What is initially apparent, and something which features heavily in the film’s marketing, is the film’s impressive cast but film is first and foremost a collaborative process and the two men who sit alongside Le Carre in terms of importance to the success of the film are the writer Peter Straughan and the film’s director Tomas Alfredson.
Both men brought with them a love of Le Carre’s work to the film and in this roundtable interview they talk about the process of adaptation, the gathering of the cast and the British flavour inherent in the film.
Before the men entered the room the collected journalists were talking of a very brief scene in a landmark of 70s life – The Wimpy Bar…
We were just extolling the virtues of the Wimpy Bar in the film – how much did you immerse yourself in British culture?
Tomas Alfredson
I’ve been here quite a lot since I was a kid, I think the first time was ’72 and I’ve spent a lot of time here since then so I was well acquainted. And we are breast-fed British TV in Sweden…you remember those [Here Alfredson trumpets out the theme tune to the old Thames television ident], Thames – yes. And Anglia and London Weekend Television – all those things we’ve seen. So we’re quite learned.
Did you see the Alec Guinness adaptation out in Sweden?
Tomas Alfredson
Yes, it was the kind of show where all the fathers would say “Shut up! I want to see this. You get out or you shut up.” and we did. I don’t think I understood it at all, because I was eight or nine. I watched it later on and it’s a great series.
What that part of the appeal of the project?
Tomas Alfredson
I watched it at the time and then it was quite useful for research for this film of course. It’s complicated to remember the faces and the structure of it all, so it was helpful for that reason.
What is the story about in your minds? You have to find a way into it, to put your spin on it.
Peter Straughan
I’d read it years ago and I enjoyed it when I read it again and I had forgotten that it starts in the book with Jim Prideaux arriving at this school as a broken man and he strikes up a friendship with a lonely boy there. It struck me as an unusual opening of a spy novel.
Tomas Alfredson
It starts with the boy, I think. Through his eyes.
Peter Straughan
I just remember Prideaux arrived in the caravan and that was the key to it. That it was not going to be about the kind of power politics, but about the human relationships and the victims of that war, the human cost. We used that as the guiding light and tried to not get lost in the complexity of the plot but always relate things back to what does this mean to individual humans. That’s why we had the idea that in the opening scene we’d have the mother and the baby, she turns out to be an agent of course, but to have her shot – it’s a powerful image to have her killed with the baby suckling. It sets that up straight away as what the film is about.
Tomas – is there anything about this story which struck you in particular?
Tomas Alfredson
Well I think one thing that interested me very early on was the question ‘Who were the soldiers of the Cold War compared to the soldiers in a Hot War?’ It’s different and in many ways a quite female world. If you compare the Alpha Male soldiers of the Hot War. It was relating to the imagination. A spy has to work with the imagination – is it her? Is it him? Is he the Russian guy? I have to relate to my imagination about that and at the same time I can’t let the imagination take over because then I would be totally paranoid or do the wrong things. So, those elements and of course as Peter mentioned, the human cost and the personal relations between those people. This is not a documentary, even though it is very accurate.
Can I you about your process of adaptation, how long the first draft was, how long the first cut was? How was it in terms of deciding what to take out and still keep it together?
Peter Straughan
Script-wise the first draft was longer, and it was closer to the book structurally. It was maybe a hundred and forty pages, but it was never just getting the page count down but we just found by restructuring, trying different configurations we could get over as much of the story as possible. The TV series had the ability to build the story step by step and we obviously couldn’t do that so we have to do a lot with allusion or just a look – compressing moments down.
Tomas Alfredson
The biggest structural difference is the Ricky Tarr story which is on top in the book and in the TV series. We felt it was like clumsy to start the film with a twenty minute flashback…
Peter Straughan
Because you’d only just met Smiley and got to know him and then you’d be off with another set of characters so we knew we had to move that and that took a while to work out how to do that.
It seems to have restarted the debate that audiences wouldn’t be able to follow a complicated story – do you agree with that, and were you conscious of that at all?
Peter Straughan
No, I just loved the book and it is complicated but I don’t personally feel you need to worry that much about being able to follow every twist and turn. It’s a facile comparison but if you think of The West Wing where the plot can be zipping along quite quickly but it doesn’t matter as long as you follow the characters. The spy story is complicated but the human story is quite straightforward.
Could you talk a little about the casting process? Did you audition or was it a case of asking the actors?
Tomas Alfredson
It was easy and it was hard. I said to myself that we wouldn’t do any casting until we had George Smiley and that took quite a while. It was the producer Tim Bevan who came up with the idea of asking Gary and it was the perfect choice. A totally different soul and face than Alec Guinness and I could clearly see him doing the part. So we met and we fell in love and we though that this will be fantastic to work together. And then it was quite easy to get the other characters in place. The source material and the project itself
attracted the actors. I think 99% are our first choices.
Was John LeCarre on board for the film?
Peter Straughan
One of the things that calmed us down was that after we knew Tomas was on board we then knew that LeCarre was on board too and had given us his blessing. We met him and he was very kind and generous and we thought that if he’s happy for us to give it a try that’s ok then.
