New Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Trailer

Wow, this movie looks so good! I think I like this new trailer for Tomas Alfredson's feature film version of John Le Carré's masterpiece even better than the excellent teaser we saw back in June. I particularly love the glimpses we get of the scene in which Guillam is sent to retrieve a folder from the Circus library. That should be one of the most suspenseful scenes in the movie, and judging from these clips it looks like it will be. It's one of my favorite scenes in the book, and I was never happy with the way it turned out in the generally excellent Alec Guinness miniseries. (It typifies Le Carré to me that a scene in a library where the objective is to retrieve a file rather than to avoid getting shot or something can generate more suspense than a whole Bourne car chase.) It's clear from this trailer and the teaser that Alfredson's movie will make some major deviations from the novel (more airplanes! more murders!), but not surprising. Film is a different medium from literature or television, and you usually can't create a successful two-hour adaptation of a thick book just by cutting stuff. Additions are generally necessary as well to suit the story to the new medium. So I'm not quite as alarmed by the changes as they are at the excellent SmileyWatch site, but I must admit to being slightly apprehensive. (The notion of making Peter Guillam gay strikes me as a particularly radical and unnecessary departure that alters the character significantly.) However, what looks perfectly preserved from the novel is the atmosphere and the tone. I love the way this trailer feels, and I have a feeling it's probably pretty representative of the film itself. This feels like a real spy movie! November can't come soon enough. I sure am jealous of the British, for whom that "September 16" date at the end of this trailer applies.