Sir Alec Guinness is so good at being George Smiley that John LeCarre claims he can no longer write the character about without seeing Guinness' face. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, and the script captures the novel almost flawlessly. It takes six hours because the story is complex and ranges over many years and many characters, but it is so well-written and acted that the any viewer with an attention span longer than that of a gnat can easily keep track of who did what and when, so that the ultimate unmasking of the traitor may be a surprise, but it is not a shock.
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Tom-44711 November 1999
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the red duchess7 December 2000Although not as sympathetic or achingly romantic as 'The Russia House', this stunning TV adaptation is the closest the screen has gotten to the singular world of John le Carre. Very few writers actually become so synonymous with their age that we look to their works to find out what a period of history was like. When we think of the Cold War, and, most especially, the shabby bureaucracy of British espionage, it is le Carre we think of.
What le Carre shares with Graham Greene, making him a million miles from the priapic fantasies of James Bond, is in showing how the Cold War literally degraded everyone. Fils like 'Ninotchka' like to show the massive disparity between the dour, repressive, monotonous Soviet Union and the glitteringly superficial, gaily materialist West. Le Carre suggests that both sides of the Iron Curtain are merely of the same coin, at the executive level at least. You expect to see 1980 Czechoslovakia as a run-down, provincial dump; but this film's England reminded me of Svankmajer's 'Alice', as it details a society, a system, an ethic, a code grinding towards inertia, a world becoming increasingly closed in that it can only be jabbed into life by shocks of betrayal.
This England is a pure mirror image of our stereotypes of the East - a system run by chilling, amoral men with perfect manners (the most frightening thing about the narrative is that any one of the suspects could have done it, each one has so lost any kind of basic humanity, never mind idealism, that it is almost irrelevant who the traitor is) gathering together in anonymous meeting rooms, or an endless rondelay of joyless dinners; a world of cramped, impersonal decor, generally sucked in by shadows, so that we can't even be sure it's men we see, or the flickering grin of the Cheshire Cat; a world of men, where one of the three female characters is an absent joke until the last five minutes, another is tortured and murdered by her superiors, and the third is sacked for competence, reduced to scraping money from grinds, a paralysed, blubbing outcast; a drab world where all colour and life has been seeped out, or goes by unnoticed, where jokes are bitter and grim, where the (very Soviet) elevator disrepair signals a wider, fundamental malaise.
If it's fun you want, get 'You Only Live Twice' - the action here is generated from its milieu - dank, meticulous, pedantic, slow, inexorable, unsensational. This is where a 6 hour TV adaptation has the edge on a feature film - cramming a le Carre plot into the latter can make it seem rushed and exciting; this film brings out all its civil-service ingloriousness superbly (although the figure of Karla is a little too SMERSHy for my tastes).
Bill Hayden says you can tell the soul of a nation from its intelligence service, and this film, despite the go-getting yuppie 80s or the success of heritage TV ('Jewel in the Crown', 'Brideshead Revisited') is perhaps the closest representation of a kind of soul, public school, Oxbridge, Whitehall, male. In equating this world with impotence and sterility (Smiley is childless), the material errs in equating homosexuality as the ultimate, literal inversion, a closing in, of minds, spirit etc.
But the metaphor of the betrayed friendship as representative of a wider betrayal is less a corny contrivance than an indication of how fundamentally incestuous this world is. These men slipping in and out of shadows are ghosts, fighting a war that doesn't exist, nitpicking over irrelevant ideological puzzles that have lost all meaning. The 'good' guys are no better than the bad - Peter Guillam, though dogged and loyal, is little more than a thug; Ricky Tarr is new yuppie incarnate in all his cocky repulsiveness.
Smiley, marvellously essayed by Alec Guinness - more obviously sharper than in the book, Hercules cleaning out the Aegean stables - loses even the barest traces of humanity, with vast reserves of calculated sadism and bureaucratic immorality, his thick glasses seeing all the detail and none of the big picture. Smiley needs the rules of the game more than anyone; without them he is left adrift in life, and the stupendous final shot shows how deeply that defeats him.
