ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes Barry Lyndon, focusing on how Kubrick’s dramatization of Barry’s emotional cruelty toward Lady Lyndon expands his Freudian discourse on civilization by insisting on a gender analysis that was previously only hinted at in his adaptation of Lolita. If early Kubrick’s films presented a detached perspective on male plans gone awry, then from Barry Lyndon on, the films emphasized how men objectify, ignore, or mistreat women. This is evident in the domestic settings that dominate The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. Even Full Metal Jacket, according to critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, is more concerned with “the suppression by male soldiers of their female traits than with the specifics of Vietnam.” This shift toward gender analysis in his late films introduces a hint of optimism into Kubrick’s otherwise bleak aesthetic. The chapter argues that Lady Lyndon’s discontent serves as a precursor to Wendy Torrance (The Shining) and Alice Harford (Eyes Wide Shut) who transgress, to varying degrees, the regressive, male social and psychic forces of civilization that Kubrick repeatedly satirizes.
