Director Tomas Alfredson managed to do it, and with scriptwriters Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O'Connor even managed to touch the highlights while adding a quiet depth to the characters, mostly without dialogue, and with a different style than mini-series and book.
Take this scene. In the book, it's a description over dinner; the miniseries does it in flashback. Not here. The dialogue is mostly the same. But the location and the way it's told is different. The setting is Smiley's HQ for his investigation into double-agent treachery in Britain's secret service; the scene between Smiley and his "player on the other side," Karla, is described and mimed for the benefit of Peter Guillam, solely as a drunken reverie overlain with regret by Smiley. It's haunting, peculiar and is much more effective than the earlier presentation. There, Karla is very real, played silently and cynically by Patrick Stewart (before his career hit warp-speed) and is a fairly powerful presence, still with an air of inscrutability—an unknown quantity.
But in the film version, he's an empty chair, a memory, unseen (as he is throughout the film, his only sign of presence being the lighter that Smiley obsesses over, here—Karla's trophy from their earlier encounter that provides inside information for his plot to infiltrate "The Circus"). Unknowable, not even distinctive enough to remember (although one suspects Smiley may be obfuscating), he is a phantom, much more powerful in the not-knowing...and in his influence.
The Set-Up: Asked by the Home Secretary to look into the matter of a "mole" (a double agent) high up in the ranks of "The Circus" (code name for British Intelligence), George Smiley (Gary Oldman), former No. 2 man under "Control" (John Hurt) is leading an investigation for the traitor in the ranks. His "inside" man is Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), who has just risked exposure stealing documents from the Circus records room. Under suspicion from "The Gang of Four" heading the Circus (Ciarán Hinds, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, David Dencik), Guillam begins to suspect that their chief source for information, Ricky Tarr (Thomas Hardy) might be lying to them. Smiley, sensing Guillam's doubts, fills him in on some background that might prove useful—and painful—to Guillam in the near-future.
Action!
150 INT. HOTEL ISLAY - SMILEY’S ROOM - NIGHT 150
Smiley watches Guillam, estimating how badly all of this is affecting him.
Guillam raises himself up on an elbow, listening.
Smiley stares at the room around, projecting his memory of the Delhi cell onto their present surroundings.
He points to an EMPTY CHAIR in front of him.
He holds up his right hand.
Guillam flinches a little, but Smiley doesn’t notice, lost now in the past.
He stares at the CHAIR as if expecting an answer, and slightly drunkenly Guillam finds himself turning to the CHAIR for a response.
Smiley doesn’t answer - STARES AT THE CHAIR - the silence stretching - it’s all becoming a little surreal.
He mimes placing the lighter beside the cigarettes.
He breaks off in sudden impatience with himself.
He makes a vague “Etcetera” gesture, stares at...THE EMPTY CHAIR... something unsettling about it, as if somehow it is acquiring the GHOSTLY PRESENCE OF KARLA.
SMILEY (CONT’D)(To the chair) Look, we’ve both spent our lives looking for the weaknesses in one another’s systems.
SMILEY (CONT’D) Never said a word.
SMILEY Not one word.
SMILEY Next morning he got back on his plane,
SMILEY ...gave the pack of cigarettes back to me, untouched -
SMILEY ...this was a chain-smoker,
SMILEY ...mind - and flew off to what he presumed would be his death.
SMILEY He kept my lighter.
SMILEY It was a gift - “To George, from Ann.
SMILEY ..All my love.”
Guillam is still staring at the chair, a little awe-struck.
PETER GUILLAM That was Karla?
PETER GUILLAM And he flew back to die rather than give in?
SMILEY Yes. (Beat) And that’s how I know he can be beaten.
SMILEY Because he’s a fanatic.
SMILEY And the fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt.
SMILEY (CONT’D) After today, Peter...
SMILEY ...you have to assume they’re watching you.
SMILEY If there’s anything you need tidied up...
Words by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan (and Peter Morgan and John Le Carré)
Pictures by Hoyte Van Hoytema and Tomas Alfredson
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is available on DVD from Universal Home Video.
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| The same meeting from the BBC mini-series Karla (a "Pre-card" Patrick Stewart) and Smiley (Alec Guinness) |
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