Unusually for TV, this is a film of rare visual imagination, not in the mistakenly flashy, spuriously 'cinematic' sense beloved of ambitious tyros, but in its exploration of the medium's claustrophobia, as it traps its protagonists, in particular the way the camera's point of view chillingly suggests somebody else looking on, spying on the spies, making everything we see provisional, especially the flashbacks, which elide as much as they reveal. -
I've lost count over how many times I've watched this brilliant adaptation of John Le Carre's novel. Each time I watch it I find something new to marvel over. Guinness was perfectly cast for the role of George Smiley, and seemed to play the part almost effortlessly. The rest of the cast are also superb.
Audiences initially found the film slow, baffling or indeed boring. But the truth is that the life of a spy is so far removed from the 'James Bond' image that a more down-beat approach was needed to tackle the adaptation. It is through this film that we realise that the creation of George Smiley is a work of pure genius, and Guinness so perfectly portrays this, simply dominating every scene.
The plot seems quite simple at first, but as I have watched and re-watched the work (and read the novel) I realise that it is much more complex than it seems.
In conclusion, a first class cast giving superb performances throughout. Dominating the entire film is Alec Guinness, who deservedly won the BAFTA for best actor. -
henry-girling29 January 2003The book by John Le Carre is intricate and multi layered and to attempt to film it was brave of the BBC. One wishes they had such courage these days, but that is another story. It is a television masterpiece.
The acting is superb. Alec Guinness was made for the part of George Smiley. From his opening scene in a London bookshop to the last shot of his face he is mesmerising. The supporting cast are the cream of British actors at the time. Some of them only have one scene like John Standing, Beryl Reid, Joss Ackland and Nigel Stock but they become real people before your eyes. Ian Bannen as Jim Prideaux is particularly moving and Hewyl Bennett gives the performance of his life.Even the actors who don't say anything look just right.
It is plainly filmed but that adds to the atmosphere. On the face of it life is normal and ordinary but beneath there is betrayal, anguish, danger and pain. The motif of Russian dolls in the opening credits is good. Dolls with faces, then one without and then an emptiness. In the end Smiley solves the mystery but the mystery of life is beyond him.
The music is great,sparse but edgy. I can watch this time and again and still get something out of it. -
JonSturgess29 December 1998It is rare that an adaptation of a complex novel translates well to the small screen. Often detail is eliminated for sake of time and the plot loses aspects that are key to the real story.
The team of John Le Carre and John Irvin has created what may go down as the benchmark for the Spy story mini series. In six hours of television they lay out piece by piece the background of each of the characters in a slow and gentle manner enabling the viewer to capture a sense of both the person and the time in which they are placed.
Irvin permits the story to move in a 'typical English manner', with George Smiley, the principal character almost rolling along from one event to another. Alec Guinness is outstanding in this role and it seems the it was either written with him in mind or he was born for it. I suspect the later is more likely. Smiley and his quirks are key to unravelling what is a complex plot with the usual twists and turns of they spy genre.
The casting of the rest of the players is equally superb with an ensemble performance by the who's who of the English stage. The goodies are all flawed people while the badies, many of who are within the British Secret Intelligence Service, are bad in the way that only the English can truly be to each other.
If you enjoy Le Carre and are prepared to put in 6 hours to view the entire series you you will be richly rewarded. -
orlow12 April 2005There are few movies that follow the book. There is no end to the comment, "The book was so much better." There is good reason for that with some films. "The Lord of the Rings" would have been five movies if you went "by the book". Interesting and enjoyable as that might be for Tolkien fans, it was impossible for film makers. Yet, "Tailor, Tinker, Soldier, Spy" as a movie defies that axiom.
Having read the book and seen the movie more than "several times", they still remain interconnected and indistinguishable. Yes, the book contains more detail, but may details are covered by innuendo, scene or background detail in the movie. Alec Guinness becomes Smiley so completely that his acting gives real meaning to the idea of a "character actor", even down to wiping his glasses with his tie. (you have to read the book for that one.)That is not to say, that Guinness is a robot and the movie is stiff in the name of faithfulness to the book, just the opposite.
