The Little Drummer Girl

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Happy endings, when there isn't supposed to be one, is something that some scriptwriters and producers seem to like to do.

Examples:

Inferno (film)
And then there were none (TV adaptation)

Someone will do the same with Tchaikovsky 6 one of these days.

[Richard Barrett]

Happy endings, when there isn't supposed to be one, is something that some scriptwriters and producers seem to like to do.

It was a coproduction with a US company, what would you expect?

[johncorrigan]

In the end up I watched it to the end and thought it was OK. The best bit was where Charlie tells Salim that she was just an actor, even though I did know it was coming. I liked the switches back and forward between the training and the fiction, and the conversation about horses...'never go back on what you've already said'. That said, in the end up, it just highlighted the tit-for-tat violence that has punctuated the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and that saddened me...those unintended consequences that Charlie knew nothing about, because she was just an actor and didn't realise the power of the information she was giving over. They're the things that stick around for me, rather than the totally cheesy and disappointingly predictable ending.

[Richard Tarleton]

I'd really love to know what Petrushka thinks about it now... IIRC he's our resident Le Carré enthusiast and savant...?

I think Pet and I share the Forum Chair in JLC Studies....we've both, I think I'm right in saying, met the great man, in my case rather a long time ago (between The Looking Glass War and A Small Town in Germany ). But that set off an enthusiasm for his work which has lasted ever since....many first editions, a couple of which inc. Smiley's People were ruined when Mrs T's (as she then wasn't) Burmese cat peed on them in a fit of jealousy (I had cats too, and he was keen to establish dominance)....

No, the ending of the book - I wouldn't call it happy, exactly, far from it - is quite different, is much more nuanced, and as with so much in the book largely takes place in Charlie's head. I think Florence Pugh did excellently - can't blame her for the script...

The Night Manager likewise had a completely different ending in the book.... Do they have half an eye on how it will be received across the water?

[LMcD]

Happy endings, when there isn't supposed to be one, is something that some scriptwriters and producers seem to like to do.

Examples:

Inferno (film)
And then there were none (TV adaptation)

Someone will do the same with Tchaikovsky 6 one of these days.

Most (in)famously in the Hollywood version of '1984'.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Most (in)famously in the Hollywood version of '1984'.

???

[Richard Barrett]

it just highlighted the tit-for-tat violence that has punctuated the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and that saddened me...

Although perhaps it ought to be pointed out when using formulations like "tit-for-tat" that typically Palestinians suffer more than twenty times as many casualties as Israelis (276 deaths versus 12 so far in 2018, for example)... that said, I did think the extent to which the Palestinians in the story were shown as freedom fighters (albeit ruthless), while the Mossad agents came across as dissembling, manipulative and amoral, showed (especially given its orientation towards the US market!) quite a remarkable shift in the way this situation is portrayed in Western media compared with only a few years ago.

[LMcD]

???

I understood that in the British version of the film Winston and Julia are executed whereas in the American version they recant and become followers of Big Brother. While this can be seen as a warning of the deviousness of the Russians and is admittedly not in itself a happy ending, it could imply that they will continue the fight from within the system they have been opposing. Something not totally dissimilar happened at the end of series 2 of ' The Handmaid's Tale' when the chance to escape is passed up, seemingly in order to continue the struggle from within. A cynic might argue that the American ending of 1984 might have been adopted with a view to a possible sequel - something which is obviously the case with 'The Handmaid's Tale'. (I see that Margaret Atwood is to write a sequel).

[kernelbogey]

Although perhaps it ought to be pointed out when using formulations like "tit-for-tat" that typically Palestinians suffer more than twenty times as many casualties as Israelis (276 deaths versus 12 so far in 2018, for example)... that said, I did think the extent to which the Palestinians in the story were shown as freedom fighters (albeit ruthless), while the Mossad agents came across as dissembling, manipulative and amoral, showed (especially given its orientation towards the US market!) quite a remarkable shift in the way this situation is portrayed in Western media compared with only a few years ago.

