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

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

yeah one of my big bugbears with Nolan is i think he invites that shit deliberately

donnie darko is the pinnacle of that shit.

yeah i have seen the miniseries and read the book twice each and just saw the movie i still dont really remember how the final trap works

i thought memento was a really unsatisfying exercise. i enjoyed inception somewhat but my first thought as the credits rolled was "i don't want to read a single thing about this shit on the internet"

anyway, no nolan in the lecarre room

smiley showing up at the boys school though--prideaux is still using his old "ellis" work identity. cant be hard to track it down.

the movie's explication is slightly clearer than the novel's i think. Smiley figures that the Russian cultural attache guy is the mole's handler and therefore by making the Russians think they've smoked out the mole they panic them into warning him - so the guy who turns up off-schedule to meet him must be the mole.

xp

yeah and iirc in the novel at least Smiley's aware that Prideaux isn't dead?

yeah in the novel prideaux comes back while smiley is still in the circus i think. the time frame in the movie is a bit confusing to me--seems to compress the novel into a much shorter span

novel version takes place maybe 6 months after Prideaux's capture? film version is much more ambiguous

having irina shot in front of prideaux confuses it for me. i thought prideaux had been released by the time ricky goes to portugal in the book, but i might be misremembering

anyway, and i probably said this after i watched it, but one of the most attractive aspects of the movie for me is that i didn't feel compelled to think the details thru. the dreamlike ambience was mostly great on its own, even more deliberately low-key than the novel. there are a couple of silly set-pieces that let that mood down i think. until i watch it again i'm gonna not think very highly of the "threatening to put Esterhase on the plane" scene