The movie dawns the viewer in, just as the book draws in the reader, as part of the process of discovery; unraveling the mystery. As in a true "who done it" (or as one commentator put "who is it"), the viewer has no more foreknowledge than Smiley. You are introduced to all the characters, all have reasons to be the defector, all have reasons to distrust an investigation to the past, yet only one is ferreted-out.
The ending is consistent with the logic of the book and film, but, you still don't expect it. It's anti-climactic yet believable. The film, like to book, leaves one wondering how this could happen. It's thought provoking given many of the suspects comments thought-out the book/film. Both inspire thought more than resolution. The story challenges the reader/viewer to think and think well about the reasons for and purpose of spying as a whole. (The film is more English in cultural orientation, but the concept is universal, as many Americans have learned as well.)
A wonderful book transformed into visual. Great acting through-out, and you really hate all the right people.... -
smprescott-131 December 2002I wish that the producers could have dealt with the issue of Smiley's marriage in a more satisfactory way. This is the only criticism that I can think of: that Guiness had to put on the same face about a dozen times whenever Ann's name was mentioned.
That said, I believe this is the best television that I have ever seen. There is a pervasive feeling of solemnity throughout, reinforced by the several tragic characters, the invisible backdrop of the cold war and the ineffably beautiful and solemn signature theme. This is a story about spies. It is also a story about humanity.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOLLOW. As to the acting, note the masterful way that Guiness uses his spectacles throughout the series. Note Michael Aldridge's (Alleline) timing between Ian Richardson's tea and biscuit fiddling and calling the meeting to order in Episode Three. Just the right touch. In a really good movie you get those serendipidous unforgetable moments. Here there is no serendipidy. It is all just brilliant and inspired acting. Note Richardson's simultaneous laughing and crying.
I have read all of LeCarre's spy novels through 'The Honourable Schoolboy' and have read Tinker Tailor several times. This series is not just true to the novel, it is also 'of the LeCarre spirit'. You get the feeling that the man who told you the story is now revealing the characters to you visually. Read the book and then see this series and you will see what I mean.
I first saw Tinker Tailor twenty years ago. When I found out that it is available on DVD, I used all of my powers of persuation to convince my wife to make this my Christmas present. We have sat through it twice since then and after I blast this review off into the ether, I am going downstairs for another go at it. It is a jewel. -
andrew_atkinson25 August 2004Having just watched this film again (for about the tenth time) I am moved to say that few adaptations have brought such a well crafted book to the screen so brilliantly. Perhaps this was because the author also provided the screenplay ?
The acting, direction, lighting are superb and the whole is only further enhanced by the haunting music of Burgon. The pace and suspense are every bit as thrilling as the book.
One tip for lovers of this movie : try and get a copy of the follow-up, namely Smiley's People. It takes over very gently from Tinker, Tailor and leads on to the ultimate conclusion of Smiley's career.
Bravo ! -
larcher-221 August 1999I can only add to the other comments: this is a superb film. It is absolute proof that a TV mini-series can stand beside the best cinema films with honor. I have rarely paid $7.00 for just 87 minutes of anything this good. If I could vote on it, it would get a 9. The writing is rich; the acting, excellent; the theme, deep; the technical quality only slightly inhibited by a presumably small budget. When I consider the BBC's obsession with the mass market peddling of dull costume dramas, I cannot understand why this astringent tragedy is not available, at least in the US, on video or DVD. In about 20 years, this will have the sort of mythic reputation given to lost or damaged movies of the teens and twenties--more deservedly than most of them.
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blanchjoe11 January 2006This is not your usual spy / action story, . . .this is a story of ordinary men within an extra-ordinary world that few, if any, of us will ever be exposed to.
This is a thinking person's film, there are no setups, no story voice overs, you are required to really "watch" this story as it unfolds.
This story is an exploration of desire, anger, hatred, fear and respect, . . .it is a story of belief and manipulation, it is NOT James Bond.
