Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (novel, miniseries, and forthcoming film to be directed by Tomas Alfredson)

think that it's one of quite a few ways we can link guillam to haydon? Homosexual but plays the ladies man, possibly a little idealistic for the role, maybe there's more but off the top of my head....

(Arnim Zola is the evil-doctor minion in Capt America not the French novelist: muddlingly enough I saw Capt Am the day before I saw TTSS)

"link" in what sense though? that he's been his lover? that he idolises and imitates him? that he's exposed bcz all gay ppl are secretly pals? if yr right it underlines that complaint that they don't really do enough work to guild haydon up into the god he is in the book -- which you can kind of do without plotwise, but it removes quite a lot of what's at stake in his exposure (which is pretty much all the british secret service's internal glamour)

prideaux was crying? whenever it was my observational skills had plainly gone to shit by that point

kind of curious if this movie is followable if you come in blind, at least without some kind of cheat sheet -- i read it a while ago & i've been following this thread so i had the list of names primed already -- but it seems like a hell of a lot of people to keep track of

which conversely was one of the things i didn't like about it! that it had to start with john hurt explaining THERE IS A MOLE! AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL! and that there had to be periodic flashbacks with smiley picturing them all in the soundless room. or shots of the bloody chess set.

(xpost.)

'link' in that guillam is a shadow-version of haydon, i thought he meant

otoh i liked that the corniest Spy Movie Lines -- "we're not so very different, you and i" -- "we're on the same side, george" -- were kind of recontextualised -- toby aware of the limpness of it as he says it, oldman in that very uncomfortable too-close-up address to an absent karla communicating: i don't know what, exactly

i thought the talking-to-an-empty-chair bit was fucking embarrassing tbf

'link' in that guillam is a shadow-version of haydon: not i think well achieved by the film on its own, but i find it REALLY hard to unremember what i (often unhelpfully) know from the book as you can image, since (a) i reread it last week and (b) i wrote it all down like an idiot!

hence the prob i had with that boyf-dumping scene was that i had too many conflicting ways of possibly reading it, w/o any clues, so it jumped right out as a bit of a weird change to decide on -- if i could grasp their rationale instantly i wouldn't have been nagged by it (this is partly a result of the way i think about films and books and etc anyway: "ok so why make this move here?" all the time)

yeah, link was just a story device, i meant.

Followed it without a cheatsheet btw, got a little muddled before the big unveiling but otherwise fine.

on the FT thread andrew f just suggested that the "guillam is gay" scene is a way of firmly saying "we the film makers don't consider gay men to be obvious by-definition villains DO YOU SEE"

which if true is commendable in a kind of well-good-for-you-lads way, but (again) needs to actually read to justify itself, and didn't (proof = me not reading this)

it's daft anyway cos haydon isn't strictly homosexual; he bats for both teams DO YOU SEE

haha yeah but having guillam dump a poly gf/bf couple was shot down during early script conferences

it was the 70s, buckaroo

do the polymath

cf also david bowie-endorsed plastic-handled scissors, symbol of smiley's cutting-edge sexuality

lol

I've never read the book, never seen the mini-series, didn't know the reveal. The film made sense to me, in a I'd-need-to-watch-it-several-more-times-to get-it-all kind of way. None of the characters were especially rounded out, but there was a pretty impressively deep sense of confused dread about the thing. I guess that's what I responded to.

Great film but that ending montage was shamefully incongruous. Why kill the tone of the whole thing with that awful "and they all lived happily ever after, lol!!!" feeling.

i thought the end was really sinister! proof if proof be need be that the real mole was actually SMILEY ALL ALONG

ugh no it was awful imo..."look he's back with his wife and now he's the boss". it should have ended with him watching tv, smoking.

oh and colin firth has found his ideal role - sleazy posh guy who sleeps with other people's wives

firth should play david cameron

only problem with end was that it needed 'stayin alive' playin over it and oldman should have had a pimp cane

He is the boss in the next book. Dunno if plans are afoot to make the rest of the trilogy though.

wld be first in line for a sequel to TTSS where toby jones turns up at the circus in full arnim zola clobber:

http://static2.aintitcool.com/images2009/ArnimZola.jpg

loved this, bloody fatastic camerawork! the best shot film i've seen for years. amazed at how different Peter is in the film to the tv show. in the series he was almost light relief at times; no recollection of him beating the shit out of Tarr and freaking out, crying etc. Cumberbatch was great mind.

