A portrait of an "opportunist"

I'll admit, before "Barry Lyndon," director Kubrick just made me feel bad. This Irish youth Barry's personal struggle history has to be reminiscent of Julien in "Red and Black". The film-like photography, the elegant and soothing soundtrack, and the narration of the attic storytelling-style other, these are things that even today's Hollywood directors can't match. But none of this is at the heart of Kubrick's style, including the two-stage sharp turn between good fortune and bad luck. It is worth mentioning that it was adapted from Thackeray's novel called "the luck of barry lyndon". The protagonist has successfully entered the upper class with his ingenuity. If it hadn't replicated the failure of the juvenile duel farce, it might have been another outstanding Fouche. His legendary career started with a duel and ended with a duel, but he was never the victor of the duel.
Barry is an excellent "opportunist" who is good at capturing opportunities and succeeding. From the British army to the Prussian army, from the commander of the Prussian army to the Irish knights, "defection" has become a natural thing. Of course, Kubrick is not an "art opportunist", he believes that his films are all repeating a theme: how evil in human nature leads people to depravity. Barry's possessive and controlling desires are on display in the conflict with Blington, which is quite restrained compared to Kubrick's other films. Look at "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Shining" and you'll see how Kubrick is into the evil show.
Perhaps, there is no good or evil in human nature, and good and evil only exist in the moment of behavior choice. Compared with evil, good needs more responsibility and more control, but evil can bring more physical pleasure to people. In other words, is good a repressed state of evil, the repression of eroticism over death (Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents)? It is more valuable to discover the evil of human nature than to discover the goodness of human nature, because evil is closer to human nature than good. It is true that Kubrick, the Jew, is more concerned with this profound subject than those vulgar Hollywood directors, and it is a pity that he cannot go any further on this subject. Even more regrettable, Kubrick's entire film career has not really escaped the shackles of Hollywood.

PS : may be it should be named as "a portrait of the opportunist", and it's not an epic film cause it's not about heroes.

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