This is "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" many, many years later, after a bitterness and loss have become a way of life.
This is one of the best films you will ever see. -
Rindiana27 November 2009Well-made seven-part espionage puzzler, which does not quite live up to its towering reputation. The dialogue is undoubtedly witty and delivered with aplomb by the unanimously first-rate cast, with Alec Guinness turning in yet another brilliant performance.
But after the fourth episode the pace gets bumpy and the whole scenario appears somewhat trivial were it not for some intelligent or exciting moments here and there.
Irvin's direction uses interior spaces to maximum effect, but overall there's a slightly dowdy air to it.
Still, this Cold War reptile is definitely preferable to all those contemporary action no-brainers pretending to be spy movies. (Yes, I mean you, Mr. Bourne!)
7 out of 10 mole diggers -
Although it helps to love John le Carre's novels, particularly those set during the Cold War, this series and its sequel, "Smiley's People," should be seen for their quality, which may be unsurpassed by anything on television before or since. Alec Guiness as George Smiley is the principal attraction, of course. He could do more with an eyebrow or a subtle change of expression than most actors can do with their entire bodies and vocal skills. But these two series are also distinguished by casts that are superior from top to bottom, products of the Royal Shakespeare Company and other British companies and academies. Ian Richardson is the best known member of this particular cast, other than Guiness himself, and he does an absolutely remarkable job. "Tinker, Tailor..." also offers the first glimpse of Patrick Stewart as "Karla," Smiley's chief antagonist, a leading figure in "Smiley's People." Americans used to see BBC films as part of the "Masterpiece Theatre" series on PBS, sometimes on "Mystery," another PBS staple. And the BBC is still turning out remarkable work. But "Tinker, Tailor..." and "Smiley's People" are unsurpassed -- complex, brilliantly plotted with characters (and not just Smiley) who challenge actors to do their very best work. While many of John le Carre's novels have been made into feature films (some of them quite good), they lend themselves better to the series mode, which allows for more detailed exposition and fuller development of character. They may be great literature (as le Carre's admirers insist) or polished pot boilers (as his critics argue), but they make for wonderful television. And you come away from these two series with the conviction that Smiley was MADE for Alec Guiness, that no one alive (or dead) could have done half as well.
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James_Take226 June 2021An engaging TV mini-series but poor quality in terms of production values, sound, cinematography and location. Surprisingly poor when one thinks it was a BBC production.
The acting is good considering the script is dated and the characters generally are quite wooden/one dimensional. The plot is laboured and it's hard to care deeply about the characters.
All that said, if you like spy stories (I do) it is worth watching. When it was made, the communist threat/cold war was still relevant. Today it's not the case, many other issues have taken priority and as a result it hasn't aged well.
Guinness was made for the role of Smiley though it is not by any means his best work. You get the feeling Guinness is so good in this role because he is close to playing himself. Still he does a pretty good job of carrying the whole series given its sub-standard script and production values.
Overall I gave it six out of ten because it does engage the viewer despite the slow pace and below par production quality. I did find it a bit predictable half way through but still enjoyed it as the plot unfolded.
I started watching the film starring John Hurt and Gary Oldman, but gave up after 30 minutes. I will give it another shot and compare it with the TV series. -
richard-143518 February 2021Oh dear. This has dated badly. I recall seeing this when it first aired and enjoying it. The recent passing of Le Carre prompted me to revisit its pleasures. I got to Ep. 3 and gave up. How styles have changed. The acting is stilted, the characters unbelievable, sound poor, production of low standard (or low budget). Of course, many shows of that era have also dated - as have I. However, that is no excuse. It should have been better.
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Glad-217 January 2000Definitely in the BBC pantheon (alongside I Claudius and Pride and Prejudice), partly for its formidable cast, but mainly for John Irvin's taut directorial grip - a model of visual economy and uncompromising narrative drive.
