The Perception of a Shorter Length of Time through the Use of a Rapid Tempo - Text 5
Narrative music in the background, diluting the contours of the scene
Sometimes, as in the final act in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975), what is sought is an effect of ennui, or rather the cinematic portrayal of Barry’s resignation, knowing he has been condemned and awaiting his death. Hence the inexorable ostinato of the timbales (with the support of the double basses in pizzicato and a few staccatos from the cellos), take up on its own the grave and fatalistic accents of George Frideric Handel’s Sarabande (Suite no. 4, HWV 437) heard earlier; it clogs more than eleven minutes of the film,[9] from Lord Bullingdon’s first decisive step in the direction of his sworn enemy until the moment he obtains satisfaction. Each step appears heavier and weightier, leading to an implicitly perceptible gallows: an inextricable situation which for Barry allows for no other escape than the reversal of every manoeuvre he has undertaken, beginning with his first duel, with the rich captain John Quin, he too accompanied, in a mirror effect, by the same ostinato.
