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

I rather enjoyed this.

so they were all gay?

Apart from Bill Hayden, who is just decadent.

the Ricky Tarr monologue in the movel, original miniseries, and new version are a dramatic dead-end. I don't know why.

― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, January 8, 2012 9:30 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

it killed the second episode of the mini for me, just dead in its tracks. definitely not deserving of a 30 minute flashback

― maghrib is back (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 9 January 2012 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Certainly the weakest bit in the mini-series but 'dead in its tracks' is a bit strong.

I liked this. It's been 30 years since I saw the miniseries, so the story was more or less fresh to me, but the melancholy vibe seemed in line with what I remember.

Agree w/Moodles above about the abstractness and obliqueness, I liked how often the movie made me fill in the blanks. The editing provided momentum that the performances and unspooling of the plot didn't. And maybe I'm just an Oldman fanboy, but I thought he was really good -- sort of a master class in "strong/silent."

What I really took away from it was the sense of this whole generation fading, which must have been what Le Carré felt when he wrote it. These guys (and women) who had won the War, but now had to slog through something a lot murkier and less satisfying no matter what side you were on.

the point of the soundproofed rooms is not to keep noise out but to keep their voices from traveling out of the room. i am assuming the historical details are all accurate as le carre was an executive producer. i wasn't there at mi6 in 1973 but other spy agencies used similar systems.

i agree with hungry4ass's interpretation on the killing of irina.

as far as i can tell the point of killing thesinger is to establish that the russians were willing to "scorched earth" on the matter of irina, which giving her mole story credibility

we think prideaux is killed because smiley is the protagonist - we know everything he knows, and learn things at the pace he learns them at. we are in his shoes. that sets up the question of "why didn't anybody tell us prideaux was still alive?", answer being because the witchcraft dudes don't want anybody digging deeper into control's idea there is a mole (hayden because he's a mole, everyone else because they're far up their own ass and don't want to risk discrediting witchcraft) so they secretly repatriated him and sent him off to teach public school

the hate on this movie is inexplicable to me and seems to consist of

1) a lot of WHY OH WHY DID THEY PUT IN ISTANBUL INSTEAD OF LISBON without actually explaining why keeping all of le carre's details would have made a difference

2) comparing a 2000s movie to an 80s (sorta) miniseries to a 70s novel. get a life, snobs.

i agree with hungry4ass's interpretation on the killing of irina.
i agree with hungry4ass's interpretation on the killing of irina.
i agree with hungry4ass's interpretation on the killing of irina.
i agree with hungry4ass's interpretation on the killing of irina.
i agree with hungry4ass's interpretation on the killing of irina.
i agree with hungry4ass's interpretation on the killing of irina.

good summation of thesinger killing imo

i dont know why you had to end your post like that, and i dont think anyone on here was really 'hating' either

eveyone I saw it w/ fell asleep and hated it, I enjoyed it

the preview for red tails was way better tho, the sound was all fucked up and it was just random beeps and bloops spilling out of the screen. I was still stoned enough to appreciate what it meant I think

i am sorry, it was unclear

i wasn't referring to this thread when i was talking about "hating"

i meant more crap like this: http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/09/tinker-tailor-soldier-travesty.html ... i realize its the mail but it seems like a lot of the negative feedback i've seen around the net shares the tone

srsly though i am very very tired of people comparing film adaptations to miniseries and novels. it really seems like there's not much motive to it other than pointing out that you've done something that other people may or may not have patience for. it strikes me a bit like complaining that the iliad is better in the original greek.

but again, i wasn't actually referring to what's going on on this thread, more what i've seen around the web in general

this film was Greek to me.

LOL

i thought the looks that strong and firth exchange in the xmas party flashback were pretty devastating

the whole xmas party flashback thread was devastating in general

the other amazing "look" in the movie for me was when hayden says "i'm a man who made his mark" and smiley almost starts to reply but then just changes his mind and looks out the window in disgust. pitch-perfect!!

i dunno, after the movie i said to my companion "best new film i've seen since good shepherd" which maybe tells you i'm not really an impartial judge of this sort of stuff

the point of killing thesinger is to establish that the russians were willing to "scorched earth" on the matter of irina, which giving her mole story credibility

Exactly! Which is why that, as well as killing Irina, seems uncharacteristically klutzy on the part of Karla, if the Russians' goal is to avoid giving the mole story credibility. Interrogator says to Prideaux "tell Alleline we shot Irina," meaning what? Don't snoop around this mole situation any more or we'll continue to be violent?

the other amazing "look" in the movie for me was when hayden says "i'm a man who made his mark" and smiley almost starts to reply but then just changes his mind and looks out the window in disgust. pitch-perfect!!