A double-agent or 'mole' is suspected at the top levels of the British secret service and retired spymaster Alec Guiness must narrow down the suspects amongst his former colleagues. Arthur Hopcraft's adaptation, while capturing the bureaucratic intrigue and perfidy of John Le Carre's novel, will demand viewers' utmost attention if they want to stay with the unfolding plot.
Irvin shoots Tinker, Tailor as if for widescreen - edge of the screen compositions, careful background detail - and demonstrates how a determined director can overcome the limitations of television(usually seen as a writer or producer's medium). Look at how he composes and cuts the scene where Guillam (Michael Jayston) is interrogated round the boardroom table towards the end of the first half. How Irvin provides deft little 'bookend' shots with the characters slowly walking away from camera.
Not that his sparse, pared-down style doesn't translate to action scenes with equal verve. The prologue - Ian Bannen's abortive mission into Czechoslovakia and its climatic chase through the forest - is as tense as anything you're likely to see on the big screen. Wintry settings and a fraught music score (mainly strings) add to this bleak, cynical vision.
Irvin landed the Hollywood actioner Dogs of War on the strength of Tinker, Tailor, but despite clever touches it didn't launch a notable cinema career. Look out, however, for his earlier television adaptation of Dickens' Hard Times. (For another example of very superior television direction, check out James Goldstone's handling of two first-season Star Trek episodes - 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' and 'What Are Little Made Of').
Author Le Carre may have topped Tinker,Tailor with a dazzling sequel (The Honourable Schoolboy, published 1977), but this is still far and away the best espionage suspenser ever televised. Indeed, it's hard to see how anything else, post Cold War, could quite match this relentless, ruthless dissection of personal and political betrayals. -
paul2001sw-14 April 2007John Le Carre's early spy novels were sparse affairs: his later books, rather overblown and clichéd. But in the mid-1970s, he wrote the best novels of his career, and 'Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy' was perhaps the best of them all: at heart, a character study of his long-time enigmatic protagonist George Smiley, wrapped in a detective story itself wrapped in an espionage thriller. It also made one of the best television series ever made. The spirit of Le Carre's material is utterly respected; the screenwriters were unafraid to construct an essentially talkative script, with only moments of "action" in the conventional sense; the music and lighting are both excellent; but above all else, a superb cast was assembled to fill the lead roles. Much is rightly made of Alec Guinness' brilliant performance as the quiet, meticulous Smiley: every gesture or intonation speaks a thousand words. But this was also one of Ian Richardson's best works as well, he literally steals every scene he appears in as Bill Hayden, Smiley's old colleague and adversary. Hayden is a very clever man, but Richardson's portrayal of him is no less clever. Although in some senses the themes of this story: the cold war, and England's post-war loss of confidence, may no longer seem as relevant as they once did, you'll rarely see a more riveting piece of television. And having seen it, when you watch a modern drama, with it's slick dialogues and high-paced editing, you'll have a sense of something lost as well as something gained.
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dwilliams-502 March 2007This is real class. Everything about this is superb - source material, adaptation, acting, even the music. The acting is especially wonderful: totally convincing with not a dud note anywhere. As pointed out by many others, Alec Guinness IS George Smiley. If you see the TV series before reading the book, then it's impossible to think of the Smiley character in any other way than as played by Guinness.
This is how I imagine the espionage world to be - painstaking research, surveillance and investigation, interspersed with occasional moments of high excitement. James Bond it ain't. Boring? Not a bit of it, unless all you want is minimal plot and maximum 'action'.
In this age of dumbed down TV, I don't think we'll ever see the like again on the BBC. So savour it. -
I originally watched this on television in the late 1970's and was enthralled. This was the book come to life and every one of the actors seemed perfect for their roles.
Later on I bought the series on video and have now moved to DVD as the tape is worn out. I can watch this time and again as the plots and characters develop without the need for gadgetry and elaborate action scenes. This is the best of BBC drama and I cannot recommend it too highly.
The sequel, "Smiley's People", follows on like an old friend you lost touch with for a few years. Everybody looks a little bit more crumpled round the edges but, underneath everything, they are the same.
