Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Alec Guiness as George Smiley (1979)

Just went to see "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy". I still have strong memories of the 1979 tele-movie staring Alec Guiness as George Smiley. But to enjoy this version you must put the old version aside in its entirety. 

The Swedish director (Tomas Alfredson)  of the movie has seemingly let all of the colour seep out the screen and the feeling of coldness and dankness permeating the movie is overwhelming. 

Gary Oldman plays George Smiley and from recollection of the novel looks much more the part as described in the book than Sir Alec did - More owlish, deeply quiet and profoundly recessive in personality. 

Gary Oldman as Smile (2011)

Watching this cold dankness on the screen I couldn't help but feeling that the city which is the backdrop for the movie was yes - London, but for all that, the London of Winston Smith in 1984. And Smiley's secret lair may well as be "Victory Mansions" and this movie's Britain, "Airstrip One" as much as an attempted facsimile of London in 1974.

The Britain depicted here seems to have lost the Cold War, or at least lost its soul in the process of fighting it, and the senior men of the "Circus" seem every bit as venal and careerist as we are lead to believe the other side's apparatchicks were. So it comes as no suprise to see a hearty rendition of the Internationale being sung at the Circus Christmas party lead by a Lenin-masked father Christmas.

A sort of equality is posited between George Smiley and the mysterious Karla especially at the end of the story, when a vindicated Smiley reclaims his position and in turn assumes the reins (albeit temporarily) as "Control", 


And finally, in the supressed pleasure that one asumes Smiley feels in his vindication (and partial victory over Karla) one cannot but see something sadistic and cruel - something that also feels must be mirrored in Karla himself (allegedly the real East German Spy master, Markus Wolf).