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 surgeon informs Barry that the leg will need to be amputated below the knee if he is to survive. While Barry is recovering, Bullingdon re-takes control of the Lyndon estate. A few days later, Lord Bullingdon sends a very nervous Graham to the inn with a proposition: Lord Bullingdon will grant Barry an annuity of five hundred guineas a year on the condition that he leave England, with payments ending the moment should Barry ever return. Otherwise, with his credit and bank accounts exhausted, Barry's creditors and bill collectors will assuredly see that he is jailed. Defeated in mind and