Post 2823561 by ceejbot@rafting.io
(DIR) More posts by ceejbot@rafting.io
(DIR) Post #2809765 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T20:18:19Z
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Oh shit, I was just reminded that the Tinker, Tailor adaptation starring Alec Guinness exists and now I know what I'm doing tonight.Again.
(DIR) Post #2811980 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T21:46:18Z
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You can watch too, btw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq61jstTApk
(DIR) Post #2812342 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T21:59:31Z
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I shall hashtag this #tinkertailor so you can mute it if you are uninterested, but HERE WE GO! Alec Guinness stars in this 1979 adaptation of John LeCarre's spy novel.
(DIR) Post #2812381 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:00:50Z
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We open with a shot of a London circus, aka roundabout, then cut to a meeting room. Four men in suits enter & sit; the last one in leaves the door ajar and the 1st one in shuts it. "Right!" says the man smoking the pipe. "We shall start."Roll titles.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2812483 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:05:39Z
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Cut to: a fifth man, maybe in his 60s, arrives at his city destination in a cab. Another man, much younger, observes him arriving and leaves his table at a cafe. It's gray. Grim.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2812497 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:06:09Z
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No guns are present. It's all very bureaucratic and a bit depressing. Can this possibly be a SPY thriller?#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2812592 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:10:12Z
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The younger man's name is Jim. The older man is Control. Control outlines a job to Jim. He urges secrecy.The relation in time between the opening sequence & this one is not yet clear to us.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2812699 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:13:04Z
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Oh, man, to be watching (or reading) this story again without any idea what's going to happen! First experiences are delicious. But so are fifth experiences of good things.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2812830 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:18:05Z
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"Such things happen," Control says, as he tells Jim about the Czech artillery officer who wants to come over. Something about the way he says that line always grabs me. Was Control finding the story thin and attempting to persuade Jim? #tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2812901 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:21:59Z
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"We have a mole, Jim. Very near the top."We are shown photographs of the men from the opening scene."One of the top five," says Control. But we only saw four in that opening scene.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2812978 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:25:17Z
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"Listen, Jim, we've got to have code names for them."Percy Alleline, direct of operations: tinkerBill Haydon, head of personnel: tailorRoy Bland: head of Iron Curtain networks, soldierToby Esterhase, head lamplighter: poor manGeorge Smiley, "my devoted deputy": beggar man#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2812994 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:25:51Z
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George Smiley, the man we've not yet seen, Alec Guinness.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2813049 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:27:50Z
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There's an awful lot of light and shadow work in this photography and if I knew anything about how TV was shot I might be able to say something about how it's being used here. #tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2813068 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:28:34Z
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The lights go out and they're in darkness as Control starts to tell Jim how he's going to meet the Czech general who's going to tell them the identity of the mole in the London office.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2813160 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:32:05Z
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The dialogue continues over a scene of Jim in his cover identity at a European border. The old kind. The Cold War kind.It takes a long time and he falls asleep despite the paranoia infusing everything.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2813617 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T22:50:29Z
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Now we watch Jim ducking a tail (does the tail even exist?) in Brno.This is all so slow & meticulous. No car has chased another, nor has anybody shot at anybody else. #tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2813927 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:01:08Z
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Eventually, the meeting in the forest, with the Czech general. Well, if it's possible to spoil a novel that was published in 1974, I'm about to spoil parts of it. Not the reveal, since that is near the end and we are still in the "we shall start" portion.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2814001 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:04:07Z
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Jim is a tough guy: he overpowers his driver and disarms him, possibly suspecting a rat already. He makes the driver walk to the cabin wearing his coat.Paranoia, I think, smells like cigarettes. Stale cigarette smoke.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2814112 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:08:35Z
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Now there's gun fire: the woods light up with Czech soldiers. Jim does not manage to escape in the car. He's chased through the woods by men with dogs. Eventually they shoot him.A van drives him away.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2814174 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:10:35Z
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Title card: six months later.George Smiley is in a bookshop, buying a book. He slips out the back way to avoid a young man driving a simply *delicious* MG with a bonnet.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2814223 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:12:45Z
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Frying pan to fire: Smiley runs into somebody he really doesn't want to talk to, somebody who wants *all* the gossip about "how shabbily the Circus treated you". And now I sit back and watch Guinness.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2814293 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:15:05Z
