Off to the splendid Curzon Cinema in Chelsea yesterday for the midday showing of the new Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I confess, dear readers, that I approached the film with trepidation. Although a die-hard fan of John le Carré, I have George Smiley et al. fixed forever in my consciousness by the 1979 television adaptation starring Sir Alec Guinness. Nor can I be alone in this; it was bold to produce a new version when the original is so beloved and so rightly celebrated.
However, the film had to be given a chance. A two-hour film and a seven-part television adaptation are different things, and, after all, was not le Carré one of the executive producers of the new film? Tomas Alfredson is a much-lauded director (though I have not seen any of his work).
Reader, I liked it. Despite my scepticism, I managed to set aside preconceived notions and treat the film as something new, and I thought it was good. One of the most striking features is the beautiful appearance of the film; the cinematography is superb, and its evocation of London in the mid-1970s is breathtaking. Like the TV series, it captures the dreariness and drudge of Britain at one of its lowest ebbs, and the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service - "the Circus", as le Carré dubbed it - is a study in beiges and browns, and humdrum bureaucracy.
One of the most scrutinised aspects of the film has been the casting. I was unconvinced by the casting of Gary Oldman as Smiley, and, while he was not as bad as I feared, he still remained somehow wrong. In his attempt to capture the stillness, the banality, the calm of Smiley, he ended up more or less impersonating Alec Guinness, down to the timbre of the voice. I read somewhere that Oldman has "buried" the Guinness version of Smiley; I rather think not.
Many other casting decisions proved to be inspired. John Hurt as Control was superb, an old man seeing things slip from his grasp and desperately trying to stay on top. The frantic chain-smoking and the rages at colleagues were pitch-perfect. Mark Strong was excellent as the betrayed and abandoned Jim Prideaux, a once-great agent left broken by the disastrous expedition to Hungary. And, although not everyone agreed with me, I thought Colin Firth made an outstanding Bill Haydon. Calm and iconoclastic, he conveyed a twinkle of naughtiness that makes Haydon the dangerous rake le Carré created. Benedict Cumberbatch was a very fine Peter Guillam, though the brief scene revealing his homosexuality was puzzlingly pointless.
There were some false notes. The estimable Toby Young was hopelessly miscast as Percy Alleline, the pompous and self-interested successor to Control as head of the Circus. Simon McBurney's Lacon was a strange, subservient, oleaginous figure, and Kathy Burke (whom I confess I do not like) as Connie Sachs was, well, no Beryl Reid. The scenes with Connie and Smiley, so affecting in the television series, were flat and unconvincing with Oldman and Burke in position.
Perhaps the revelation was Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr. It was a performance of such guile and nuance that the inevitable comparison with 1979, when Hywel Bennett took the role, left Bennett looking weaker than he did at the time. Tarr's motivation and character were so much more convincing, as was the terrible self-delusion of his condemnation of the way the other spies live their lives.
There were some weaknesses in the plotting, too. The unmasking of the mole (sadly not referred to as Gerald in the new film) left you wondering how Smiley had come to the conclusion he did. Nor was Firth given the material to explain his betrayal, with the result that the end of the film was rather flat. That said, there was a satisfying conclusion when Smiley returns to the Circus and takes Control's chair in the meeting room.
All in all, the film does le Carré (who appears fleetingly in a party scene) credit. It's fine adaptation of a brilliant novel. Could it have been better? Yes. But it could have been an awful lot worse.
Sunday 18 September 2011
Friday 2 September 2011
There is a 'tache in the affairs of men...
Dear readers,
Today we consider the vexed issue of men's facial hair. Since the beginning of the summer break, I have forsworn the razor where my upper lip is concerned, and am now sporting a small but definite moustache. I had been meaning to experiment in this way for a few years, but there had always been some obstacle during the difficult "scruffy" phase, usually weddings to go to. This year, with a free run, I have taken the plunge.
I should state at the outset that the choice of moustache over any other type of facial hair was dictated to me by good old Mother Nature. My beard growth is patchy at best, and the upper lip is the only area with sufficiently consistent growth to sustain it. In other circumstances I should certainly have tried a full beard, though not, I think, a goatee. A mere matter of personal preference.
Growing a moustache is not a particularly fun process. Looking scruffy and/or adolescent is inevitable for a time, though the length of this stage depends on one's rate of beard growth. But it will pass. By far the most daunting step is meeting people whom one knows for the first time avec 'tache. (One's nearest and dearest will see it in the stages on development and will either sympathise or mock according to their temperament.) It is bound to occasion comment - one colleague asked me "What's that on your face?" - and if you are a shy and retiring type, facial hair is not for you. But if you read this blog, I assume that you are prepared to withstand a degree of scrutiny from others, so it should not be a problem.
First-timers may assume that growing facial hair will lessen the burden of the morning shave; one is, after all, removing less hair. Alas, not so. If one is sporting a full and bushy beard, then perhaps the grooming regime will be shorter. Anything else requires its fair share of upkeep. In the case of the moustache, the ends need to be kept tidy, the length needs to be monitored, and there will be a lot of agonising about whether each side is even. (This is a worry which will never go away, in my experience.)