As a child of the cold war, these two series capture the period quite perfectly. -
Flint-MI-guy5 July 2004Le Carré says on the DVD interview that this production "came as near to my imagining as any film has come" -- and he's had eleven. He says that after Alec Guinness was signed up, getting the rest of the cast was easy: "We could empty the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company." It shows. Some of the best, most subtle, believable, and faithful acting I've ever seen.
One example: Alexander Knox was not my mental image of Control (I pictured someone more like the 70-year-old Joss Ackland), but he was fantastic. He plays a secretive, brilliant man whose mind is declining when he needs it most. The camera stays on him silently for what seems like minutes as he tries to make sense of a catastrophic betrayal. No groans or sighs, just real fear in his eyes; he seems to fight the urge to burst into tears. I could watch his scenes over & over. (And have.)
[Possible spoilers for those who've read the novel & want to be surprised by any differences]
Bernard Hepton is also terrific. His Toby Esterhase doesn't speak in the zigzagging, English-as-a-fourteenth-language manner of the novels' Toby, but as if he were a native Brit. I assume this was due to the clear impression that Toby is treated as an inferior by the other spies and the creators didn't want to make the British spies seem merely xenophobic, just dreadfully classist. Despite the de-colorized language, Hepton's Toby is wonderful. His interrogation by Smiley is a scene worth watching again & again, also.
The only miss in the whole 5 1/2 hours is perhaps Mendel (played by George Sewell). The TV Mendel was compressed from 2 characters in the novel (Mendel & MacFadean) and in the process, I think, lost all personality. Mendel is now a silent, well-dressed, apparently brilliant spy, not a lonely, old, bachelor cop. He has no imaginable history, no wrinkles, no flavor. He's like the nameless FBI agents who come in at the end of a B movie to take the bad guy away. This character-combining also leads to a couple of plot holes (submitted).
Other than Toby's ironed-out speech, Arthur Hopcraft lifted most of the dialog verbatim from the novel. A few new lines (as when Peter surprises George at his house) are perfectly in keeping with le Carré's style and even add to the characters' depth. The novel's timeline was compressed from 18 to 6 months, which leads to a few discontinuities (also submitted), but it still works.
The 1982 sequel SMILEY'S PEOPLE is visually brighter and has a simpler plot. Sort of a 'Tinker Lite', but in some ways I enjoyed it more. It also has great performances. -
Camoo15 April 2007I sat in a marathon run with my DVD player heated and spinning off its blinker, chewing nervously on cigarettes, mimicking the habits of the characters on screen. It was a particularly dreary night, and I couldn't have imagined a better way to spend six full hours of my life and strangely enough it was glued to a television. This film would have rated a perfect ten on the IMDb, with only positive comments if it wasn't for a few kids who might have accidentally been forced to sit through it with their le Carre obsessed fathers, it is as flawless a masterpiece as I've ever seen, or ever will see. Smiley of course is a household name among cold war enthusiasts, history buffs and anybody who ever paid any close attention to Alec Guinness's career post Star Wars will always see him as Smiley, and only Smiley.. it was the performance of a lifetime, to last a million lifetimes...
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siderite8 August 2013I have to admit that at first I was a bit disappointed. Old men talking a lot about spying, low budget sets, slow pace, no added drama. I thought it was going to be boring. And perhaps, if I were action minded, it would have been. Instead the series drew me in not by playing my emotional chords, not by special effects and not by adding superfluous problems to the story to give it extra oomph, but by presenting the story, step by step, as the rather cerebral character played by Alec Guinness peels the layers of the onion.
So take what I told you as a warning. The series is excellent, but you will have to think about what everybody means when they say something, about why sometimes they just ask a lot of questions without seeming to be interested in the answers, which are not coming anyway and about how the game of cat and mouse is played.