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Ah, yes, Smiley's wife comes up *immediately*, the lovely Anne, not in town at the moment I hear. A presence throughout this story, though not present in person until the end.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2814421 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:19:13Z
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Control, we learn, is dead, and George is on the outs. Everybody else in that room is on the job right now. Not George. He got booted from British intelligence.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2814540 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:23:03Z
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God, this scene, and the moment when Smiley has had enough and gets up to leave.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2814729 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:31:09Z
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The relationship between Peter Guillam, the driver of the aforementioned MG, and Smiley is established economically. Peter knows where everything is. He can pick Smiley's locks. He was the one sent to deliver Smiley to somebody important.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2815015 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:40:44Z
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Smiley is positively garrulous with Peter. An as-you-know-Bob about who Lacan is, to get the viewer caught up. The first moment my eyebrow has gone up about the script..#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2815181 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:46:16Z
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The introduction of Ricky Tarr, the "scalphunter" aka kind of spy that the Bond films fetishize, and an inflection point again for Smiley. #tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2815208 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:46:50Z
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He begins to question Tarr, having understood without being told that that's what he's been delivered to do, and suddenly he is present in a new way. The camera shows us his eyes through those great round glasses.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2815351 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-09T23:50:43Z
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End of the first episode.The closing credits music tells us that the great traditions of English schooling are involved here. Geoffrey Burgon's Nunc Dimittis. (I nod my head to Mr Gooley, here, as I know he appreciates this piece.)#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2816181 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T00:16:01Z
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Episode 2: the story of Ricky Tarr's trip to Lisbon, where he met a woman who told him the story of Karla's mole deep inside British intelligence. Names, names, Tarr gets some names of the Russian people running the mole.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2816526 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T00:29:49Z
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The matter of George Smiley's marriage has reached even Ricky Tarr, who uses it to needle him.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2816577 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T00:31:00Z
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Also of interest: the attitudes of the men in charge toward Tarr, the spy whose job it is to beat people up & bed women to get information from them. They do not trust him. They have their own muscle there to watch him. They assume he's lying until proven otherwise.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2816975 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T00:46:08Z
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Class, class, it's always about class with our UK cousins.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2817163 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T00:52:26Z
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Peter Guillam goes to do a bit of file burglaring from the London office, to get Smiley the information he needs. Suspicion, paranoia, all three of the possible moles staring at him in surprise. He's been exiled as one of Smiley's associates.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2817184 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T00:53:05Z
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"There are three of them and Alleline," says Smiley echoing Control.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2817295 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T00:56:02Z
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I get tense watching the safecracking even though I have watched it a zillion times before.The page he's interested in has been removed from the log book.End episode two. #tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2817460 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T01:01:06Z
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And now Smiley goes to Oxford to meet Connie Sachs, who has a memory better than his, and who is modeled somewhat on the real-life Milicent Bagot.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2817534 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T01:03:45Z
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Oxford: damp, slushy, gray, decayed. Like the British Empire, geddit? It's a metaphorical whatsit.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2817783 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T01:12:06Z
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Smiley is ruthless in this conversation. He plies her with alcohol, keeps asking questions. Sachs was right about her assessment of Polyakov, but fired for it (since the Circus is run by the mole). She has what he needs.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2817825 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T01:14:08Z
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Sachs then gives us a thematic statement:"Poor loves. Trained to empire, trained to rule the waves. Englishmen could be proud then. All gone. Taken away. Bye bye world. If it's bad, George, don't come back. I want to remember you just as you were, my lovely lovely boys."#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2818076 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T01:26:02Z
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We are then treated to a display of why Englishmen don't rule the waves any more: the utter stupidity of Percy Alleline as he struts around with the intelligence given him by Source Merlin, which both Control and Smiley raise an eyebrow at.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2818106 by BrokenBiscuit@scifi.fyi
2019-01-10T01:27:20Z
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@ceejbot sounds like you're listening to the BBC radio 4 adaptation, my favourite of all the tinker tailor versions
(DIR) Post #2818466 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T01:40:21Z
