously experience the film in question through their words.

But as I get older I have noticed unique cinephiliac problems arising with age: Namely, I don't remember half the films I saw between the ages of 10 and 25. Oh I remember seeing them alright, or I should say I remember that I have seen them, but I don't remember much else. This problem is compounded by the fact that movies I did see in my youth that I thought were excellent were seen again in my late thirties and found to be lacking. Other films I thought were overrated bores upon first viewing at 19 were seen again later in life and found to be wonderful.

So I have many gaps to fill but at the same time keep telling myself, "I really have to see that again. I remember not liking it but everyone thinks it's great and I don't remember much about it now." Do I see the foreign classic I've yet to see (Earrings of Madame De) or revisit the foreign classic I did see (Last Year at Marienbad) but frankly can't really remember now? For the record I was nineteen when I saw Marienbad and that is now more than... uh... um... well, it was a long time ago.

There is no set answer and more often than not I will end up revisiting a film over seeking out an unseen one. I'm not sure why. I do know that life experience greatly affects how one looks at a movie, book or painting and that explains my changing opinions on films with twenty year gaps in between viewings. I also now understand that what I thought was complete "life experience" at 20 or 25 was not. And I think I understand now that in my fifties and sixties and seventies I will look back upon my opinions now with some bemusement and perhaps even a little embarrassment mixed in for good measure.

And will I need to revisit films I have seen recently? Will they too become distant, foggy memories? If my experience so far is any indication, the answer is a resounding "Yes!" Which makes me feel better, believe it or not. It means viewing film, experiencing art or reading great literature is not a "once and done" proposition. It is an ongoing cycle that must be renewed regularly. To see a great film but once and never return to it is to turn one's back on the artistic experience. The experience of art is in part the re-experience of art. When I was in college studying theatre we had one line drilled into our heads again and again: Art is an act of communication. The artist, be (s)he filmmaker, painter, writer, architect, musician, choreographer, etc. is communicating an idea to the recipient of the art. That idea, in the best art, is not set in stone and dogmatically applied but malleable and open to interpretation. That is when the recipient begins their part of the communication process. Through interpretation; and through life experience, re-interpretation; the recipient is now in communication with the artist. It may be the reason I return to a film seen but forgotten over a film not yet seen: I want to continue the dialogue. And to have dialogue with someone removed from you by decades or even centuries is one of life's most enriching experiences.

And it can be comforting as well as helpful to solidifying, or at least understanding, a viewpoint. Many people (most?) have had occasion to converse with the same person on the same topic again and again. It is often preferable to striking up a conversation with a new person on an unfamiliar topic. When I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey I was a teenager. I had read all about it in film books for years before finally getting the opportunity to see it. When I saw it, I watched with a deadly earnestness, studying, analyzing. I watched it again several times on cable and videotape, and each time with the same analytical eye of the cinephile. After several conversations with the film I felt I had experienced it. I was wrong.

In 1990, the Uptown Cinema in Washington, D.C., one of the few remaining movie palaces of the CinemaScope era, showed 2001: A Space Odyssey. I went and saw it with my roommate. We'd each seen it several times but this was the first time for both of us on the big screen with an audience. It was then I realized the conversation was just beginning. Obviously the visuals had a completely different impact than they had on the small screen but that wasn't the biggest difference. What I had missed in my solemn seriousness as an analytical cinephile was Kubrick's humor. There are, I discovered, several parts of the movie that are (gasp) funny. The "Dawn of Man" has a few, the space station a few more and finally, the showdown between Dave and HAL was a revelation. Kubrick understood the humor of someone who is arrogant losing the upper hand. HAL has no time for Dave when Dave is stuck outside. He is dismissive, even, in his monotone serenity, cocky. He ends the conversation. Then Dave figures out how to get in. Now HAL won't shut up. "We need to talk, Dave." "I think you need to take a stress pill." He even does the desperate boyfriend routine about how, sure, he knows he made some mistakes but it will be different this time, really. Members of the audience were chuckling, not laughing heartily, but chuckling at the absurdity of it all (HAL has murdered the entire crew and he's trying to convince Dave that he's learned his lesson, like he forgot to take out the trash). And I chuckled too, for the first time. Then as Dave enters HAL's memory banks and dismantles him there is silence as the humor is turned around and now we feel sympathy with HAL's pleading. When HAL starts singing (singing!) he suddenly feels like a small child who lost his way. And I had missed almost all of this in my previous viewings. In my deadly earnestness I had forgotten to experience the movie, to communicate with it.