Bottom line: great, but slow paced spy thriller, aimed at the intellectual in you. It all involves the hunt for a mole in the highest ranks of MI6 during the Cold War, the villain mastermind being the uncredited Patrick Stewart as Karla, with Alec Guinness being its British opponent. It is rather low budget, and feels like a BBC play. Take your time and enjoy the show. -
Tricycle_Thief10 January 2023To be really picky, I just feels that the story is missing a convincing 'big picture' focal point. While the internal machinations of a rather antiquated secret service are fascinating, the whole raison d'etre has eluded me. My concern is that it eluded the author too.
To a degree, TTSS is self-indulgent: it doesn't give any clue as to the importance or value of information that was being given to the enemy. For example, with the Enigma story, and Bletchley Park the key issue was to 'win the war' and defeat Nazism. With TTSS they key issue seems to be of how to play spymaster, but without knowing the reason why . . Is it a matter of real national importance, or just a game being played by self-obsessed wannabes? I feel that the series doesn't play against the bigger (and quite scary) drama of the Cold War: it just seems to be about the lesser drama of Oxbridge malcontents, misfits and incompetents having 'fun' for ideological reasons.
The Smiley character is quite emotionally detached - even uninterested and reticent. That doesn't signal smartness to me when we see other leading characters being portrayed as rather stupid or simply unprofessional. I can well believe that this branch of the Civil Service had its fair share of 'muppets' that reached high rank due to their public school associations, but La Carre doesn't much reveal that - at least in the miniseries.
Overall, watching this series in 2023 seemed like an academic exercise; I didn't feel engaged or entertained: I just felt that it was something I should finally 'knuckle down' and do. By the end, it just seemed rather facile.
To be fair though, a lot of the contemporary spy stuff was like that - "clever" - just a bit pretentious.
Gary Oldman did Smiley a lot better - more engaging and less 'retentive'. -
Prismark104 February 2014I re-watched this after two decades. I have never read the novel so I am not in a position to appraise the adaptation from book to screen.
This was a prestige BBC adaptation and a lot of money was spent on getting Alec Guinness star as Smiley and some location set pieces.
However once you get over such trappings the production values are still very much interior settings. People having discussions in rooms and what not.
Guinness is all stillness, letting others to do the talking and letting them reveal themselves a little too much.
Just as Karla did the same to him some years ago. Only Nigel Stock manages to ruffle his feathers.
This gives other actors such as Hywel Bennett, Ian Richardson, Joss Ackland, Beryl Reid a chance to shine while Guinness looks on.
The drama demands concentration from the viewer, it is dense, it has a lot of chatter regarding the world of spooks. The Circus does look a lot like the old public school network. Even in those days the secret service had enough of the shifters and drifters as shown in other spy novels.
Hywel Bennett as Ricki Tarr, Michael Jayston as Peter Guillam and Ian Bannen as Jim Prideaux show how dangerous, mean and ruthless such spies can be.
Tarr has told so many lies that the truth is so hard to tell without adding some shade.
At the Circus, Ian Richardson punctures the pompous atmosphere as he displays undercurrents of rebellion. Patrick Stewart makes a silent cameo and right at the end Mrs Smiley makes an appearance, a person we hear so much about throughout the series. -
A powerful honorable cat-and-mouse game of gentlemen entrenched in obscure offices and safe houses, stenching with cigarette and drinks, papers all around revealing codes, numbers and all sorts of information; not much action going around but those spies, informers and intelligent people know that when the danger comes it's better to find a way out of it. John Le Carré's anti-James Bond character the taciturn yet brilliant George Smiley was presented to readers in several novels, including "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" and the Karla trilogy, which consists of Smiley's greatest efforts, in order "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", "The Honourable Schoolboy" and "Smiley's People". To audiences, he was introduced with great detail in this BBC miniseries with Sir Alec Guinness as Smiley, providing a multi-layered performance that truly captures the essence of this realistic poor man's secret agent. John Irvin's seven part miniseries is a towering effort of all sources, highly commendable and worthy of praise...but it's appeal is slightly lost on me. Reason: Tomas Alfredson's masterpiece released in 2011 with Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Tom Hardy was simply mesmerizing and a true work of art that actually made me feel as part of that complex web of lies, countless characters and their complicated means.
