Gary Oldman
George Smiley
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Mar 19, 2021 · The 2011 movie adaptation of John le Carré's novel is a slow-paced and subtle espionage thriller. It follows retired spy George Smiley as he investigates a mole at the top of British intelligence and reveals the dangers of trusting anyone.
- Plot
- Background
- Themes
- Characters
- Jargon
- Critical Response
- In Other Media
- External Links
- Notes and References
Background
As the tension of the Cold War is peaking in 1973, George Smiley, former senior official in Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (known as "the Circus" because its London office is at Cambridge Circus), is living unhappily in forced retirement, following the failure of an operation codenamed Testify in Czechoslovakia which ended in the capture and torture of agent Jim Prideaux. Control, chief of the Circus, had suspected that one of the five senior intelligence officers at the Circus was a S...
Smiley begins the hunt
Smiley visits Sachs, discovering that she confronted Alleline about her discovery that Polyakov was actually a Soviet Colonel called Gregor Viktorov, but he ordered her to drop the subject. She also mentions rumours of a secret Soviet facility for training moles, and makes allusions to Prideaux and Bill Haydon's relationship being more than just platonic friendship. Smiley examines Operation Witchcraft, an operation in which Soviet intelligence was obtained through a key source known as "Merl...
Karla
Smiley also discovers that the log from the night Tarr reported in from Hong Kong has been removed, and Guillam starts to suffer from paranoia as a result of their operation. Smiley tells Guillam that he suspects a Soviet intelligence officer named Karla is linked in some way to the operation, and reveals what he knows about him. Karla is believed to have followed his father into espionage, getting his start during the Spanish Civil War posing as a White Russian émigré in the forces of Genera...
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the fifth of le Carré's spy novels to feature the character of George Smiley (the first four being: Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and The Looking Glass War) and the fictionalized intelligence agency of "the Circus." Two of the characters, Peter Guillam and Inspector Mendel, f...
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is set against a theme of decline in British influence on the world stage after the Second World War, with the USSR and the USA emerging as the dominant superpowers during the Cold War. Mark Fisher said the notion of "postcolonial melancholia" hangs over the novel, arguing that both the protagonists and antagonists are mot...
George Smiley – Formerly a senior officer in the Circus, who was pushed out upon the death of Control, his mentor. Smiley's timid nature and unassuming appearance belies his keen understanding of s...Peter Guillam — Head of the scalphunters, the section of the Circus used in operations that require physical action and/or violence. Previously the head of Satellites Four, in charge of East German...Jim Prideaux — Former field agent and head of the scalphunters, Prideaux was shot in Czechoslovakia under the codename "Jim Ellis" during Operation Testify and kept in Soviet captivity. Now teaches...Control — Longtime head of the Circus, now dead. Once a Cambridge don, he becomes convinced that one of his subordinates is a Soviet agent, and spends the last years of his tenure trying to uncover...Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy employs spy jargon that is presented as the authentic insider-speak of British Intelligence. Le Carré noted that, with the exception of a few terms like mole and legend, this jargon was his own invention. In some cases, terms used in the novel have subsequently entered espionage parlance. For example, the terms mole, imply...
In a review for The New York Times written upon the novel's release in 1974, critic Richard Locke called Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"fluently written," noting that "it is full of vivid character sketches of secret agents and bureaucrats from all levels of British society, and the dialogue catches their voices well." He praised the novel's realism, ca...
Television
See main article: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (TV series). A TV adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was made by the BBC in 1979. It was a seven-part serial and was released in September of that year. The series was directed by John Irvin, produced by Jonathan Powell, and starred Alec Guinness as George Smiley, with Ian Richardson as Bill Haydon. Ricki Tarr was played by Hywel Bennett. In the US, syndicated broadcasts and DVD releases compressed the seven-part UK episodes into six,by shorten...
Radio
In 1988, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a dramatisation, by Rene Basilico, of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in seven weekly half-hour episodes, produced by John Fawcett-Wilson. It is available as a BBC audiobook in CD and audio cassette formats. Notably, Bernard Hepton portrays George Smiley. Nine years earlier, he had portrayed Toby Esterhasein the television adaptation. In 2009, BBC Radio 4 also broadcast new dramatisations, by Shaun McKenna, of the eight George Smiley novels by John le Carré, featuring...
Film
See main article: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film). Swedish director Tomas Alfredson made a film adaptation in 2011, based on a screenplay by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan. The film was released in the UK and Ireland on 16 September 2011, and in the United States on 9 December 2011. It included a cameo appearance by Le Carré in the Christmas party scene as the older man in the grey suit who stands suddenly to sing the Soviet anthem. The film received numerous Academy Award nominations,...
News: Locke . Richard . The Spy Who Spied on Spies . . 30 June 1974 . 18 July 2015.Bradford . Michael . Burridge . James . Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: the Movie . Studies in Intelligence . September 2012 . 56 . 3 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130120104117/https://www.cia.gov/...Web site: The Big Jubilee Read: A literary celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's record-breaking reign . BBC . 17 April 2022 . 15 July 2022.- John le Carré
- Jerry Harpur [1]
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A spy thriller set in the Cold War of the 70s, featuring a Soviet mole in the British Intelligence. The film follows George Smiley's investigation to find the traitor and his confrontation with Karla, the Soviet spymaster.
Plot. In 1973, "Control", head of British intelligence ("The Circus"), sends Jim Prideaux to Budapest to meet a Hungarian general who has the name of a mole at the top of British Intelligence. Prideaux, realising the meeting is a trap, is shot as he tries to flee.
AwardDate Of CeremonyCategoryRecipient (s) And Nominee (s)Alberto IglesiasAlberto IglesiasYouMovie Awards [45] [46]30 June 2012Best Costume DesignJaqueline DurranYouMovie Awards [45] [46]30 June 2012Best ScreenplayBridget O'Connor, Peter StraughanNov 1, 2011 · At its core, John le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy isn't really about espionage, says critic John Powers. The 1974 novel, adapted for the screen in 1979 by the BBC, is actually...
Feb 4, 2024 · Learn the identity of the mole, the double-bluff, the Karla connection, and the time jump in this British espionage thriller film. Discover the ambiguous final scene and the legacy of the story in this comprehensive analysis.