Questions of the future are always enticing because there is no way to know the answer without going there. Films that are praised upon release are rarely outright panned in retrospect but what happens more often is that films that received lukewarm receptions grow in stature as time moves ahead. Or perhaps a praised film takes on the mantle of masterpiece as the decades go by. Will cinephiles in 2100 find our conversations about No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood amusing because Zodiac will have cemented a reputation as one of the greatest films of all time, leaving them to wonder how we all missed it so badly even though we all thought it was excellent? Will some other film that none of us has discussed become a giant in film history? Will a movie that was panned gain a reputation for being ahead of its time? I don't know. I do know that the only way to understand any of it is to keep having the conversation. For me that includes rekindling conversations long forgotten (Last Year at Marienbad) and striking up new ones (Earrings of Madame De). And I look forward to many more years of great dialogue with great directors, great movies and great art. Art is an act of communication. Let the conversation begin.

What's It Going to be then, eh? A Clockwork Orange: Book to Film

Viddy this well O my brothers (and with appy polly loggys to Anthony Burgess - my sisters as well). For this Sinny Styles edition of Book to Film I will be doing Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. Previously I had done The Shining by Stephen King, adapted to the screen by Stanley Kubrick. I could have gone with another choice I suppose rather than load up on Kubrick adaptations, but I pulled the book off the shelf and the dvd from the cabinet and figured, "What the hell, it's not like I'm getting any pretty polly for this cal," so I plopped down on my sharries and decided to write it up, real horrorshow like.

The book and the film are both admirable pieces of work in their respective forms and offer insights into the characters that complement each other well. There are minor differences between the two (in the book the rape of the writer's wife is more extensive and cruel and Alex reflects on it later that night (wishing he'd hurt them more); the girls he takes home from the record store are ten years old but much older in the film; Alex himself and his droogs are a couple of years younger in the book as well). However, on the whole, the film pretty much trods the same path as the book with one jarring, glaring momentous difference: The movie ends one chapter short of where the book ends. Unless you've got the wrong edition that is. If you have a Ballantine published edition prior to 1986, you have a copy of The Clockwork Orange that is twenty chapters long. The original British edition is twenty one chapters long. The American publishers felt the last chapter softened the impact of the story and excised it. Burgess was furious. When Kubrick started writing his screenplay he didn't even know there was a twenty-first chapter.

So how can we compare the two if Kubrick didn't even know? Because he found out before finishing the screenplay and decided he liked the American version better. He found the original version too staid, too dull.

Ahem... I beg to differ.

The original end to the book may not be as exciting and jawdropping as the end to Chapter Twenty or the film but it completes the story in a way the film cannot hope to do. Kubrick should have taken the story all the way.

For those familiar with either the American published version of the book or the film the ending is the same in both and quite spectacular. Alex has been "cured" of his violent tendencies in prison through a special program that causes him to grow violently ill at even the thought of violence. He has been programmed by the state to be a peaceful citizen. As the film (and American book version) ends Alex is recovering in a hospital after his attempted suicide. This was brought on by the torture inflicted upon him by the writer whose wife he raped and killed. Since he could not defend himself lest he grow violently ill, he opted for suicide instead. But the attempted suicide changed him. The illness no longer occurs when he hears Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (a side effect of the treatment) and he imagines himself "carving the whole litso of the creeching world with my cutthroat britva." That is, cutting the whole face of the screaming world with his razor. Rather than use this quote in the film, he instead imagines himself raping a woman in front of a cheering crowd. Either way, it's clear: He no longer gets sick when he hears the music or thinks violent thoughts. And then in both book (Chapter Twenty) and movie he delivers the final ominous/hilarious line, "I was cured all right."

It's a clever wink and a nod to the reader/viewer about the state no longer having control over Alex, no longer able to supress his free will. But Burgess' ending is far more meaningful and, yes, far more defeatist. Defeatist, but honest.