thoroughly enjoyed it, tho it has enough flaws on its own terms - the end scene radiates too much quiet triumph, quite out of tone for the rest of the movie, and there's some other silliness/poor writing imo. but as a whole, this was absorbing and coherent and straight pleasurable.

btw i think the wooden gizmo is a wedge for improving the stability of Prideaux' caravan, quite possibly as per the book.

wd've liked it a bit denser and darker tbh

Agree totally about the last montage, can't fathom how wildly out of step with the film it is.

That scene at Wimpy was hilarious.

Disappointed they didn't cast Ann (guess she sn't described in the book?). Probably prefer the ending of the TV series (Smiley taken down a peg) but didn't mind the montage too much, partly bcz of the spin Mark gives on it.

Mark's spin is fun and made me reconsider but I don't buy it really. Ann was cast, I think the actress is credited, but her anonymity reminded me of Captain Mainwaring's wife in Dad's Army which wasn't ideal.

Yeah exactly, a messageboard lol doesn't really convince me of much.

i'm trying not to compare film to book cos these things shd stand on their own but there's no sense at the end of the movie of "oh shit we've had a mole in the org for the last umpteen years the Circus is completely fucked"

Yeah and it's like everything is now GREAT and he's happy plus oh look he's back with his wife. It's moronic as an ending.

i liked the ending but it does make the film a future candidate for..
Movies wherein the last scene clearly indicates that the makers had a sequel planned, but no sequel came after it.

I read Smiley's satisfaction at sitting at the head of that table as drenched in irony, given the rest of the film.

that whole section at the end (especially Peter's smile) is a bit shameless in it's attempt to please the audience but you know.. it's a 21st century movie not a seven hour 1970s BBC series or whatevs so i think we have to cut em some slack.

yeah out here in the 21st century we can't be expecting an audience to deal with a downbeat ending, cinemas wd be getting tore up

I read Smiley's satisfaction at sitting at the head of that table as drenched in irony

^ yeah, this. like: it's more a "now i am here and i have no idea if i wanted that" than a "now i am here, hooray!"; likewise ann's return is not actually a triumph for him, & it seems weird to read it thus

(justification in filmic terms - the latter is filmed in deep shadow from the head of the stairs, or something like; and the former ends with a fairly abrupt smash cut to black)

ha you guys are nuts, the ending is not remotely ironic, it's meant to be smiley totally kicking the door in

the former ends after he's exchanged a knowing smile with Guillam on his triumphal march to the top table, if Oldman's playing ambivalence at the end there then he fluffs it imo

i'll give you that "oh she's back" is dealt with a bit more subtly

yeah i think the (fluffed?) attempt at formal symmetry with the walk-of-shame at the beginning undercuts the ambivalence (i want to be) there -- still, though. i like it more my way.

justification of "now i am here and i have no idea if i wanted that" in mise-en-scene terms: given his known tastes in decor and etc (which we know from seeing the tasteful olden-times interiors of his house), he is sat in front of that screamingly 70s orange wallpaper, less swallowed and obscured (his favoured state) than horribly exposed <-- this is totally how alfredson's playing it

can't read how oldman's playing it ftb rubber guinness mask

"exchanged a knowing smile with Guillam" <-- cutting-edge sexuality alert

i like the way the film discarded some of le Carre's coyness about homosexuality but considering how underdrawn the suspects all were i'd question the screenwriters' priorities.

that screamingly 70s orange wallpaper

haha but er aren't those acoustic baffles? -- if he's in the office we see everyone arguing in throughout. (which itself is kind of a hint -- look at his triumph sitting by himself in a soundproofed room.)

look at his triumph sitting by himself in a soundproofed REALLY IMPORTANT BIG BOSS MAN room

i wanted the movie to be perfect too but sometimes you have to settle for good but flawed

ook at his triumph sitting by himself in a soundproofed REALLY IMPORTANT BIG MOLE MAN room <-- there is no dodging this

haha i think the film is very flawed: since i think its look is one of its -- and alfredson's -- strengths you should read with the grain first: wallpaper before "actors" so-called