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More flashbacks, to Smiley interviewing the three people tangled up with Source Merlin-- our three suspects-- at Control's behest. We get a little bit about what makes each of them tick.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2818715 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T01:51:07Z
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A clever bit of business with Guillam stealing a file. This is another one of those moments when technological change is most obvious.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2818861 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T01:56:35Z
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Except he gets dragged in to get yelled at by Alleline about Ricky Tarr, whose family is allegedly arriving in London, which they have from an ultra ultra secret source.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2818956 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T01:59:35Z
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Smiley knows this source is Karla. End episode 3.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2819332 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T02:13:27Z
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Smiley tells Guillam the story of the time he met Karla, in Delhi in the mid 50s. "Karla was in disgrace. Summoned and doomed." As he speaks, Smiley tastes the roadside restaurant wine and his face changes briefly.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2819382 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T02:16:16Z
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Now follows, in flashback, Patrick Stewart's appearance as Karla. He does not speak in the role.Guinness is made up to look 20 years younger, very subtly. Half of that is probably his body language.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2819438 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T02:18:24Z
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Karla sits, silent, while Smiley sweats and monologues something like another thematic statement for the series.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2819450 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T02:18:54Z
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Karla then takes Smiley's cigarette lighter, the one with an inscription from Anne, his serially unfaithful wife.Karla plays the long game.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2819541 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T02:22:06Z
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Smiley points out to Guillam that whenever he got too close to Karla's business, somebody would bring up the matter of his failures as a husband, to try to throw Smiley off. #tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2819564 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T02:23:03Z
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"Well, that was sumptuous," Smiley then says, of their terrible meal.I will have to adopt this as my own thing to say about terrible meals.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2820963 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:15:43Z
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There has been a brief interlude while I cooked and ate dinner.
(DIR) Post #2820993 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:17:02Z
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Resuming now, and noting once again that I'm hash-tagging and threading all this for easy muting if reading live-toots about a 1979 TV miniseries is not your thing!
(DIR) Post #2821024 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:19:12Z
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Smiley is reading paperwork and making notes, while a cigarette burns in an ashtray on the table. The noise of London, which has been prominent in the aural landscape of this series, surrounds him.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2821028 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:19:35Z
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I wonder, in fact, if it was Foley added after the fact or intentionally included while filming. There has, for instance, been airplane noise and road noise. This all adds to the general run-down modern-at-the-time feeling.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2821045 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:21:14Z
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@BrokenBiscuit I'm watching the Alec Guinness adaptation! I should *definitely* check out the Radio 4 adaptation, which sounds relevant to my interests, ty!
(DIR) Post #2821143 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:27:54Z
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Smiley walking Control's path, six months later, without Control's resources.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2821464 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:43:34Z
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News from Lacan: Tarr's contacts from LIsbon are dead. Lacan notes, as a warning, to Smiley: "Jim Prideaux and Bill Haydon were really quite close, you know."Personal loyalties, national loyalties. Personal and national betrayals. The consequences of betrayal. All this is our subject matter.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2821523 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:45:53Z
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"We've traced Jim Prideaux. He's become a teacher."We cut to Jim, out on a windy field, watching as boys drive his old car around a simple course. We are now DEEP into the story's heart, because Jim is its heart.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2821689 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:54:26Z
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Jim exercises his spycraft by setting his students to watching the man hanging about near the school.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2821786 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T03:59:15Z
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"He's not staff and he's not village, is he. So what is he, beggar-man?"It is Mendel, Control's assistant before and now Smiley's. So yes, beggar-man.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2821934 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:05:35Z
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And if you were in any doubt about the connections of this sequence to the heart of the story, Jim leads his charges in a recitation of the tinker/tailor chant.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2822040 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:10:44Z
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Young Roach is the best watcher in the unit-- a young spy in the making, in the way this story wants a spy to be.Then, Jim in his trailer, exercising what little mobility he has after taking two bullets in the back.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2822271 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:23:07Z
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Jim changes the bandages on his gunshot wounds. Jumbo Roach, the boy, watches as he comes out of his trailer with a shovel in hand. He digs. Roach peeks in the window as he unwraps the parcel: it's a gun.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2822571 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:35:28Z