Chapter Twenty One begins the same way Chapter One (and each of the books three parts) begins: "What's it going to be then, eh?" Alex says this at different times to his droogs, himself, and the reader. It is his general question, his statement of free will. At the end, Alex is addressing his new droogs; Len, Rick, and Bully. His new droogs are two to three years younger than he is and look up to him as their leader. They are in a familiar setting, the Korova Milkbar. Alex narrates:

Suddenly I felt both very very tired and also full of tingly energy, and I said:
'Out out out out out.'
'Where to?' said Rick, who had a litso like a frog's.
'Oh, just to viddy what's doing in the great outside,' I said. But somehow, my brothers, I felt very bored and a bit hopeless, and I had been feeling that a lot these days.

Alex is bored with the ultra-violent lifestyle and when his droogs tell him of a setup they have for that night he tells them to go on without him. They don't understand.

'Where to, then?' asked Rick.'That know I not,' I said. 'Just to be on like my own and sort things out.' You could viddy the old baboochkas were real puzzled at me going out like that... "

He's older and restless. He works at the National Gramodisc Archives and even enjoys it for the music he gets there plus the money. As he wanders he meets up with one of his old droogs, Pete who is now married. He tells Alex that Georgie's dead and Dim is still a brutal cop. Pete's wife comments on how funny Alex's speech is and asks Pete if he used to talk like that too. They leave and Alex is left pondering his future. He envisions he may settle down and marry. And then comes this passage in which we get from Burgess his true intent of the novel and its title:

Yes yes yes, there it was. Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is only being in a way like it might be an animal. No, it is not just being an animal so much as being like one of these malenky toys you viddy being sold in the streets, like little chellovecks made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing. Being young is like being like one of these malenky machines.

My son, my son. When I had my son I would explain all that to him when he was starry enough to like understand. But then I knew he would not understand or would not want to understand at all and would do all the veshches I had done, yes perhaps even killing some poor starry forella surrounded with mewing kots and koshkas, and I would not be able to really stop him. And nor would he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it would itty on to like the end of the world, round and round and round, like some bolshy gigantic like chelloveck, like old Bog Himself (by courtesy of Korova Milkbar) turning and turning and turning a vonny grahzny orange in his gigantic rookers.

It is youth that is the clockwork orange, not the peaceful Alex programmed by the State. By ending the novel and film at Chapter Twenty the point is lost. Burgess was not making the point that the State takes away our free will but that in youth we have no control over it. Take away this final chapter and you have fundamentally altered the meaning and purpose of the book. No wonder Burgess was furious.

Both the film version and the American published version of the book offer a scathing commentary on comtemporary society and State control and I think it can be said that they both do it well. It is not that the film version is a bad film at all. For what it chooses to tell it is quite good. It is simply that by omitting the last act, comparing the two becomes a case of apples and (no pun intended) oranges. In a way, it's the best of both worlds. We now have a film version offering us a telling satire of State control over the individuals free will as it programs him to become a clockwork orange. And it's ending affirms that the individual can overcome this.

The book on the other hand tells us we already are clockwork oranges until life experience expands our minds and then ends by reminding us there is nothing we possess in our power that can change this. It is decidedly a downer, more defeatist, more of a hit in the gut. It is odd that one of Kubrick's complaints about Chapter Twenty One was that it gave the book an "optimistic" ending. That, I think, is a misreading. Burgess did not consider it optimistic nor do I. But I don't consider it despairing either, just honest. No one ever wants to hear that they have much less control over their life than they think they do.

As Alex wanders off in his thoughts he bids his farewell to the reader:

But where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky, where you cannot go... And so farewell from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lip-music brrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal.

Alex can now finally exercise his free will. Age has granted him that. He's moved beyond the clockwork mechanisms of his youth and must now deal with it (youth) from the other side. But at least he understands that. I guess he was cured after all.

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Book and Film: The Shining

There is an old adage in film that goes something like this: The person who knows what they're talking about leaves the theatre and says, "I loved that movie, it was nothing like the book." The obvious inverse would be, "I hated that movie, it was exactly like the book."

Books and films are two different mediums of artistic expression. One paints a picture with words, the other put words in your head using pictures. That is, makes you think about what the character is thinking. One old warhorse that has been trudged out endlessly is that with books you have to imagine everything and with movies it's all given to you. Well, maybe. It depends on what aspects of the work one is talking about. For instance, a book has the great advantage of telling the reader exactly what the protagonist is thinking, either through first person narrative in which we literally get a story from the unique perception of the protagonist or in another form, third-person omniscient, where we are entitled to know what everyone is thinking. When the protagonist walks up to an outwardly beautiful woman who is inwardly cold and hateful, the writer can tell us, "As he walked up to her all he could see was a miserable, wretched woman, not the beautiful face she showed the rest of the world." Translate that to film and you have to rely on the actor to provide enough subtle expression to make us understand that. To which I ask, which requires more imagination?