Tomas Alfredson
And we used him a lot as well. He said that if we ever wanted to use him just to call him anytime and we used that possibility a lot. He’s been updated al through the process and I think he likes it.
He’s in one of the scenes isn’t he?
Tomas Alfredson
He is… just briefly.
What sort of notes did he give you?
Peter Straughan
He never gave script notes, it was more if we went to him and said ‘We’re thinking about doing this, does that feel right?’ and he would comment and was very supportive.
Tomas Alfredson
He was great on details, something like ‘There would never be a red carpet in that kind of corridor.’ Very specific notes on details, he would be very useful for that. Like, ‘You would never write your name on a paper, or this or that.’
Can you tell us about the Production Design?
Tomas Alfredson
When you start doing a film it’s as if you’re expecting a baby, you see babies everywhere or if you’re about to buy a car you see cars everywhere. So, ok – I’m doing the film about Britain in the early 70s and your eyes start to pick up colours, a car on the street, TV shows and you start collecting it in your head and then we have the fantastic Maria Djurkovic, the designer. I had a few very interesting meetings with Paul Smith, the fashion designer, who is a fantastic designer and a generous person and we were spitballing about those years and he had his ideas and his input. And we had the fantastic cinematographer (Hoyte Van Hoytema) who was with me on Let the Right One In and we know each other very well. I don’t think we had any mantra other than ‘Wet Tweed’.
I wanted to ask a question about one particular scene – the reveal of the mole. It’s done in a very unfussy, unsensational way in one simple camera move. Can you talk about the pacing of the film and that scene in particular?
Tomas Alfredson
The complication of the ending of the film is quite subtle because there are two false finales and one real finale. The first one is the revealing of the mole, and the second is the confrontation between Smiley and the mole and the third one is when the eyes of the mole meets those of another. To have the proper escalation there we couldn’t put too much energy into the revelation of the mole because if that would be too thrillerish or too fantastic it would devalue the next part. So we pushed the emotions later and later.
Peter Straughan
It’s also true of the scene in the book because Peter Guillam in the book, who has been waiting outside hyped up with adrenaline and energy in case there’s going to be violence and he goes in and sees who it is and it all drains away, and I think the line is that ‘he was left feeling ashamed’ and that the anti-climatic nature is sort of that they knew who it was all along. I think they all wanted it to be this Russian bogeyman in the corner.
What was behind the decision not to cast or show Smiley’s wife and Karla?
Peter Straughan
It’s prompted by the book. Ann [Smiley’s wife] is a very important character who doesn’t take up many pages and we thought that if we had one or two scenes with her that might actually be weaker than keeping her hidden from the audience, altogether which makes her more mysterious. And the same with Karla. We liked the fact that the two most important people in Smiley’s life are Karla and Ann and if we hide them from the audience then they would have a sort of magnetic power.
Can you ever enjoy your work with an audience?
Tomas Alfredson
No.
Peter Straughan
No. I think we’re still in work mode almost.
Tomas Alfredson
That’s true. The period in the old days there was a longer period of time between final cut and the opening, which is now four weeks or something. It’s so recent. It takes a while for it to sink in.
Peter Straughan
I’ll watch it on DVD…
Have you spoken to John LeCarre about adapting the subsequent books?
Tomas Alfredson
No, we haven’t really but I’ve read them and they’re great.
Peter Straughan
They are, but I guess we’ll see how this one goes.
Have you got a favourite scene from the film?
Tomas Alfredson
I’m a big fan of the break in with Peter Guillam and the George Formby tune travelling. And when Smiley describes his meeting with Karla.
Peter Straughan
Mine is the last scene with Smiley and the mole.
So why George Formby song, that’s not exactly 1970s.
Tomas Alfredson
One big mistake filmmakers do when they are doing a period piece, let’s say we do a film that is set in 1985 – everything is 1985 in the film, which is not true. In the film its 1985 and everything that came before it, backwards in history. So you need things to reflect the year everything is set. I was looking for stuff that made you remember World War 2 or the resistance – that time. Just like a taste from that time. And also something that would reflect Smiley’s younger self or Control’s younger age.
Do you have your next project lined up? What kind of scripts are coming your way?
Tomas Alfredson
I haven’t decided yet. I’m doing some theatre in Sweden but that’s not the film work.
You say you were immersed in British culture already – does that mean that all of the actors were known to you? Kathy Burke…
Tomas Alfredson
Yes, I had. We had a fantastic casting director who came up with suggestions including sometimes when you had actors you don’t know quite as well. A few actors I hadn’t seen before and they might be chosen because I didn’t have any references or knowledge of.
Benedict Cumberbatch has a bigger role than I expected, how was it working it him as this is pretty much a star making turn for him?
Tomas Alfredson
It was great, he’s fantastic to work with. He’s very exact and he knows his lines better than anyone and he is like a Swiss watch. In the film he’s a very useful tool to reflect what Smiley says and doesn’t say, so he’s like Smiley’s mirror.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is out in UK cinemas this Friday.
