Saw it. Was not impressed. I spent the whole film in a pretty confused state but I kept trying to hold on and wait for the ending when I would go “Ohhhhh!”. That didn’t really happen. When the end came I went “Oh umm no wait oh is it that guy? Is he…? I think I get it. I’m not sure.” Then my husband said okay explain it to me, and I couldn’t. We are both intelligent, educated people. IMHO, it was dry and jumbled. I was very disappointed. Also, Gary Oldman is a great actor but I’m not really understanding the gushing over his acting in this role. Now bring on the hate.
Can’t be bothered, used it all up back on the first page.
Just saw it tonight (at the second-run theater) and was blown away. Haven’t read the book, haven’t seen the BBC mini-series, but was able to follow most of the complex plot (there are a few lingering questions I have, but not enough to bother me), and didn’t feel cheated that it was too complicated. I know enough about LeCarre that complexities and details will be missed until future/further viewings.
And Gary Oldman acted his FACE OFF in this movie. I’ll bet he didn’t say more than 1000 words the whole time, but he didn’t have to - his physical acting clearly communicated his thought processes.
Wait a minute! I was as impressed as anyone by Oldman’s amazing acting, but wasn’t that Nicolas Cage and John Travolta?
No, that’s just what they wanted you to think. It was really Gary Oldman doing both parts. Wasn’t he just spot on doing an impression of Nicolas Cage doing an impression of John Travolta doing an impression of Nick Cage?
The character of George Smiley doesn’t really allow for a lot of scenery chewing. Interview with Gary Oldman on the role:
http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/wesat/2011/12/20111203_wesat_21.mp3
We just watched it. As a preface, I’ve read the books countless times and watched the BBC series twice. So I went in looking forward to it, and hoping it would measure up to the Alec Guinness version. My initial reactions:
- I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie that was end-to-end cast so well. Even Ricki Tarr - I started off thinking no way Tom Hardy could play that part, and he was great. Okay, maybe a minor quibble about Jerry Westerby, but whatever.
- The way the mid-70s was captured on film was fantastic. Sure it’s easy to throw up a pall of cigarette smoke and call it a day, but the sets all hung together, in a dreary, slightly swinging London way that fit the tone of the film.
- There were some unnecessary plot changes I didn’t really get, but nothing too major. I liked the book version of Control’s ultimate fate better, I didn’t really get the new Peter Guillam scene, there was a Toby Esterhase scene that was kind of silly…but on the whole it was fine.
- I liked the way they handled Karla (who was played in the BBC series by Patrick Stewart of all people).
My gosh Gary Oldman was fun to watch.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’ve read all of The Quest For Karla trilogy many times. It sounds like the film has Jim Prideaux’s shooting take place in Hungary. In the novel it’s Czechoslovakia; any idea why the change?
Money :). They wanted to shoot on an actual location and Hungary gives a 20% rebate for film production.
I saw it yesterday. While I still prefer the BBC version, it was very intriguing and finely cast.
Lots of fun.
Having seen both the TV and movie versions twice each now, I think that the TV version has some flaws that the movie doesn’t.
For example, I think the TV show suffered from having too much time to work with. Many of the scenes were unnecessarily long. I’m thinking particularly of the Ricky Tarr “courtship” scenes, which now seem excruciating.
Next, I think the costuming and styling of the TV show was inferior. It suffers from a “too many white guys in suits with the same haircut” problem. Although it was made much closer to the time period setting, it doesn’t seem to capture that period somehow.
Nm
I confess I actually like the slowness of an extended drama, because it forces actors to act within a character rather than every scene being a reaction to something. Not only were BBC dramas like that (they probably still are), but 70s movies felt like they let things develop more than films do now…plus we had to walk 20 miles in the snow to see them.
It’s a long time since I saw the BBC series but I’m inclined to agree that it had too much time and did not drive the story forward fast enough. I actually saw the TV version before I read the book and found the plot difficult to follow. I think part of the problem was the one episode a week format - no series record in those days! - by the time the final episode aired I’d forgotten the finer points of episodes 1 and 2!
I read the book several times. Then I saw the series on PBS whenit first aired. I eventually bought the VHS tape and years later the DVD. I couldn’t disagree with you more, but, with respect.
I think these two scenes (and one other) where they changed things from the book rather than just omit them really highlight the challenges of adaptation.
Spoilers for book, TV and movie ahoy!
