Barry Lyndon sights on Thackeray's 1844 "satirical picaresque about the fortune-hunting of an Irish rogue," "Barry Lyndon", the setting of which allowed Kubrick to take advantage of the copious period research he had done for the now-aborted "Napoleon". At the time, Kubrick merely announced that his next film would star Ryan O'Neal (deemed "a seemingly un-Kubricky choice of leading man") and Marisa Berenson, a former "Vogue" and "Time" magazine cover model, and be shot largely in Ireland. So heightened was the secrecy surrounding the film that "Even Berenson, when Kubrick first approached her, was told only that it was to be an
Barry Lyndon of the families' affairs while Barry and Lady Lyndon grieve, Barry's mother dismisses the Reverend, both because the family no longer needs (nor can afford, due to Barry's spending debts) a tutor and for fear that his influence worsens Lady Lyndon's condition. Plunging even deeper into grief, Lady Lyndon later attempts suicide (though she ingests only enough poison to make herself violently ill). The Reverend and the family's accountant Graham then seek out Lord Bullingdon. Upon hearing of these events, Lord Bullingdon returns to England where he finds Barry drunk in a gentlemen's club, mourning the loss of his son