Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy premiered at the Venice Film Festival barely three weeks ago, and although it missed out on any of the major prizes it has created enough buzz – and so far, near universal acclaim – to position itself as a contender for major awards at the end of the year.
The version made today had to be sexier, grittier and crueller- Paula Fleri-Soler
The novel on which the film is based was written by John le Carré, one of Britain’s foremost novelists and an expert in the world of espionage – being himself a former member of Britain’s MI5 and MI6 during the height of the Cold War.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is considered the author’s finest book, and George Smiley (portrayed in the film by Gary Oldman) his most famous character.
Fans of the book may recall the landmark 1979 seven-part TV series based on the book that starred the late, great Alec Guinness in the role. It was a series so perfect that many questioned the necessity of a new big screen adaptation to the classic spy novel.
Among those with misgivings was le Carré himself. In the film’s production notes, the author comments that “George Smiley was Alec Guinness. Alec was George: period. How could another actor equal, let alone surpass him? And how could any movie director, even one as distinguished as Tomas Alfredson, tell the same intricate story in a couple of hours?”
By his own admission, le Carré’s anxieties were misplaced, and he says that Alfredson “has delivered a film that for me works superbly”.
There is no doubt that the film-makers held the author in high esteem, a policy that production company Working Title has always maintained.
The author took to the idea of the film, and once he’d accepted the proposal he let go of the story, although he remained an integral part of the production throughout. Not only was le Carré’s advice constantly sought, he even has a cameo role in a flashback scene.
Alfredson recalls the author telling him, “Please don’t shoot the book or remake the TV miniseries. They already exist. I’m not going to interfere, but you can call me any time if there is anything you wonder about.”
There was another aspect to the project that may have been attractive to the author. The shadow of George Smiley and his people and the intricate and complicated world of espionage they inhabited gave way to a thoroughly different view of the business once the Berlin Wall fell.
The Cold War came to an end and although the spy genre continues to be hugely popular on the big screen it was a good time to revisit that most paranoid-filled of worlds in the 1970s and present it to contemporary audiences.
Producer Tim Bevan thinks that le Carré realised that his works could be opened up to a whole new audience via the film. “The vast majority of the public doesn’t read,” laments the author. “Therefore, if they have access to the story through another medium, I’m delighted. If it inspires them to go and get the book, I’m doubly delighted!”
Moreover, the film-makers recognised the change in audience’s attitudes over the past 20-odd years since the TV series. Le Carré reflects that the TV show was in a way an ode to a period of very recent British history done with great nostalgia and featuring a cast of what he describes as “British treasures from the National Theatre”.
He recognises that the version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy made today had to be without sentiment; sexier, grittier and crueller.
Although the story at its core is a whodunit, it is much more complex than that, and Bevan admits it was a real balancing act: “make it too simple and you under-represent the story’s complexities. Make it too complicated, and you distance everybody”. Yet, he adds that the film ultimately states that “what’s as relevant now as it was 30-odd years ago, and will be in 100 years’ time, is how people betray one another’s trust”.
Le Carré concurs, adding “this secret world was also a metaphor for the larger world in which we all live: We deceive one another, we deceive ourselves, we make up little stories and we act life, rather than live it”.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has yet to be released in the US, but so far it has already received a 97 per cent positive rating on film review tracker site Rotten Tomatoes.
I have no doubt that it is these words that the film-makers have taken mostly to heart: the author himself professed that “it’s not the film of the book. It’s the film of the film, and to my eye a work of art in its own right. I’m very proud to have provided Alfredson with the material, but what he made of it is wonderfully his own.”