Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site utah-gr.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!wjh12!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!philabs!pwa-b!utah-gr!donn From: donn@utah-gr.UUCP (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: net.movies Subject: Re: The Little Drummer Girl Message-ID: <1221@utah-gr.UUCP> Date: Sat, 27-Oct-84 05:36:01 EST Article-I.D.: utah-gr.1221 Posted: Sat Oct 27 05:36:01 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 29-Oct-84 02:35:42 EST Organization: CS Dept., University of Utah Lines: 60 From Ian Kaplan: I recently saw the movie and it is even better than the book. ... Someone else made the same comment to me, so I went to see the movie myself. But I was disappointed... Time and Newsweek magazines split evenly on the movie, one giving it a rave and the other dismissing it entirely. Clearly people are seeing different movies. *** SPOILER WARNING *** Unlike the magazine reviewer who disposed of the movie, I did like the book -- my objection is that (as is all too common) the movie lost the spirit of the book. The movie felt like a version of the book with all the depth stripped from it. The central character of Charlie, the unsuccessful actress and lukewarm revolutionary, was changed beyond recognition (so I thought). No longer an Englishwoman, she's now an American; no longer unsuccessful, she's getting parts in commercials and (unbelievably!) playing the female lead in English plays; no longer punishing herself for not having good class background by sucking up to loathsome boyfriends, she seems clean, wholesome, sane; no longer poor and embittered, she's well off enough to afford coordinated designer outfits; and worst, Diane Keaton just does not give the impression of being a pathological liar like Charlie. Keaton's Charlie is missing the necessary moral vacuum. When le Carre's Charlie finds out that her diary and correspondence have been forged, she flies into a rage and nearly wrecks the project; Keaton's Charlie just laughs at the idea. When the Palestinians press on le Carre's Charlie, she screams and complains and lies like mad; Keaton's Charlie is stoic. Le Carre's Charlie is empty, yet terribly afraid of emptiness, and welcomes a chance to play in 'the theater of the real' because it gives her a purpose, a place, a role; Keaton's Charlie is self-assured and occasionally brash, never lonely or alienated. I could go on... I don't want to imply that Keaton is really at fault here, just that she is wrong for the part. The plot in the novel was more than a bit contrived, but it was held together by subtly anchoring all the points that were loose. The movie simply drops all the background material. Where are the scenes in which Kurtz and Litvak butter up friends in German intelligence, or pretend to be Hollywood directors to Charlie's agent, or coax a reluctant British officer into cooperating, or argue with superiors about invading Lebanon, or engage Gadi Becker to return from retirement? It was a brilliant idea to get Klaus Kinski to play Kurtz, but unfortunately the movie's Kurtz is nowhere nearly as important a character as the novel's Kurtz, and Kinski is wasted. There are some good points about the movie -- the minor characters are well done (especially the psychopathic Helga), the action scenes are carefully enacted (the opening in particular is very nice), and the one new plot twist (the identity of Khalil) was a clever idea. Perhaps I've just been spoiled for movies of le Carre novels by the BBC adaptations of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY and SMILEY'S PEOPLE, which I thought were amazingly well done... I sure hope Hollywood doesn't get its paws on THE HONOURABLE SCHOOLBOY, Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@utah-cs.arpa 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 decvax!utah-cs!donn