Peter Guillam:
[spoiler]In the book, we spend a lot more time with Peter, which allows le Carré to develop a telling sub-plot about his romantic relationship. Basically, he’s an ageing golden boy who has begun to get involved with a young music student. But he finds he can’t trust her - he doesn’t believe she truly wants to be with him, and suspects her of sleeping with her professor. This also ties in with his professional status. Before Smiley pulled him in, he was reduced to running very low-level operations trying to recruit sailors, typists and other riff-raff. He was also meant to be supervising the headhunters (Ricky Tarr types who execute some of the cruder elements of the espionage game). But really control of those operations sat with Alleline and his committee, so in fact Guillam was hanging around for his pension, going nowhere and achieving nothing. In his final confrontation of Bill, who is the reason his career has stalled and, it turns out, the reason his agents in North Africa died, he realises that the atmosphere of betrayal and failure he’s been breathing for so long has poisoned him - hence his inability to trust his girlfriend. That’s rather baldly stated, but in the book it develops fairly naturally, and his dawning self-awareness is fairly moving.
Obviously there wasn’t time for that in the film, so instead we have one - again, moving - scene where his loyalties to the Circus, and the atmosphere of betrayal, force him to reject his lover. It covers much of the same emotional ground, but with only two lines of dialogue and c. 30s of film. I think it’s a very clever piece of adaptation.
The adaption to Guillam’s role I didn’t like was the way they treated his interrogation by Alleline et al. after he steals the file. In the book this is tense because Guillam does know exactly where Tarr is, and he has to stick to his story under fairly aggressive questioning by the leaders of the Circus. There’s even a hard man in the room, ready to subdue him if needed. He bluffs it out with skill and emerges with valuable intelligence about what the inner circle are thinking. In the move, the big difference is that he doesn’t know anything about Tarr at this stage, so his ignorance isn’t feigned but real. Then he finds Tarr with Smiley and flips out, having taken the inner circle at their word. Yes, it shows the strain he’s under (covering the emotional territory from the book above) but it also makes him less impressive.[/spoiler]
Esterhase:
[spoiler] I didn’t like this change. In the movie, Smiley’s threat to Toby is crude and brutal. It’s very effective. But also, had Toby thought about it, fairly likely to be a bluff. Even if Toby accepts there is a mole in the Circus, he’s still got think it fairly unlikely that Smiley would send a high-ranking MI6 officer back over the Iron Curtain. If nothing else, it would be a major propaganda coup for the Soviets to parade Toby around.
In the book, Smiley is considerably subtler and more effective. All he does is sit down with Toby and speak to him quite reasonably, laying out the facts as he understands them. Peter is explicitly annoyed at the sensitivity to Toby’s feelings and wellbeing that Smiley displays. But at the end of this quiet little chat, Toby is avowedly Smiley’s man. He will do whatever is asked, and tell no-one. Not because of explicit threats or theatrics, but because Smiley has shown him it is quite impossible to do otherwise. That’s the brilliance of Smiley - he’s highly analytical, but also a very sophisticated manipulator. The adaptation lost that for the sake of the theatrical.[/spoiler]
Jim and Bill
The adaptation made the end of Jim’s story considerably bleaker. He drives off the younger kid (basically his last human connection) and shoots Bill in the face. Curtain. In the book, he does kill Bill (Tarantino doesn’t have an original thought in his head) but returns to the school, where young Bill is glad to see him. The tone of the book is much more redemptive. I think both endings work in the context of the story, but I was surprised how much bleaker the film chose to be.
It has been a long time since I read the book, but I recall the question of who shot Bill as being ambiguous. It is strongly suggested that it was Jim, but there was a sliver of doubt.
As I recall,
[spoiler] Jim goes missing from the school. Smiley and Guillam have the vague sense that they’re being followed, but never catch sight of a tail. (Which is what they’d expect if Jim were the one tailing them.) Smiley is clearly worried about Bill’s safety: Bill can be traded for the remaining Circus agents in Eastern Europe, but he knows Jim will want revenge. It seems that someone got a message to Bill via the laundry, and that Bill went to meet his killer willingly. Bill isn’t shot in the book - he’s found dead with a broken neck. This is a reminder of the way Jim first impressed the pupils at school - he competently and calmly snapped the distressed owl’s neck. The pupils decide he must have been a gamekeeper - who else would know how to break a bird’s neck so easily? (A scene that was in the film, but didn’t get the payoff.) Smiley et al. obviously aren’t aware of that, but the reader is. So while it’s unproven for the characters, it’s pretty clear to the reader who’s responsible.
In the TV series, they showed Jim and Bill having a final conversation before the neck break so there was no ambiguity.[/spoiler]
Great post by Stanislaus, at least the Guillam changes make more sense, though
they could have just made Guillam a more minor character rather than engaging in shorthand to humanize him.
Speaking of Jim and Bill,
in the book you certainly pick up on the homoerotic subtext without having to resort to lingering smiles and glances at a Christmas party. Thought that was a bit awkward, cinematically.
I just rented it…I was very confused and it didn’t draw me in nearly as much as I’d anticipated. I don’t mind a little intrigue and backstory, but this was jumping all over the place.
The scene with the owl in the classroom sickened me. Totally unnecessary, all to “prove” himself to his students? Messed up.
Was le Carré attempting to highlight the difference between Oldman’s character opening the window to let the bee/fly out of the car or was it simply gratuitous violence?