MovieChat Forums > Smiley's People (1982) Discussion > Totally did not understand that *sigh*

Totally did not understand that sigh

posted 10 years ago by angelofvic
15 replies | jump to latest

OK, I haven't read any of Le Carre's books. I did understand the TTSS miniseries, but I did not at all understand this one. Frustrating!

I watched this on YouTube. Maybe I need to get the DVDs and use the captioning (if they have captioning).

But anyway, I have no idea what went on or why. I only understood that two people were killed, the General and the Magician, and that Karla has a daughter and that somehow weakened his judgment and Smiley was somehow able to convince him to surrender to the West.

Beyond that I'm lost. LOST.

HELP.

EDIT: OK, I just read the Wikipedia article on the book, which explains the events in logical and chronological order. So I understand it better now.
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[–] JacintoCupboard 9 years ago

A lot of these cold war stories are largely incoherent. Part of the problem is that ordinary people have no idea how this stuff actually worked and so writers can fill their stories with all sorts of nonsense. Nothing wrong with that: it is fiction after all. Part of the genre is that these spooks were up to all sorts of complicated and clever stuff and that the whole show had a Byzantine complexity. Sometimes writers leave things unexplained because that adds to the mystery.

I don't even try to figure stuff out beyond the surface story with these sorts of tales. People end up writing their own stories if they do. Similar deal with time travel stories: best not to look too closely at the mechanics of the plot.

[–] angelofvic 9 years ago

I figured I would understand this miniseries, because the TTSS miniseries was pretty easy to follow and much more straightforward. This one wasn't -- everything was telegraphic, not straightforward, all out of chronological order, and in a lot of cases just vaguely hinted at.

Maybe part of the problem is that there was never a miniseries on the intervening book Honourable Schoolboy. If there had been, there might have been details in that that tied over and explained this miniseries better.
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[–] Prismark10 9 years ago

The problem is that Smiley's People is a bad serial and much poorer compared to Tinker Tailor.

Its that man again!!

[–] angelofvic 9 years ago

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Have to admit that the TTSS series was genius (unlike the movie ).
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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

That's fine, but John Le Carre, the author of Smiley's People, was himself an intelligence agent in the Cold War.

[–] Zero_Wolf 9 years ago

There was just a lot of confounding events, but the main plot is pretty simple:

Karla was funneling money from the Soviet Union to pay for his daughter's psychiatric care. Karla feared a leak of his embezzlement activities, so he had to kill some people. Smiley managed to follow the trail, discover what Karla was doing and why, and use that information to blackmail Karla into defecting. All Smiley had to do was let it known to the Soviets what Karla was doing, Karla would be executed and his daughter would be dumped into a pauper's asylum where she would most likely languish and die. Check and mate.

____________________________
Death is the road to awe.

[–] angelofvic 9 years ago

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OK thanks for the sumary, Zero_Wolf!
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[–] jd-276 7 years ago

I agree with what Zero_Wolf says but there's a bit more to it. This is not in the order of the story but it's easier to explain this way.

Because Karla was going so far off-piste, he needed people who were basically lousy agents. He couldn't get anyone else without arousing suspicion. Kirov, it is established, is a clod. Grigoriev is not much better. They were people who could be lent on and be too scared to say anything. He couldn't have used anyone who was any good.

British intelligence gets wind through Vladimir that the KGB are looking for a Russian emigre family to plant a plausible story in order to getting Karla's daughter out of the Soviet Union without arousing suspicion. This is for back cover but Vladimir knows it's a cover for Karla because he knows the back story. Karla makes the mistake of using the bumbling Kirov to recruit Ostrakhova. He goes about it in such a ham-fisted way that she smells a rat and tells Valdimir. The British hear about it from him. Vladimir gets Otto Leipzig (the magician) to set a trap for Kirov and once caught in the act, Kirov spills the beans - all on tape.

Meanwhile, Karla gets wind that Vladimir's people are on the move. This comes from the emigre office because the man running it knows that Vladimir once had an affair with his wife. So Vladimir gets bumped off.

Having already bungled the recruitment of Ostrakhova and now with his cover totally blown by Leipzig, Kirov is recalled and probably killed. Leipzig is also killed under torture but the trail dies with him.

Smiley goes back to Paris and with the help of Peter Guillam, grabs Ostrakhova from under the KBG's nose

Meanwhile, the money trail to Switzerland has remained unbroken. Grigoriev probably knows that the story about Alexandra is bogus but he goes along with it because the trade off is that he's got a cushy job. But Grigoriev has to masquerade as a Swiss citizen - down to a fake Swiss passport - to keep suspicion away from him. He also does his withdrawals from a bank in Thun instead of Berne where he lives.

Smiley blackmails Grigoriev into passing a message to Karla which in turn blackmails him into defecting to the West.

[–] angelofvic 7 years ago

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OK, thanks a lot, jd-276, for all those additional details.

Although that's a lot of twists and turns, it does help explain it a lot better.

Thanks again. 
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[–] jd-276 7 years ago

My pleasure. To be honest, it took me a couple of views to get it. Reading the book fills in a few unexplained gaps in the story too, especially the bit when he sees Kretschmer to tell him that Leipzig is dead and then goes to Paris. In the book it is a lot more complicated but explains why he does what he does. There are a few things like that which leave some gaps. You also get a feel for how subtle the story is and why Karla doesn't realise that the jig is up.

[–] angelofvic 7 years ago

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Maybe I should read the book. I've never warmed to Le Carre's writing -- I find it kind of depressing/morose/bleak. I do like the two Smiley miniseries though, and The Night Manager, and the films The Constant Gardener, The Russia House, and The Spy Who Came Out of the Cold (even though it's bleak).
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[–] jd-276 7 years ago

I've never warmed to Le Carre's writing -- I find it kind of depressing/morose/bleak.

Yes! It's one of the things I really like about it. It lends a high level of authenticity to his storytelling. But if it's not your thing the I wouldn't expect you to enjoy them as much as I do. It's a matter of taste. I haven't seen "The Russia House" or "The Night Manager" but if you have then you've got a pretty good idea of what he's about.

[–] suicidea 7 years ago

TTSS is not only a straightforward story, but also pretty easy to follow, in that the audience knows what it's all about from the very first episode. SP is not like that. The story is much more detailed, and worse than that, we know nothing about it at all. We try to piece together the clues and the story along with Smiley, and not always in a chronological order, so it's really frustrating and may demand repeated viewings, even when you do pay attention.

It is rewarding once you get a hold of what's what, but that's about halfway the series.

Never be complete.

[–] angelofvic 7 years ago

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OK, yeah, thanks.

Is the book like that as well?
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[–] suicidea 7 years ago

I haven't read it yet (I want to read The Honourable Schoolboy first) but I can't imagine the screenplay having changed the order of the story in the book too much.

Never be complete.