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

also*

yeah night manager was trash

grudging respect for the sun's "tinker taylor snogs a spy"

at least there was some comedy relief added in the ep where TH is developing his drug dealer/tough guy back story or Colman's Yorkshire accent throughout.

actually her accent isn't funny it is just very bad.

I liked Night Manager but it was sooo lightweight

no love for house md smh

I was just listening to a really compelling episode of R4 series Document about Eric Roberts - the MI5 op who uncovered a large network of 5th Column fascists in wartime England. The MI5 fucked him off in the cold war years when he was in Vienna, possibly because of his grammar school background - they probably thought he was a Soviet mole. After which he went into a complete ILXer style huff and followed it up by emigrating to Canada!

Is that downloadable, sounds just the ticket for my drive today

I'm not sure if it's downloadable but link is here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b061qzwt

i had to make a gif for this

https://i.makeagif.com/media/5-25-2017/W8XGiW.gif

It is perfect.

Best moment of the series

😍

R.I.P. Ricki Tarr :/

Park Chan-Wook is making his TV debut directing a John Le Carré adaptation starring Alexander Skarsgard and Michael Shannon?! pic.twitter.com/N4mRAvQOPi

— sonia saraiya (@soniasaraiya) August 21, 2018

fuckin all right

doesnt sound too shabby

hi lag∞n!

haay

watching again (movie) and rly its excellent

the little drummer girl is pretty good so far

ilm

This is my comfort movie

have u watched the mini series

Do we all love the BBC’s Smiley’s People? I love the BBC’s Smiley’s People. That and Tinker Tailor I’ll watch at least once per year.

its great but its a step below TTSS tbf

I know that TTSS is all about claustrophobic offices etc but it really is fun to see smiley hopping around Europe a bit.

Lagoon I’ve seen the miniseries but it came from the library. I’d probably rewatch that a ton too if it were available digitally.

i think its on youtube if thats not a major turnoff

Don't know if anyone on here can answer this, but is the movie version in any way comprehensible to people who have neither read the book nor seen the miniseries? It barely made sense to me, and I felt that was only helped by my familiarity with the story.

The movie was the first form I consumed this in and I found it comprehensible even though it was highly elliptical.

the bern episode of smiley's people is top 3 of the 12 IMO

ive seen the movie a few times, the miniseries twice and read the book and last night i knew what was happening but at two key stages i didnt know how smiley knew what he knew

but im no smiley tbf

The movie cuts a complicated plot down to the bone. Spy intrigue as impressionistic dream logic.

the answer is FLUCHT NACH VORN, toby is the man who spotted it

(it translates as smiley saying "fuck it, let's to it and be legends")

I just started reading Little Drummer Girl, hope it's good because it's much longer than I expected.

it's bad

women are a mystery to him in a bad way

(TV can sort this out possibly)

TV show is good so far although the dialogue feels weirdly modern and incongruous.

Also they keep deciding to go up to the Acropolis for no reason other than to go "look, we're at the Acropolis!"

isn't that the exact same reason everyone goes to the acropolis tho?

y'all brits can see the best stuff what you pillaged iirc

Spy intrigue as impressionistic dream logic.

This gets at exactly what I love about this movie. My platonic ideal of this kind of story has a rigidly coherent internal logic that is nevertheless inaccessible to the reader/viewer and only reveals itself in suggestion.

(There's a possible metaphysical suggestion as well in that kind of structure--in that solving a mystery probably does involve, at some point, a mysterious intuitive leap, spontaneously making sense out of nonsense, etc.)

watching again (movie) and rly its excellent

― lie back and think of englund (darraghmac), Sunday, November 4, 2018 1:41 PM (yesterday)

i watched it again last week, and it was better than I remembered. I liked the miniseries better, but the movie was more aesthetic, the way movies tend to be, esp. vs. 20th century TV.

Also, slightly off topic, I've always wondered whether the show MI-5/Spooks was paying homage to this when they introduced the character of Connie, who initially seemed modeled on Connie from TTSS

My favorite thing about Le Carre is that most of his books are told in flashback/retrospect, so there's this overwhelming fatalistic "nothing to be done about it now, just clean up the mess" vibe which is very appealing to me as a middle-aged man.

One aspect of TTSS I really enjoy is the distance between Ricki Tarr’s self-image as a master spy and the reality of him as a fuckup.

i feel like in the Le Carre world, many characters have that aspect

the miniseries is atmospheric but it does suffer in a non-charming way from bbc ca.1980 production values.

i think in some ways i prefer the movie. but although oldman is not ... miscast ... he's totally forgettable (i guess that's deliberate via acting)