I love much about the Stanley Kubrick film Barry Lyndon*, but I don’t understand the title.
There’s much I don’t understand about the details of European nobility, and the uses of titles itself is onre of them. I do understand that one often takes the name of one’s estate, so that John Strutt became better known as Lord Rayleigh (and all those scientific laws now have the estate’s name sruck to them. We have the Rayleigh Criterion, rather that the Strutt Criterion, which seems unfair, somehow), so I’m not surprised about the “…Lyndon” part, since he married the Countess of Lyndon. But I’m still confused.
The character started life as Redmond Barry, with Redmond as his given name and Barry as his surname. Sir Charles Lyndon dies and the social-climbing Barry marries his wife, the Countess of Lyndon. OK so far.
1.) Redmond Barry doesn’t automatically become the Count of Lyndon, I know. But he now gets called “Barry Lyndon”. Why? Why not “Redmond Barry of Lyndon” or “Redmond Lyndon”. Why does his originally surname become his forename?
2.) For that matter, since he’s not actually titled, despite his persistent efforts, how come he gets to use the “Lyndon” part at all?
3.) I realize that nobody called John Strutt “John Rayleigh” (He always seems to be “Lord Rayleigh”), but how come Sir Charles Lyndon gets to be called “Sir Charles Lyndon” instead of “Sir Charles Whatever, Count of Lyndon”?
4.) Sir Charles Lyndon’s son is “Lord Bullingdon”. How does that work? Perhaps he’s the child of a former marriage of Lady Lyndon to another Lord Bullingdon. Isn’t some sort of recognition given to his current family, though. At the end of the film, Lord Bullingdon is in control of the Lyndon fortune and estate, yet he remains Bullingdon. Does he also control a Bullingdon estate that takes naming precedence over Lyndon?
The Earl of Lyndon, (also either Viscount Bullingdon or Baron Bullingdon) has no sons, and only one daughter.
Charles Deadcommon marries the daughter. The Earl wants the family name to continue, so as a condition of his consent to the betrothal, he makes Charles legally change his name to Charles Lyndon. The earl pulls strings to get the boy a knighthood, so he is now Sir Charles Lyndon. The happy couple then have a son.
The Earl dies. His daughter inherits the Earldom, and becomes the Countess of Lyndon and Lady Bullingdon (Earl = Count). Due to the chauvanistic laws of the time, Sir Charles controls her money, even though she actually holds the peerage.
Their son, as heir apparent to the peerage, does not get to sit in Parliament, but he is allowed to use the lesser title, and is referred to as Lord Bullingdon.
Redmond Barry marries the Countess. The Lyndon line already has an heir, so he is not under any pressure to change his name. However, “Barry” is a relatively common Irish name, and “Lyndon” is a prestigious English name. So he starts calling himself “Barry Lyndon” to let the neighbors know that he is part of the aristocratic family.
When Lord Bullingdon reaches the age of majority, he gets control of the money, even though he will not inherit the earldom until his mother dies.
The whelp is now John Lyndon, Viscount-or-Baron Bullingdon. When his mother dies, he will becom Lord John Lyndon, 2nd Earl of Lyndon, Viscount-or-Baron Bullingdon.
Now that the quiz question is answered (and most interesting), can I throw one in there? The music for “Barry Lyndon” throughout is spectacularly done. The Schubert piece, ‘Piano Trio in E Flat, Second movement’ is my favourite music in the world thanks to first hearing it in the scene where Barry wordlessly seduces Laday Lyndon over cards as this piece plays in the background. It matches the visuals on scene utterly perfectly. Does anyone know how much direct control Kubrick played in the selection/ scoring of his movies? So many of his movies have amazing use of music. I have often assumed he must therefore take a very direct hand in scoring his works but wouldn’t want to take any credit away from Leonard Rosenman, who won an Oscar for this soundtrack. Anyone know where Rosenman stops and Kubrick took over? Or about Kubrick and the music in his films in general?