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Jim catches him in the act--"We're good at keeping secrets, loners like you & me."Jim tells him that he was a soldier and how he got the wound was a secret.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2822610 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:37:23Z
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Meanwhile, Smiley calls on another one of the casualties of the night of Operation Testify, a man who is now working in a casino."Believe it or not it's straight. We get all the help we need from the arithmetic."#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2822629 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:39:28Z
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This man was duty officer that night-- that's the only piece of the record left. Smiley and the viewer are about to get the other side of the night Control's attempt to find the mole went horribly wrong.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2822806 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:50:41Z
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Sam gets his instructions from Control, who wants to hear that single word from tinker/tailor. The evening goes slowly. He drinks beer, watches the footie. #tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2822819 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:52:33Z
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Then all hell breaks out on the Czechoslovak air-- coded, not coded. A big thing has just happened. The phones go mad.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2822903 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:56:33Z
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A British spy has been shot in Czechoslovakia -- Sam thinks killed. He tells Control. He needs a brief. "We must say something."Control is motionless, silent, as Sam begs for guidance. He is, as we know, contemplating the fact that the British intelligence service is entirely compromised. It's gone. It's pwned.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2822959 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T04:59:57Z
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At last, Control says "it's deniable -- he had foreign documents. They can't know he was British at this stage, even if he's not dead. Find Smiley!"But Smiley is in Berlin, sent by Control to get him out of the way.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823051 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:03:46Z
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"Yes," Control says. "Well, anyone will do. It makes no difference."Because his service is compromised. The defeat in his body-- Alexander Knox's performance is so good.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823214 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:10:44Z
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The radio operator comes in to the duty officer's room. "He's been named," she says. Sam is already on the phone. "Hello, hello. Is this Mrs Smiley?"At this point, in retrospect, we have all the information we need.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823233 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:11:54Z
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Look, this is so good. The novel, this adaptation, probably any adaptation. I'm fond of the novel, as you might expect. Words == the original form.
(DIR) Post #2823279 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:15:05Z
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Haydon arrives. Sam says, "I rang the Smileys in case Mrs Smiley knew where you were. You are a friend of the family."Haydon nods, then says, "I saw the ticker tape at the club."#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823297 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:15:43Z
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Prideaux has been shot, and Sam knows enough to tell Bill he's sorry. But he's glad to see Haydon, who takes over the response.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823390 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:20:16Z
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"It was too late for Haydon's club to be running ticker tape, wasn't it.""Bill turned up an hour later knowing about Czecho. But you didn't tell Anne about Czecho, did you."And again, Smiley's marriage.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823411 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:21:33Z
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"Mind how you go, George," says Sam. End episode 4.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823561 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:28:41Z
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We commence episode 5 with Smiley talking to Jim Prideaux at last. "God damn you, George, what the hell do you want?"#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823651 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:32:37Z
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Smiley quotes, verbatim, lines from a letter Bill wrote to his Circus talent-spotter tutor about Jim. The nature of the relationship is clear, though unstated."Christ, Christ, man, we were children," Jim says."Yes, of course."#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823672 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:34:20Z
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Again, the economy of the writing and how it conveys character. Smiley tells Jim, very effectively, that he's not working for the Circus but has official backing, and that he needs to know what happened. And that he knows quite a bit already.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823686 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:35:26Z
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Jim picks up the story when he comes to after the shooting. He talks about his plan for resisting interrogation, knowing that he will talk in the end.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823784 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:41:53Z
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They knew everything already about the operation."What about Control's charts? Did they know about those?""No. Not at first," Jim says. And thus we get a hint about the realities of the interrogation.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823798 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:44:25Z
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"What about the networks? Did anybody get out?" Jim asks."No. They were all shot," Smiley says.Jim lurches into the lav and vomits. Smiley waits and lights a cigarette.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823855 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:49:15Z
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This is about getting across the effects on Jim of the capture & interrogation-- the effects of seeing his life's work exploded-- without showing us anything violent or bloody.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823929 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:53:46Z