― the late great, Sunday, January 15, 2012 8:11 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

i like how oldman briefly comes alive in that scene when he raises his voice for probably the first time in the movie

yeah, that too!

i think shooting irina was a warning signal for hayden to take care of tarr on his end - its hard to believe polyakov couldn't get the message to him some other way, but maybe their contact was restricted to just the witchcraft house, all of which was taped and reviewed by "housekeeping"

i have to reread the book now and rewatch the series to figure this out

totally enjoyed this

Very little of the witchcraft house is taped - that's how Smiley brings them down, by taping when they're not expecting it.

It's really not clear to me that any 'message' at all is being sent by killing Irina* in front of Prideaux - he's never seen her before, he is going slightly dotty due to the punishment, how is he supposed to connect her to a girl that Tarr (and only Tarr) has met in Istanbul? The stick used to beat him in the book is that all of his networks in Czechoslovakia are being taken in and shot (and think it's his doing) - what I got from that scene in the film was that they were underlining the futility of his denial and/or administering a series of shocks, some of which would cut deeper than others.

* Also a couple of people I saw it with were very certain it wasn't Irina that was shot then, but I'd have to see it again to tell.

Interrogator says to Prideaux "tell Alleline we shot Irina," meaning what?

Hang on, does this actually happen?

what i remember was something like "tell your masters what you saw here"

that's a good point. i forgot that tarr and prideaux were in different cities. somehow i blended budapest and istanbul together in my mind. on the other hand, as i was thinking about it prideaux wouldn't need to connect the two - but as part of his job, he's going to tell the inquisitors everything he saw and heard. prideaux is a pawn!

but yeah, i might be reading too much into it

i get what you're saying about the shocks, i was thinking that too.

Russian: (In Russian) Do you know this woman?

Prideaux: No, I don't know her.

A pistol shoots Irina.

Russian: Tell Alleline what we did.

David Bordwell breaks it down for the perplexed:

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2012/01/23/tinker-tailor-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/

Yes, that is in italics, but does it actually happen?

Just sayin'

let's try that again

That's my personal transcription, stage direction and all, from my viewing. Italics mine as well. But is anyone else disputing though that the shot lady was Irina?

http://i.imgur.com/6El85.png

http://i.imgur.com/oNbmT.png

What?! It's definitely Irina.

none of the difficult bits in the movie are gimmicky tricks from what i remember. i still suspect that some of the stuff that confuses people is a slight failure of story-telling rather than some "Mr Pink shot first" bullshit

in fact, ignore that particular analogy. there's a school of bullshit dvd-era smartboy over-reading of movies (Reservoir Dogs, Usual Suspects, Inception etc etc etc) which absolutely does not apply to this film and absolutely misses the point of it

y

it wasn't mad complicated if you pay decent attention while watching.

i'm always a little unsure how clear the narrative of a movie is if i know the book beforehand, because then you don't notice gaps. but TTSS the movie is all about atmosphere and suggestion, not some stupid puzzle to be solved.

i'm always a little unsure how clear the narrative of a movie is if i know the book beforehand, because then you don't notice gaps. but TTSS the movie is all about atmosphere and suggestion, not some stupid puzzle to be solved.

Agreed, I loved this adaptation.

two reasonably intelligent critics I know didn't know there was mansex going on.

yeah I only picked that up on viewing 2.

It took a couple seconds to realize what had happened; wouldn't call it mansex though.

the bit where Guillam dumps his lover seems pretty clear? and it's a departure from the novel, so it's not like i was pre-warned

when Haydon/Firth sez "there's a boy as well" near the end it didn't even get through

are you talking about haydon and prideaux? thats pretty vague in the novel

I would think that that look they exchanged at the Christmas party conveyed enough about their relationship.

iirc the only hints in the novel are a few dropped asides about how BH and JP were "thick as thieves" or whatever

le Carre is coy about homosexuality in the novel, considering what we know about the real life prototypes of the characters. but at the same time that public school blurring between deep friendship and admiration and sexual love seems like a true and useful ambiguity

haydon's bisexuality is made explicit, so i think youre definitely supposed to wonder if the two were lovers

i know what you mean nv about the "smartboy film" thing, but i think TTSS managed to be both ambiguous as well as having a tightly wound plot that does merit a bit of thought afterwards. it felt a bit like you end up assuming some of it rather than being beaten over the head with it.

some of the shifts are a little more elliptical than others. the setup of the final exposure/confrontation was pretty opaque to me. and i didn't get smiley's arrival at the boys' school -- tho i guess that information is gleaned from the files stolen by guillam.

i think the film leaves you to fill in the gaps, but also accept that some of the gaps are intended as unknowables, in the same way that the spy's world contains unknowables. i suppose it's not elliptical plots that bother me so much as circular earnest arguments about the "correct" solution.

the setup of the final exposure in the novel still feels a bit opaque to me and i re-read the fucker 3 or 4 times.

yeah i hate that kind of shit. i'm kind of anti-nolan solely because of it tbh

xp