So, to the wearing of the moustache. One of the oddest things I have found is that moustache-wearers are part of a strange sort of fraternity. There seems to be joining procedure, nor any choice in the matter; but one finds that curt nods and knowing glances are exchanged between the wearers of the moustache. Perhaps I am being hit on regularly without realising. But the same sort of mutual - is it respect? Is it admiration? - feeling is found between hat wearers, all too rare these days.
As for public reception, I have found it to be much more positive than I had feared it might be. A lot of people are taken aback initially, for the moustache is a relatively rarity these days, but most people I know have been very kind, or very disingenuous. Admittedly, I have tended to interpret most comments in the most generous light; is being compared to Lord Lucan a good thing? He was a dapper man but he was also probably a murderer. Peter Bowles was another comparator, while another friend still said I looked like I'd lost my Spitfire. All of these bouquets (or are they brickbats?) I am happy to accept.
One must accept, though, that in the modern world the moustache is a rarity and therefore a statement of intent. I like to think that it harks back to the era of film star glamour, of the 1920s and 1930s, of Ronald Coleman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Anthony Eden (see below). Others may disagree. The late Freddy Mercury has forever given a decently-sized moustache the whiff of homosexuality, completing the job begun by the Village People. But in the final analysis, I am glad I've grown it, and, for the moment, it's staying. One should always try new experiences where possible, take the road less travelled. If you have never tried growing facial hair, give it a go. The best thing is, if you don't like it, you can always shave it off and start again from scratch. What have you got to lose?
A final note. I write this from the back garden of a house in Connecticut, the sun beating down and a glass (or three) of red wine at my right hand. But all things must change. Tomorrow is the return to Blighty, and then work looms large. Ah well.
Today we consider the vexed issue of men's facial hair. Since the beginning of the summer break, I have forsworn the razor where my upper lip is concerned, and am now sporting a small but definite moustache. I had been meaning to experiment in this way for a few years, but there had always been some obstacle during the difficult "scruffy" phase, usually weddings to go to. This year, with a free run, I have taken the plunge.
I should state at the outset that the choice of moustache over any other type of facial hair was dictated to me by good old Mother Nature. My beard growth is patchy at best, and the upper lip is the only area with sufficiently consistent growth to sustain it. In other circumstances I should certainly have tried a full beard, though not, I think, a goatee. A mere matter of personal preference.
Growing a moustache is not a particularly fun process. Looking scruffy and/or adolescent is inevitable for a time, though the length of this stage depends on one's rate of beard growth. But it will pass. By far the most daunting step is meeting people whom one knows for the first time avec 'tache. (One's nearest and dearest will see it in the stages on development and will either sympathise or mock according to their temperament.) It is bound to occasion comment - one colleague asked me "What's that on your face?" - and if you are a shy and retiring type, facial hair is not for you. But if you read this blog, I assume that you are prepared to withstand a degree of scrutiny from others, so it should not be a problem.
First-timers may assume that growing facial hair will lessen the burden of the morning shave; one is, after all, removing less hair. Alas, not so. If one is sporting a full and bushy beard, then perhaps the grooming regime will be shorter. Anything else requires its fair share of upkeep. In the case of the moustache, the ends need to be kept tidy, the length needs to be monitored, and there will be a lot of agonising about whether each side is even. (This is a worry which will never go away, in my experience.)
So, to the wearing of the moustache. One of the oddest things I have found is that moustache-wearers are part of a strange sort of fraternity. There seems to be joining procedure, nor any choice in the matter; but one finds that curt nods and knowing glances are exchanged between the wearers of the moustache. Perhaps I am being hit on regularly without realising. But the same sort of mutual - is it respect? Is it admiration? - feeling is found between hat wearers, all too rare these days.
As for public reception, I have found it to be much more positive than I had feared it might be. A lot of people are taken aback initially, for the moustache is a relatively rarity these days, but most people I know have been very kind, or very disingenuous. Admittedly, I have tended to interpret most comments in the most generous light; is being compared to Lord Lucan a good thing? He was a dapper man but he was also probably a murderer. Peter Bowles was another comparator, while another friend still said I looked like I'd lost my Spitfire. All of these bouquets (or are they brickbats?) I am happy to accept.
One must accept, though, that in the modern world the moustache is a rarity and therefore a statement of intent. I like to think that it harks back to the era of film star glamour, of the 1920s and 1930s, of Ronald Coleman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Anthony Eden (see below). Others may disagree. The late Freddy Mercury has forever given a decently-sized moustache the whiff of homosexuality, completing the job begun by the Village People. But in the final analysis, I am glad I've grown it, and, for the moment, it's staying. One should always try new experiences where possible, take the road less travelled. If you have never tried growing facial hair, give it a go. The best thing is, if you don't like it, you can always shave it off and start again from scratch. What have you got to lose?
A final note. I write this from the back garden of a house in Connecticut, the sun beating down and a glass (or three) of red wine at my right hand. But all things must change. Tomorrow is the return to Blighty, and then work looms large. Ah well.
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