The latest film edition of John Le Carré's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is out and probably not a patch on the original Alec Guinness TV series. But it's not at all bad, according to Anthony Lane , New Yorker critic.
Here’s the strangest thing: the television series, lasting more than five and a quarter hours, was bovine of pace, often ugly to behold, and content to meander along byways that petered out into open country or led inexorably to dead ends, yet I was tensed and transfixed by every minute, like a worshipper at a familiar Mass whose mystery will never abate. The new version, by comparison, feels purposeful, unbaffled, artfully composed, and lit, amazingly, with hints of jocularity. ...New Yorker
I watched the TV series again about a month ago and have to tell you, it's a real cliff-hanger. It's a fortifying meal on all levels: the acting is superb, the pace glacial but plenty fast given the density of the content. Even though it's fiction from beginning to end, you know it's true!
The struggle, back then, was a moral one against a nagging dread that the West had nothing more to offer, apart from the satisfaction of greed, than its sterner rival in the East, and that what might remain, between spies, was a pure exchange of tactics, ungilded with sentiment or faith. On TV, the mole, once revealed, declared, “The secret services are the only real expression of a nation’s character,” which is not a bad motto for the whole story. As for his own nation, his main grievance was aimed at its dreamy pretensions of power. “Britain—oh, dear,” he said, with a sniff, adding, “No viability whatever in world affairs.” When you scanned the backdrop of the drama, it was ominously hard to disagree. “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” began with a band of colorless colleagues, either smoking or carrying cups of foul coffee, entering a dingy room, scarcely bothering to greet one another, and expert only in a life of professional pretense. It didn’t seem much to fight for. Yet I have often thought, If only the mole had burrowed down and clung on, he would have seen the land he had loathed and betrayed taken over by a woman who shared every inch of his frustration at its lassitude and pitiful want of pride. Could the double agent not have turned triple, and become a rampant Thatcherite? ...New Yorker
Wait a minute. Is this about Britain in the '70's? Or was Le Carré's spy "circus" just as relevant to where America is now? Is our "homeland security" the real expression of our nation's character?
Maybe the new Gary Oldman version of "Tinker, Tailor" is kinder. Even though we're a nation that may have nothing left to offer, we can at least see our fate "artfully composed, and lit, amazingly, with hints of jocularity."
