Jan Harlan: Stanley Kubrick (third left) during a break in filming on one of the battlefield scenes on location in Ireland, with actor Ryan O’Neal (right). Kubrick’s teenage daughter Vivian is next to the director. ‘Stanley loved Barry Lyndon. He loved this upstart from nowhere, a conman, and he felt very strongly that Barry was representative of our society. What you see here is the normal sort of track they would lay down to move the camera – there was no Steadicam in those days. You had to be careful to point the camera in the right direction, otherwise you would film the track itself.’

Photograph: With thanks to the SK Film Archives LLC, Warner Bros. and University of the Arts London