Also, just to rave over the movie a bit - the final scene of Lady Lyndon signing off the annuity cheque is possibly my favourite ending to any movie ever. To borrow Robin Wood’s lovely insight (about another movie, but relevant) - it showcases cinema’s true strength. The expressions on the faces of Lady Lyndon, her son and her adviser hint at all sorts of emotions that are not easily reducable to words.
It’s stated specifically in the film that at the point that Redmond Barry marries Lady Lyndon, he asked for and was given permission by the king to add Lyndon to his name, making him Redmond Barry Lyndon. Watch the movie. It’s the scene right after the intermission, as the narrator describes the wedding.
What the narrator says is “Having procured his majesty’s gracious permission to add the name of his lovely lady to his own, thenceforth Redmond Barry assumed the style and title of Barry Lyndon.”
That’s nice. My problem is that I don’t know exactly what that means. It’s the confusion of what’s Proper in the use of titles and such combined with what people can and want to get away with in their pursuit of impressive names. I think mbh has offered a plausible scenario, but (subject to his correction), I don’t think what he says is specifically stated in the book.
As for what you say – I’d certainly forgotten that line (although I’ve watched the film often enough), but I think I always assumed it just meant that by marrying the Countess he got the right to add “Lyndon” to his name. But does it, in fact, mean that or (as you seem to imply) he actually petitioned the King for the right to add “Lyndon” to his name? Did you actually have to ask for and get the King’s permission to do that back then? Or was it that this was like when you legally change your name in the US, despite the fact that you can call yourself anything you wish in most social circumstances? And mbh seems to say that he dropped the “Redmond” as a mark of his low birth, and just stuck with the “Barry” part.
It certainly sounds to me from that line that Redmond Barry had to specifically ask the king for the right to add the name “Lyndon” to his own. In saying that his name was now “Barry Lyndon”, I presume that it means that that is his last name. His first name doesn’t change. His full name is now “Redmond Barry Lyndon”. He has no title of his own. In fact, the last half of the film is largely about his desperate and unsuccessful attempt to acquire a title of his own. He knows that if he outlives Lady Lyndon, Lord Bullington will control everything, and he knows how much Lord Bullington despises him.
FTR, the titular hero is a more sympathetic character in the movie than in the book, where he is a right bastard. That seems to happen a lot with Hollywood adaptations, especially of Thackeray novels. Heartless Becky Sharp of Vanity Fair always comes off better in the movies.
Sometimes I wonder if the culture that produced Thackeray was more sadistic than British/American culture of later periods and had different ideas about what constitutes a “sympathetic character.”
Cal Meacham: I have not read the book, and it has been ages since I saw the movie. I proposed one possible scenario. There are probably others.
To me, this would indicate that he had his name legally changed, and started using “Barry Lyndon” as a surname. In modern usage we would hyphenate: “Redmond Barry-Lyndon”.
Using just his surname was an aristocratic affectation. A peer uses the name of his title as a signature, ie, the Duke of Norfolk signs papers with “Norfolk”. Since Barry was not the actual earl, it would have raised eyebrows if he had signed documents with “Lyndon”. But by using the combined surname, he could assert his position as head of the family, and show off to the neighbors.
Slithy Tove: Again, I am guessing. I speculate that when the old earl died, the money went into a trust fund for the kid. While the kid was a minor, the trustees had to obey the kid’s legal guardian. In other words, his mother’s husband. When the kid came of age, he took control of the money and gave Barry the boot.
Wendell and mbh – not to be snarky, and i appreciate the input, but your recent posts don’t tell me anything I didn’t know. I’ve speculated along the same lines, but am woefully ignorant of 18th century practices (and abuses) in naming, so I don’t know. Your speculations are helpful.