That film used the original source, maintained what was fundamental in it and drastically altered some plot points, schemes, abused of puzzling flashbacks that angered a great deal of people - there in the theater I had a minor yet bothering headache which started in the middle of the film but when all the answers were starting to come, it faded away like magic - but I absolutely loved it! It's like a magnificent chess game. Alfredson's cast and his choices for art-direction, cinematography, everything fit perfectly the film and his team of writers managed to condense everything in two hours, which is more amazing, and thanks to the mode he visualized this Cold War world, I started to read Karla trilogy with different (better) eyes. Above all, Oldman captured with exact measure the personality of Smiley: calm, always in control of the situation and always aware of what the enemy might do next. A bright intelligence, great worker for the British intelligence but whose life at home isn't completely sorted out, always having to deal with the infidelities of adored wife Ann. An enigmatic character and a challengeable role for an actor since Smiley is a man who holds back every emotion, and Oldman had to use a lot of nuances to express feelings and thoughts without let them completely visible. But the actor acknowledges: Guinness was his inspiration while playing the role.
As for the miniseries, Guinness does a tremendous job and once again he disappears into a role with full commitment and passion. It's not an easy job to hold yourself back when all you want to do it's to react to what other people do or ask you to do. But I enjoyed his George Smiley, it felt real and quite close to the one we imagine from the books. In fact, the great advantage this film has over Alfredson's work is the fact that they covered the book in very faithful ways (obviously BBC had the time for it, 7 hours!), including verbatim from Le Carré's novel, descriptions and sequences, providing minor altering (they don't focus on much Peter Guillam is a ladies man - good point - but they made the special relationship between Prideaux and Haydon in innuendo terms that don't explain much for those who haven't read the book or seen the 2011 film).
In terms of the challenges faced by a writer transforming a complex and detailed book into a film/miniseries "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is a bright case for study. Le Carré isn't totally cinematic ("The Honourable Schoolboy" is his most filmic yet it's the one that never gets made into films because it's long, covers a great deal of important plot points in several locations. Now with the success of "The Night Manager" I seriously hope that Netflix, Amazon or HBO can make a miniseries of it...if possible with Gary Oldman as lead) but he offers alternatives and gripping stories that can be adapted for the screen, always with great chances to make it more palatable. However, BBC while making this project very close to the original source made it something wordy, heavily dramatic and at times exhausting to follow - I watched this in full with some breaks and not an episode per day; and with this lack of rhythm that makes it seen you're seeing a staged version of a novel instead of a film experience, the series lost in tension, in thrills and Le Carré is a creative genius source for those.
Impossible not to compare it with book and another film but judging by itself it's a well made, well produced and well acted film. The epic proportions for such project is something that must be required when it comes to adapt Smiley's novels. I enjoyed positively the acting and the script in some moments (there's plenty of humor in it) but I don't think Mr. Irvin made a good use of locations, art-direction to reflect the 1970's, it's all painfully claustrophobic at times and very tiring. The final result avenges (but I still think people overestimate its quality. Sure, BBC never made anything like it back in the day but now it's common standard though with not the same precision in following an original material). I'm willing to give it a try with Guinness and BBC again with "Smiley's People". This time there'll be no other picture to compare (unless if Alfredson goes faster and release it now, and I'm still waiting for his return to his acclaimed film). 7/10 -
j_chy25 January 2007Top notch actors. A well-known espi author. 6 hours. No suspense whatsoever.
I really tried, but I did not get into this. Maybe I have been Americanized too much, but in the end, I didn't care. I don't need guns and bombs and chase scenes to care. I even can handle the understated British ambiance. I just didn't care. There was nothing on the line; they didn't stop some major act of war; they didn't stop some terrorist plot or some threat to anyone. It was just "blah". I admit that I have not read the book. I shouldn't have to read it to enjoy the dramatization of it. I just didn't care if there was or was not a mole in some emasculated spy agency. Not once was our hero in any danger. Never was he emotionally torn, he had buried all of the feelings for his wife long ago. He was SMART at strategy, and that was about it.