An Englishman to be proud of, but it's an adaptation only

Rating: 7/10 (19 June 2012)

In a deleted scene on the DVD, Smiley fries one egg sunny side up, not scrambled (a la Bond?); crass rock music playing loud. Is it from another apt? After about 30 seconds he lowers the volume a touch and begins frying. He then sits and eats.Tinker Tailor is a visually delicious meal somewhat unusual for England which still eats as though they're soldiers bivouacking; conquering cowboys.
Art on the edge of a bayonet, in England, the terminus of pure masculinity, the current world expression of the Domination Reality, the 'Matrix'. They 'invented' capitalism, our God. The bad God that dreams of humans becoming absolute machines, proving the system's prime thesis that we are an island apart (the inner fear all humans have long had as the lurking Bogey Man in all our philosophies).
Europe (white people) epitomises our only credo: domination by the masculine principle; logical thought only—no marriage with the feminine and subsequent offspring, synergy.
This rule by logic-only, excluding thought's feminine, the illogical, irrational, and definitely excluding the breakthroughs, the synergies, is played out in le Carre''s basic 101 on politics. The hidden part of thinking, lying, works because no one has or uses intuition. Spying is the world created by the artificial layer of lying or secrets; the best we can do with our truncation. It's easy to have this 'black curtain' world—civilization is a perfect straight man this Abbot and Costello, our comedy act. This same approach in finance can create excessive derivatives, visible and not, as we found out in 2007.
le Carre'loves to play with these mechanics in all his books, esp the Smiley Trilogy. Our hero has to decipher the layer creation here involving the double agent. 'Flipping' is the lingua franca in an inductive watery environment. Knowing is up for grabs with verification and trust on shaky ground; having no stability, like an incomplete electron ring. Intuition can't be used because it has been expunged from the system. Looking for lost car keys only under the street light because it's the only place they could be seen, science only works where it works; in fact a very small life raft in the ocean. How can we know the truth? We have to simulate it with checks and balances, eg loyalty, redundancies, tests, et al, which at best are inconclusive. We have to 'hope'.
The double, or mole, has to exploit these jury-rigged methods. Triples, quadruples (double doubles) likewise. We're talking some fun here (for those who enjoy this type of thing). Even the trilogy books don't get all over this stuff enough, but there's a lot more than in either the '79 BBC 6 hr or this one. It's a matter of analysing inductive data deductively, without blinking. Smiley's our master here. He's a personality type rarely seen on screen because he's so internal and not obviously noticeable. But it's this personality that's optimum for dealing with the world underneath; a Prince of Darkness, Batman character. le Carre'gets into it, but more as an observer (he models Smiley after his father). He's trying to apprehend how a Smiley would function. Oldman, same as le Carre', is faking it with exaggerated stillness and intimated 'mysterious aura' substituted for the real thing; Guinness was closer, being more this type in life.
So rare to find examples; try, Elliot Gould in "The Long Goodbye" and real life, or Gabriel Byrne in "In Treatment" )tv), close, like Guinness. Instead of having power over others, which Oldman seems to have; better would be others yielding to Smiley's vacuum, they co-opt themselves. Smiley, like a therapist, logs all they exhibit or imply and presents it to the one focus; how does it fit with the mole probe. Smiley 'seduces' others act and in so doing see the larger gestalt that it comes from, goes to. This is felt more than thought. Smiley is emotion first, thoughts and feelings always being paired. Emotionless seeming on the outside, he's mostly emotions inside, with incredible refining intellect sandwiching the data inbetween. A giant chewing jaw, God's stomach digesting. Any real question answers itself and Smiley is that process. He enjoys the meal with great pleasure. This ability to see the beginnings and endings of a given piece of data is visioning. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a vision is a thousand pictures. Like Merlin he just has to keep from being imprisoned in stone by unrequited love, the lovely Ann. It's love of humanity, after all, that drives this process and it's here, in Smiley's core that he can be susceptible, can doubt. The genius Karla read this in the India interrogation and instructed Hayden. Beautifully crafted by le Carre', however he came on to it. The sign of artists making theatrics are these intuitive finds—all the great movies have these unintended illogicals. Their passion leads them; we all have all in us to some degree, they see beyond the convention. Holism's a beautiful element in our boilerplate metaphysics.
With Smiley becoming head of the Circus at the end, Karla is next to fall and a sequel is signaled at the end.
Great set design and atmosphere throughout. Fabulous UK actors old and young, with Tom Hardy, the new Steve McQueen (who can act) and Stephen Graham set to take off if not already.
Being an adaptation, the film gives up being anything else, alas. Adaptations, which are a kind of sequel because they sacrifice all for reduction, must add something categorically new or they are a subtraction. The Godfather and French Connection II's are the few examples. Sequelling has been held hostage by the business of film. Contrary to propaganda, capitalism, Domination Reality here, does not spur innovation.