When most people say books require imagination what they're really saying is that the reader decides what characters and places look like. What they think is provided for you. In film, what characters and places look like is provided for you, what they think requires the mind of the viewer. I'd say that requires a little more imagination.

On the other hand, a book is not constrained by running time. As a result the author is free to explore deep feelings of characters and delve into multiple subplots. By their freedom of length books have a great advantage in providing more exposition useful to the reader in determining all the motivations and nuances of the characters. Films, constrained by length, often forfeit deeper development of character that would be useful to the viewer in understanding the character in favor of highlighting only that which is necessary to thrust the story forward. Here, literature easily wins out by allowing us a full and rich exploration of the characters.

So obviously by these two differences we can see that books and film are clearly at odds with each other as to how to tell their story. Which is why filmmakers often make decisions when adapting a film from a book that baffle the faithful reader expecting to see a page by page translation up on the screen. Sometimes it is necessary for the visual translation to work, sometimes it is an artistic decision and, yes, sometimes it's just laziness on the part of the filmmaker.

All of this leads us to Stanley Kubrick's 1980 masterpiece The Shining, adapted from a book by Stephen King. The changes Kubrick made from the book to the film were extensive. King was not pleased and eventually wrote a miniseries based on his own book that faithfully transposed the page to the screen. But Kubrick's is better, much better. Because Kubrick understood film was a visual medium and as such allowed possibilities that did not present themselves to the author, King, writing the book. Oddly, some of the most visually expressive moments of the book were exactly what Kubrick nixed.

Danny, has a friend, Tony. No one else can see or hear this friend. In the book he is a shadowy figure in the distance communicating with Danny. In the film, this visual motif is abandoned and Tony instead lives inside Danny's mouth. In the book, topiary animals on the grounds of the Overlook Hotel come to life in menacing, threatening ways. In the film, a hedge maze is substituted, standing still and lifeless. Or perhaps just indifferent.

There are many other minor changes but this post will deal with the big difference, that is, the ending of both stories. *1*

In the book, King makes more than a few story choices that are inconsistent logically with his characters or their situation. For starters, he gives us a grand hotel, a jewel of the west, a pride and glory to its owners. It is a palace that is to be cared for with a delicate touch. And, oh yeah, there's this decades old malfunctioning boiler that needs to be adjusted every day or the hotel will blow up. I'm sorry, what? Huh? Can the reader honestly believe that if the owners of the Waldorf Astoria were dependent upon daily adjustments to a rusty old boiler to keep their hotel from blowing up that they wouldn't just get a new boiler? To the even halfway perceptive reader this signals immediately how the story will end. So much for surprises. Wisely, Kubrick cut the boiler subplot out completely.

Then King takes the boiler subplot a step further off the precipice of disbelief. They are several ghosts at the Overlook. Since the hotel is their old haunt, so to speak, and it is in their vested interest to keep it from blowing up, they must make sure that the caretaker, Jack Torrance, adjusts it every day. Why? Because, as ghosts, they cannot do this themselves. They are non-corporeal. Except for when they move bottles and furniture around the place to signal to Torrance that they are there and bring inanimate topiary animals to life. But for some reason unknown to sentient beings everywhere, they just can't adjust that damn boiler. Disbelief officially unsuspended.

And finally, it seems, the whole reason Jack becomes unreliable at adjusting that boiler is because the ghosts seem to be driving him towards insanity. Hmmm. "We need him to adjust the boiler. Hey I know, let's send him off the deep end." Disbelief still unsuspended. Now I'm getting angry.

Unless you haven't been paying attention, you can see where all of this is leading: Jack goes crazy, boiler goes unadjusted, hotel blows up. About as mystical, spiritual and haunting as sticking a flashlight under your chin and shouting, "Boo!"

Now let's look at Kubrick's ending.

By dropping the boiler subplot completely we now have a hotel (and it's ghostly inhabitants) not keeping themselves from destruction but ensuring themselves new life, an important distinction. Now it would seem their slow maddening of Jack Torrance has a purpose. He is the caretaker, and the caretaker will provide fresh blood. The caretaker will give the hotel a sacrifice, his wife and child. And that will keep the hotel going.