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Jim tells Smiley that by the end it was a frosty bearded boy, who seemed to be head boy, finishing the questioning while some guards stood by. This, we realize, was Karla.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2823946 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T05:54:49Z
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"I hated that cigarette. Foul American thing. A Camel.""Did he smoke them?""Never stopped."Underlining that it was Karla, since we learned these details about him from the Delhi incident.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824184 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:07:30Z
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Karla, we learn from Jim, still has the cigarette lighter from Delhi. Smiley pushes him further-- the issue of Bill's affair with Smiley's wife was entirely known. Jim flares up in defense of Bill.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824264 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:12:25Z
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No one debriefs Jim once he's been repatriated. Smiley is surprised."Through you, the Russians had discovered the exact reach of Control's suspicions about a traitor in the Circus. He'd narrowed the field to five. And no one's asking you anything."#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824405 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:23:12Z
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And now a sequence I always find agonzing: Smiley pumps an alcoholic newspaper writer who used to work for the Circus, shoved off after the Czecho incident. #tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824566 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:34:42Z
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Jim Prideaux, we learn, is not at the school just now. He has taken a leave for his ailing mother, according to a put-out headmaster. Jumbo Roach assures his fellow schoolboys that Rhino wouldn't leave them without saying goodbye.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824642 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:40:03Z
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Smiley & Guillam have lured Tobey Esterhase to a safe house for an interview. Smiley has the wind up about being followed. [plot point bzz plot point bzz]"I want to put a thesis to you, Toby, about what's been going on."#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824687 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:43:53Z
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Smiley then reconstructs what he imagines Gerald-the-mole's pitch to Alleline was. "Ever bought a fake picture, Toby?""Sold a couple once."#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824739 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:48:09Z
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Smiley outlines the whole thing, the whole setup with Merlin, the fake source of fake intelligence, who is actually running the mole inside the Circus. Toby says nothing, but he doesn't have to. Smiley already knows.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824755 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:49:47Z
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Then, underlined: Smiley asks him again if he brought a babysitter, what he would do if he were running an operation that watched the safe house. How many people would he use for an operation like this?"Eight, ten maybe.""What about one man, alone?""One? Never."#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824816 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:54:39Z
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Smiley has unraveled the fact that Toby is the fake double agent the service is running as the one to hand the "chicken feed" to Merlin to make Merlin look like a real spy to the Russians. (Such a knot!) #tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824834 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:55:34Z
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He's the cover story for Polyakov, the alleged agent."The only problem arises when it turns out you've been handing Polyakov the crown jewels, and getting Russian chicken feed in return."#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824856 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:57:30Z
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"You're going to need a lot of good friends, people like us," Smiley says. He is entirely ruthless. A doughy man with a round face and round glasses, and a steel core.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824863 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T06:58:26Z
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Toby is now spilling information, but he cannot tell us the identity of the mole. It might still be Roy, Bill, or Alleline. (Though everybody discounts Alleline as too stupid for it.)#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824938 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T07:06:05Z
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The identity of the mole should be clear now for story structural reasons alone. Where are the emotional relationships? If you look at the theme of what betrayal does, where is that in evidence?#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824962 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T07:08:26Z
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Toby coughs up the location of the safe house. This is the final piece of information Smiley needs to lay his trap.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2824989 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T07:10:51Z
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Smiley heads out, but asks Guillam to watch his back. He's to look out for a single man. (We deduce, of course, that it's Jim tailing Smiley.)#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2825056 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T07:17:00Z
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End of episode 5.Episode 6 commences with Smiley leaving the safe house and walking. He's being tailed by Peter Guillam who's looking for a tail.No tail is spotted, but they both "have a feeling" they're being tailed.#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2825070 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T07:18:30Z
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My reading has always been that Smiley knew exactly who's tailing him, and decides not to pursue it for the same reasons that he keeps his mouth shut at the end about [event to come].#tinkertailor
(DIR) Post #2838929 by dws@rafting.io
2019-01-10T17:25:08Z
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@ceejbot Was there a brief pause in Guinness's delivery between "them" and "and"? That's the way I remember it, and a similar pause (or maybe a few dozen of them) when talking to Luke in the first Star Wars. Tempted to watch the YouTube vids of Sir Alec reading Shakespeare.
(DIR) Post #2843665 by ceejbot@rafting.io
2019-01-10T20:31:41Z
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@dws He has some interesting vocal patterns that Ewan McGregor imitated when playing the young Obi-Wan. The pauses are part of it, I think!