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Photos: How John le Carré’s novels came alive on screen
John le Carré, the British writer of spy fiction who created an alternative to the suave James Bond with his sullen George Smiley, died on December 12. While the secret service initially dismissed his most popular novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, as 'sheer fiction from start to finish', several words coined by le Carré in his books -- 'honeytraps' and 'moles', to name a couple -- would later would be used with great familiarity by his former colleagues. His contributions to Cold War literature were further cemented in cultural consciousness with a series of successful film and television adaptations. Here are some of the most notable.
Updated on: Dec 20, 2020 11:30 AM IST
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A still from “The Spy Who Came In from the Cold” from 1965. Based on John le Carré’s novel of the same name, it featured actor Richard Burton in one of his finest performances. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was a hard-edged thriller that defined director Martin Ritt’s career. (Courtesy Salem Films Ltd.)
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Perhaps the most popular of le Carré’s Smiley novels, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” was adapted into a successful television miniseries by the BBC in 1979, starring Alec Guiness as Smiley. (Courtesy BBC)
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Like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Little Drummer Girl has been adapted twice.“The Little Drummer Girl” released in 1984, directed by George Roy Hill, starring Diane Keaton, Yorgo Voyagis, Klaus Kinski and Thorley Walters. (Courtesy Warner Bros)
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“The Russia House” starred Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer, Roy Scheider, James Fox, John Mahoney, and Klaus Maria Brandauer. Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay based on John le Carré’s 1989 novel of the same name. The film was filmed in Technovision, and on location in the then Soviet Union. (Courtesy Pathé Entertainment)
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The Constant Gardener, about a British diplomat in Kenya trying to solve the murder of his wife, became one of his most successful post-war efforts. A film version starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz (who won an Oscar for her performance), was directed by Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles. Fiennes told the Guardian in a statement after le Carré’s passing that the writer “loved what Fernando Meirelles did with the film.” (Courtesy Focus Features)
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Director Anton Corbijn’s adaptation of the rather low-key John le Carré novel will always be viewed with a tinge of melancholy. It served as the final starring role of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s career. In many ways, his Gunther Bachmann – a jaded German on the hunt for a Chechen terrorist – was a version of the Smiley school of spies that le Carré had perfected; plump, unkempt and unhappy. (Courtesy Demarest Films )
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Directed by Susanne Bier, Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman starred in the BBC One thriller “The Night Manager.” The series was based on John le Carre’s 1993 novel and more than nine million people watched the finale of The Night Manager on the BBC. (Courtesy AMC)
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Director Tomas Alfredson turned the book of the same name into an inscrutable film with Gary Oldman in the central role, surrounded by a cream-of-the-crop supporting cast that included Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy and Colin Firth, among others. The film’s success at capturing the steely paranoia of a post-9/11 world inspired a spate of new le Carré adaptations. (Courtesy StudioCanal)
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