Jack has a conversation with Delbert Grady, who has already given his wife and children, and then himself, in sacrifice to the Overlook.

Jack Torrance: You WERE the caretaker here, Mr. Grady.

Delbert Grady: No sir, YOU are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker. I ought to know: I've always been here.

Jack doesn't understand but Grady insists: Jack was always the caretaker. As Jack falls deeper and deeper into insanity, spurred on by the ghostly Lloyd the bartender and Delbert Grady, he becomes murderous. He pursues his wife and child with the intent of killing them. Because of no boiler subplot, we are allowed to witness the devolution of Jack into a psychopath with no distractions. The ghosts are allowed to push him further, with no obvious contradictions of the Overlook's health being put into jeopardy as a result. As Jack pursues his son through that lifeless, indifferent maze his insanity begins to work against him. Danny has taken him out of the hotel that has protected him in his madness and into the environment where he must fend for himself. His confusion is apparent, the maze simply becoming the personification of it. He gets lost, and wandering aimlessly, freezes to death.

Then Kubrick takes us into the hotel. The camera begins a slow zoom into the main ballroom. As the far wall gets closer, pictures can be seen. Finally, we arrive at the center picture, a photo taken at the 1921 4th of July Ball. In the front of the crowd, with champagne glass held high, is Jack. He has always been the caretaker. And he will be again. In some other person, in some other life, he will return and give new life to the hotel. In this final moment Kubrick turns the story arc upside down and makes it clear that the Overlook, not Jack or his family, is the main character of the story. The hotel is everything, and the hotel will keep going. It will remain a vortex that draws in misery and sadness and desperation.

The ending is at once mystical, spiritual and disquieting. It was an artistic choice made by a director that gave the story and the hotel an eternal time frame.

Not every book made into a movie has such clear cut opposite choices working against each other and certainly not every movie exceeds the book. Surely, most King fans would agree that the movie versions of his works rarely hold up to the original source. And in the cases of other authors there is simply no contest. I have read the works of Twain and Poe extensively and no film version of any of their works has ever even approached the wit and poetry and artistry of their written words. Likewise, any filmmaker adapting Dickens or Shakespeare would be wise to keep the story just as it is. But sometimes a movie can make major changes to a book and come out (no pun intended) shining on the other end. This is one of those cases. Kubrick made drastic changes to the end of the story, and by doing so, drastically changed the motivations and fates of the characters. He made a movie from a book and the movie won. Handily.

Turn the page.

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*1* I think it was Neil Sarver who said he couldn't stand the "Talking Finger" choice for Danny in the film and I agree. Having Tony appear shadowy in the distance is a much better device where the book has the upper-hand. There are a few more small choices like that where I think the book is better. I also like that Tony is Danny's future, which isn't explored in the film at all.

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Shot for Shot: Barry Lyndon

By 1975 Stanley Kubrick had cemented his reputation as one of the masters of cinema. From Paths of Glory to Dr. Strangelove to 2001 his films were widely seen and widely discussed. His previous film, A Clockwork Orange, had been a huge hit with multiple Oscar nominations. Before that was 2001 which turned science fiction and the convential movie plot on its ear. So his next film was sure to be a smash. It wasn't. To be sure, it was quite successful critically, and to this day I consider it one of his best, if not on any give day, his absolute best.

The film is Barry Lyndon and it is a film of rare beauty, a film that is methodically paced but never boring. A film that places Ryan O'Neal of all people, in the role of Redmond Barry, an Irish adventurer, societal manipulator and, eventually, broken down gamester. Ryan O'Neal fills the role with a naiveté that eventually turns to self-serving calculation but through it all, Redmond Barry seems more human than anyone he encounters, save his friend and comrade in arms, Captain Grogan.

For this edition of Just a Moment we will focus on one of the most extraordinarily paced and photographed sequences in cinema history, the famous duel scene between Redmond Barry, now Barry Lyndon, and his stepson, Lord Bullingdon.

The scene, accompanied by a manipulated version of Handel's Sarabande, takes place in a barn, not a pasture or meadow as the first duel in the film. Pigeons fly across the rafters and send dust particles scattering into the light. In the previous scene Lord Bullingdon has demanded satisfaction from a tired, broken down Lyndon.

The scene begins with a shot of a pistol being loaded.