BrainGlutton – I understand that the differences extend far beyond that. I haven’t read the book, but apparently the story is told in recollection by Redmond Barry/Barry Lyndon as an unreliable narrator, which gives a vastly different twist, and he doesn’t lose a leg in a duel at the end (and becomes destitute when the Countess dies and he loses his stipend, so ends up in prison, where he’s writing his memoirs). All of this makes the film and the book vastly different, I’d think, even if the incidents are the same otherwise. It’s hard for me to imagine the story wwithout those proper by dryly witty Michael Hordern voice-over narrations.
The Wikipedia write-ups on the book and the film are pretty useful on this. Apparently the Marquis de Bilibari wasn’t merely a fellow Irishman, but actually a relative, which makes their actions more understandable. Maybe Kubrick changed this because he thought it a little too convenient.
CalMeacham, if you want answers from someone who’s an expert on eighteeenth century British naming patterns, you don’t want to ask this question here. We’re movie people, and we’ve already discovered everything it’s possible to figure out from the information given in the movie. Start a thread in General Questions called something like “Was it necessary to get permission from the crown for certain name changes in 18th century Britain?”. You can ask there if the movie is accurate in implying that Redmond Barry would have had to ask the crown to add his wife’s name to his when he married her so that he became Redmond Barry Lyndon (although he refers to himself just as Barry Lyndon in the film). The question you’re asking is no longer a film question, so General Questions would be more appropriate.
To maybe help answer a little part of this – “Lyndon” is both Sir Charles Lyndon’s last name and his seat in Devonshire, where he’s a member of parliament. His full title is:
His wife’s full title:
Charles Lyndon, rather like Barry, was not an inherited member of the nobility; his family apparently runs the county (as his last name reflects) but he himself ain’t that grand – he’s a cousin who seems to have been knighted by King George II. Like Barry, he married and gained station thanks to his wife, who not coincidentally was his cousin. Note that she probably inherited the earldom of her father, which is why she’s a countess – it doesn’t appear that Charles Lyndon is an earl, as Barry/Thackery refers to Lyndon as “the knight” throughout, and Charles is never referred to as “Lord Lyndon” as he would be if he’d been an Earl.)
All this is to say that the “Lyndon” that Redmond Barry gets is not just Charles Lyndon’s last name; it’s the family’s home in Derbyshire, and it wouldn’t have been unusual for the King to grant the request of a name change to someone who’d marry the woman who is called the greatest heiress in the kingdom. Barry couldn’t ever become an earl – the most he could’ve hoped for was a knighthood, probably – but I believe his son could have been (if Bullingdon died before him).
As dissolute and dying Charles Lyndon tells his story to Barry, he was a relatively low member of the social strata before his marriage:
These are my guesses. Dunno if they’re helpful. FWIW, the line about his name change in the book is almost exactly the same as in the movie. Thanks to Project Gutenberg for the text:
BTW I’ll third the gorgeousness of the music in Barry Lyndon. I believe the Schubert first shows up when young Barry is playing cards with his sexy cousin, who slips her ribbon in her cleavage down her bodice and asks Redmond to find it.
I saw the movie when it first came out, which means I was only a wee lass of about eight, but for some reason my sister and I were obsessed with the movie and saw it like ten times. Considering its length and slowness, I have no freakin’ idea why we were so enamored of it back then. The costumes and the music were probably a big part of it. Anyway, only now, as an adult, do I appreciate how beautiful and subversively sly a movie it is.
Just want to correct myself; on consultation with the aforementioned sister, the Schubert is not playing during the card scene between Barry & his cousin. Instead it’s a more … Irish-sounding tune, for lack of a better term. Heavy on flute and grace notes.
Holy crap, you’re good! Yes, but with a different orchestration (a sort of husky flute played the melody, I believe). Oh wait – now at 1:05 I’m hearing the flute/harp combo.
Have you seen the movie or is your knowledge of old Celtic tunes that amazing?
I saw it after polishing off a bottle of scotch one night. I know I enjoyed it but I can’t remember the specifics of most of it lol. I knew they did much of the soundtrack though and I love the music.