Saturday night at the movies
Apr. 25th, 2020 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustI occasionally watch the Talking Pictures channel when I'm looking for something to entertain me in the afternoon, usually because the ironing is mounting up. I wouldn't have spotted that they were showing The Spy who Came in from the Cold last Satursay evening, had the Guardian listings not chosen it as their 'Film Choice' for the day. I was grateful for the pointer, though this channel isn't the ideal platform for a sombre film: the advertising breaks, which consisted largely of trailers for future, more light-hearted screenings, were distracting. (I thought they also dragged the film out beyond its intended length, and indeed they did, though IMDB tells me it runs 1hr 52 minutes ununterrupted, so it's not the short, taut piece I envisaged.
I had never seen it before (nor read the book) but I had seen, more than once, the closing scene at the Berlin Wall, so I knew it wasn't going to turn out well. I don't think that's a spoiler: it's implicit in every scene, every shot, in Burton's entire performance. I've just watched the trailer (on IMDB) and it, too, starts with that closing scene (though not - quite - all of it), and then works backwards through the narrative.
It is Burton's film, of course, but how could I have forgotten (if I ever knew) that it also stars Oskar Werner? Also featuring any number of other people: Cyril Cusack as Control, explaining just how evil he is with such a kindly twinkle that I believed him without actually believing him, which is what makes the entire narrative work. Plus a gallery of now-familiar faces in minor rôles - Rupert Davies as George Smiley, Michael Hordern as the despised Ashe, even Warren Mitchell as 'man in shop' (and what a shop, that too is a nostalgia trip, an exhibit from Beamish museum!). But only Oskar Werner made me forget I was watching a performance, however excellent, and believe in the character.
Even with Burton: but the problem here is a little different, because his character, Alec Leamas, is himself delivering a performance, and I was constantly second-guessing what I was seeing: how much - if any - of what I am seeing is the man himself? Maybe I am just not quick-witted enough to see through all this bluff and double-bluff: I am still unclear how much Leamas knows in advance of Nan's part in the strategy.
Some variant of this uncertainty may be why I was underwhelmed by Claire Bloom's Nan: this may be the fault of the script rather than of the performance. She's a sacrificial victim, a nicely brought-up, nicely spoken young lady who works in a library about which I would have liked to know more, who hurls herself at Leamas because "she's a communist, she believes in free love." Well, the Cold War is another country, they do things differently there -
I feel that I am doing the film an injustice. I was gripped by it, but never quite absorbed; I remained detached, enjoying it as a period piece.
I had never seen it before (nor read the book) but I had seen, more than once, the closing scene at the Berlin Wall, so I knew it wasn't going to turn out well. I don't think that's a spoiler: it's implicit in every scene, every shot, in Burton's entire performance. I've just watched the trailer (on IMDB) and it, too, starts with that closing scene (though not - quite - all of it), and then works backwards through the narrative.
It is Burton's film, of course, but how could I have forgotten (if I ever knew) that it also stars Oskar Werner? Also featuring any number of other people: Cyril Cusack as Control, explaining just how evil he is with such a kindly twinkle that I believed him without actually believing him, which is what makes the entire narrative work. Plus a gallery of now-familiar faces in minor rôles - Rupert Davies as George Smiley, Michael Hordern as the despised Ashe, even Warren Mitchell as 'man in shop' (and what a shop, that too is a nostalgia trip, an exhibit from Beamish museum!). But only Oskar Werner made me forget I was watching a performance, however excellent, and believe in the character.
Even with Burton: but the problem here is a little different, because his character, Alec Leamas, is himself delivering a performance, and I was constantly second-guessing what I was seeing: how much - if any - of what I am seeing is the man himself? Maybe I am just not quick-witted enough to see through all this bluff and double-bluff: I am still unclear how much Leamas knows in advance of Nan's part in the strategy.
Some variant of this uncertainty may be why I was underwhelmed by Claire Bloom's Nan: this may be the fault of the script rather than of the performance. She's a sacrificial victim, a nicely brought-up, nicely spoken young lady who works in a library about which I would have liked to know more, who hurls herself at Leamas because "she's a communist, she believes in free love." Well, the Cold War is another country, they do things differently there -
I feel that I am doing the film an injustice. I was gripped by it, but never quite absorbed; I remained detached, enjoying it as a period piece.