I couldn't figure out, on first viewing, what didn't seem right.

I felt there was something odd about this film.

.
Perhaps Richard's post suggests that this was a 2018 rehash of a 1970s story,and that there remained a fundamental flaw in that disjuncture. Just as 'historical dramas' reflect the time of their creation, this suffers the same difficulty - and we are (I am) too close to the time portrayed for it to feel authentic.

[Richard Tarleton]

Although perhaps it ought to be pointed out when using formulations like "tit-for-tat" that typically Palestinians suffer more than twenty times as many casualties as Israelis (276 deaths versus 12 so far in 2018, for example)... that said, I did think the extent to which the Palestinians in the story were shown as freedom fighters (albeit ruthless), while the Mossad agents came across as dissembling, manipulative and amoral, showed (especially given its orientation towards the US market!) quite a remarkable shift in the way this situation is portrayed in Western media compared with only a few years ago.

Indeed, see here - in the book, (and in his researches, between 1981 and 1983) JLC went to great lengths to get under the skins of both sides, including meeting a real-life German equivalent of Charlie (Brigitte Schulz, who had been arrested in Nairobi by Mossad agents as she tried to bring down an El Al airliner and sentenced to 10 years in a prison in the Negev Desert, where he met her), and meeting Arafat himself, after much to-ing and fro-ing, very cloak and dagger, in Beirut. Le Carré describes the episode in The Pigeon Tunnel -

' "Mr David!" he cries. Why have you come to see me?"
"Mr Chairman"", I reply, in the same high tone. "I have come to put my hand on the Palestinian heart".
Have we been rehearsing this stuff? He is already guiding my right hand to the left breat pocket of his khaki shirt. It has a button-down pocket, perfectly ironed....." '

.....and so on. He was given an escort of mostly teenage Fatah fighters as he spent time in their world.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I understood that in the British version of the film Winston and Julia are executed whereas in the American version they recant and become followers of Big Brother.

I don't think that this is so - but if it is, then it is the British version that changes the ending of Orwell's novel. The destruction of Winston and Julia's souls whilst they are still left alive is the bleaker ending of the original.

I thought that you were referring to the production company's imposition of Music by the Eurythmics and excising Dominic Muldowney's score against the wishes of the director. That was an despicable act (particularly ironic in this of all contexts!) on the part of the film company; but that was a British, not "Holywood", company.

[Richard Barrett]

I thought that you were referring to the production company's imposition of Music by the Eurythmics and excising Dominic Muldowney's score against the wishes of the director. That was an despicable act

For this reason I decided I didn't want to ever watch this film... but I wonder if it's somehow possible, or might be in the future, to view it with the Muldowney score?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For this reason I decided I didn't want to ever watch this film... but I wonder if it's somehow possible, or might be in the future, to view it with the Muldowney score?

It was available on video/DVD once, but was almost immediately withdrawn from sale. There are copies out there, I presume - and I hope there'll be a future release where there's at least the option of having the film as the director intended.

[LMcD]

I don't think that this is so - but if it is, then it is the British version that changes the ending of Orwell's novel. The destruction of Winston and Julia's souls whilst they are still left alive is the bleaker ending of the original.

I thought that you were referring to the production company's imposition of Music by the Eurythmics and excising Dominic Muldowney's score against the wishes of the director. That was an despicable act (particularly ironic in this of all contexts!) on the part of the film company; but that was a British, not "Holywood", company.

I don't think the Eurythmics were around for the 1956 (not 1955, my mistake) B/W British film to which I referred. I understood that the Americans changed the ending,- or requested an alternative ending. Downbeat though the survival and 'conversion' of the hero and heroine might be, at least they didn't lose their lives.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't think the Eurythmics were around for the 1956 (not 1955, my mistake) B/W British film to which I referred.

Where?

Downbeat though the survival and 'conversion' of the hero and heroine might be, at least they didn't lose their lives.

I think you've rather missed the terrifying subtlety of Orwell's idea. Even so, this "downbeat" original is not an example of Americans requiring an original ending of a novel to be re-written.