We are then shown the gentlemen who have gathered to officiate the duel and relay the rules to the dueling parties. Throughout the scene the mood is so restrained that the tension builds effortlessly as we await the outcome. That is to say, Kubrick provides no flashy photography, no quick edits, no overpowering musical cues. He lets the duel play itself out in real time allowing us, the viewers, to feel as if we are present at a real duel with people we have come to know well.

As the coin toss is called we can already notice one striking difference between Lord Bullingdon and everyone else: He is overwhelmingly nervous. His body quivers and shakes in stark contrast to the business-like composure of the surrounding gentlemen, including Lyndon.

Bullingdon wins the toss and gets first shot. He is escorted to his position as we get to see the interior of the barn in long shot for the first time.

Behind the sound of drums we here the cooing of pigeons and the fluttering of their wings throughout the scene. Again, a sense of a real time and place pervades the scene.

Lyndon then takes his mark and Lord Bullingdon is told to cock his pistol to ready himself for the first fire. But something unexpected happens. Because of his nervousness, he misfires into the ground while cocking.

It is explained to him in his horror that this counts as his first shot and that he must now stand his position while Lyndon takes his first shot. Bullingdon is now overwhelmed by fear and panic and runs to the corner of the barn to throw up. As he returns and re-takes his position Barry Lyndon once again shows his humanity. Throughout the film Lyndon has performed actions that go against his immediate best interests: When faced with an opportunity to let a berating and cruel commanding officer perish in fire, he saves him instead. When faced with a chance for advancement in the military by acting as a spy he reveals himself to his mark. In every situation his need for humanity and kindness has paid off. Here, for the first time, it will fail him.

As Lord Bullingdon stands ready to receive fire, Lyndon aims his gun down and, in an act of generosity unknown to someone like Lord Bullingdon, fires into the ground.

The officiating gentlemen are surprised and move to confer with each other. It is asked of Lord Bullingdon if he has now received his satisfaction. In a stunning act of selfishness and pettiness, he replies no, he has not received his satisfaction. Barry Lyndon is restrained but can barely believe what he is hearing. His acts of humanity and kindness have always gone his way but now they are mocked. Lyndon's face reveals a man stunned by and resigned to his circumstances at the same time.

Lord Bullingdon now readies himself for his seconds.

He trembles as he pulls the trigger and hits his mark, in the leg. His face shows relief and almost (?) joy as the duel is over and he has won.

The scene ends with Lyndon writhing about in pain and anguish as he is attended to by the officiating gentlemen.

It is a scene that last 8 minutes and 50 seconds. In that span, time seems to stand still. In this scene Kubrick does as good a job as anyone in the history of cinema at portraying a moment in real time that draws all of its power from not being rushed or artificially heightened by music that provides emotional cues or quick edits that direct our attention to an inevitable climax.

Everything we have learned about these two men is portrayed before our eyes unapologetically in this scene. We have had reason to question Barry's motives throughout the film. He has done things that were selfish and unethical at times but one feels they were done out of rashness and haste more than anything else. Conversely Lord Bullingdon has had cause for our sympathy as he has been displaced from the mother he loves and feels that Barry is using her for his own gain. But there is something about Barry that we admire and something about Bullingdon that we mistrust.

In this scene, their characters arrive at their final reckoning and we understand them finally and completely. Barry has done wrong. He has used and shamed Lord Bullingdon's mother. But by shooting into the ground when he has a chance to end the duel by shooting Lord Bullingdon instead he shows that he is capable of understanding his mistakes and atoning for them. He confirms what we have thought about him from the beginning: He is prone to mistakes and misguided actions but has the humanity to accept them and if possible, correct them.

Lord Bullingdon on the other hand shows us that he does not understand honor in any reasonable way outside of shallow displays such as duels to gain satisfaction. We may have had sympathy for him at times but his refusal to accept Barry's gesture of firing into the ground as a clear acknowledgement of his wrongs and, in some ways, an apology tells us that Lord Bullingdon is a small petty man.

As the film ends, Lord Bullingdon presides over his mother signing over money for Barry as a part of an agreement for Barry to leave. Barry himself is now an amputee having lost the leg Lord Bullingdon shot. Lord Bullingdon will live the rest of his life inside a body intact, but one wracked with self-doubt and cowardice. Barry Lyndon will travel to the states and live out his life as a travelling gamester. He may have lost his leg, but unlike Lord Bullingdon, he is clearly a man in full.

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