John Le
Carré’s spy novels highlight the grimy, mundane, and amoral world of
international espionage. His characters, George Smiley, Control, Peter Guillam,
Bill Hayden, and Alec Leamus, are all men of a certain (middle) age. They lack
the brash confidence of James Bond. Le
Carré’s spies brood and drink. They ponder the meaning of their work over
German poets, in the back of London cabs and at their offices deep within the
Circus (fictional headquarters of MI-6). They reflect the problems faced by an
author who began his life in the intelligence service, but whose identity was
revealed by a British double agent and then had to come to terms with his life
and work. Le Carré’s best novels, The Spy
Who Came in From the Cold and Tinker,
Tailor, Soldier, Spy provide a taut and suspenseful spy story and mediate
on the meaning and purpose of the spy’s craft.
The film
adaptation of The Spy Who Came in From
the Cold successfully simplifies Le Carré’s complicated and twisting plot. Richard
Burton plays Alec Leamus the head of MI-6’s Berlin Station. The film begins
with Leamus waiting at Checkpoint Charlie as one of his agents attempts to cross
into West Berlin. The East German police, however, shoot the agent before he
can make it to safety. His death ends a string of disasters for Leamus as the
East Germans have executed every one of his agents. Control, the head of MI-6,
then summons Leamus to London and offers him a chance to “come in from the
cold.” Reluctantly leaving the world of spy-craft, Leamus accepts Control’s
offer of a job in the banking section. Leamus’s life soon devolves into a
drunken stupor as he loses his job with MI-6, gets a temporary job at a library,
and eventually agrees to defect to the East Germans. Leamus’s descent into alcoholism
and anger serves as cover for a plot to get revenge against Mundt, the head of East
German intelligence. Leamus agreed to have a falling out with MI-6 in order to
gain the attention of the East Germans. Leamus would then provide enough
evidence to convince the East Germans that Mundt was a traitor . Leamus and
Control would get revenge for the death of their agents. The film comes to a
head as Mundt and Leamus square off in a secret tribunal before the Presidium
of the East German Communist Party.
Burton’s portrayal
Leamus’s disillusionment represents the greatest strength of the film and delivers
the film’s themes with brutal realism. He delivers his lines with the right mix
of sarcasm and bitterness. Burton’s own difficult life, exacerbated by his
drinking, serve him well in playing Leamus’s own trying circumstances. Burton’s Leamus deftly adjusts to the changing
circumstances of his mission as the full-scope of Control’s plot shifts in front
of his eyes. He chides his naïve companion, Nan Berry (Claire Bloom), after she
expresses shock at the outcome of Control’s plot. Leamus encapsulates the moral
ambiguity of Cold War espionage when he remarks to her “Before, he was evil and
my enemy; now, he is evil and my friend.” When Nan further questions Leamus’s
character and the morality of his actions, he scowls that “I'm a man, you fool.
Don't you understand? A plain, simple, muddled, fat-headed human being. We have
them in the West, you know.” Burton carries the film as it questions how a
simple and flawed human can survive an amoral death struggle between competing
and contradictory world powers.
Up next: Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity.
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