{"id":1519,"date":"2014-10-11T16:38:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T14:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/?p=1519"},"modified":"2020-05-23T22:32:13","modified_gmt":"2020-05-23T20:32:13","slug":"tinker-tailor-soldier-spy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/2014\/10\/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Design Program and Color Palette of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"043_00_tinker\"<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/i> is a film of puzzles and carefully guarded secrets. At the level of narrative orchestration this is hardly unusual \u2013 being that we are in the familiar world of spy films – but the visual look<\/i> of the film is quite distinct. A possible explanation is given by cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, who reveals that he deliberately avoided taking previous films<\/i> as a source of influence on the visual design and color pallette of the film (Taras 2012). Remarkably, the abundance of rectangles, the flattened imagery, and even the film\u2019s dominant colors are instead inspired by a single photographic text, namely Erwin Fieger\u2019s London, City of Any Dream<\/i>.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from John le Carr\u00e9\u2019s eponymous novel by Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy <\/i>(2011) tells the story of the clandestine search during the Cold War for a possible Soviet double agent, or mole, at the highest level of MI6, the British secret service familiarly referred to in the film as \u201cThe Circus.\u201d The surreptitious investigation is led by George Smiley, called out from a retirement he was forced into by the failure of an earlier operation in Budapest that was designed to gain intelligence about the identity of the double agent. He is assisted by Peter Guillam, a younger, still active agent, as well as by George Mendel, another retiree. Interviews with retirees, including those forced out of the service by the failure of the Budapest operation, prove key to the gathering of bits of information that taken together ultimately reveal the mole\u2019s identity. The challenge of this puzzle whose solution requires the piecing together of previously compartmentalized knowledge is perfectly visualized twice during the film\u2019s credit sequence: first by Smiley being fitted for new eyeglasses as if to signal that his best perceptual acuity will be needed, then by the abstract painting whose overlapping squares and rectangles, themselves framed within a series of rectangles, challenges Smiley\u2019s understanding as he gazes at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As befits this fictive world of carefully guarded secrets, rectangles of all sizes figure prominently throughout the film, isolating and compartmentalizing individuals within their frames. So mundane in themselves that they might not seem worth noting, within the world of the film they even provide visual continuity during the key scene in which Guillam steals a logbook for Smiley from The Circus. In much the same way that the sound track ties the sequence\u2019s shots together through the continuity of George Formby singing \u201cMr. Wu’s A Window Cleaner Now;\u201d the repetition of rectangles tie the visuals together. From the grid that frames Mendel as he waits in a repair garage  to telephone Guillam (fig. 1), to the shot of the Circus\u2019s archive as an immense grid work (fig. 2), to the rectangular storage slots behind Owen, the clerk who answers Mendel\u2019s telephone call (fig. 3), to the pattern on  the jacket worn by the clerk who records the call (fig. 4), to the reading room in which Guillam takes Mendel\u2019s phone call where the grid\u2019s rectangles are reworked as similarly shaped desks, ceiling fixtures, and floor tiles (fig. 5), to the shape of the cubby holes on the back wall of the room from which Toby Esterhase, himself framed by a rectangle, spies Guillam on the telephone (fig. 6), the total effect of these rectangles repeated in a variety of sizes and rotated in space  is to impart a heightened sense of order and visual interconnectedness to the narrative\u2019s story line. The film is realistic, to be sure, but as this abundance of rectangles suggests, it is realism inflected through set designs and an unusual style of photography whose flattening of images often challenge the certainty of the viewer\u2019s perception. Surprisingly, the abundance of rectangles, the flattened imagery, and even the film\u2019s dominant colors derive from a single photographic text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 1. Mendel waits to telephone Guillam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 2. Guillam in the Circus\u2019 archive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 3. Owen takes Mendel\u2019s telephone call.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 4. Mendel\u2019s telephone call is transcribed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 5. Guillam speaks with Mendel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.6.<\/a>
Fig.6. Esterhase notices Guillam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Film\u2019s Design Program<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During the planning of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/i> designer Paul Smith showed Tomas Alfredson a copy of London, City of Any Dream<\/i>, Erwin Fieger\u2019s large format book of color photographs of 1960s London that Fieger shot with a telephoto lens. In a \u201cPlus Cameraimage\u201d interview Hoyte van Hoytema tells how they acquired copies of the book and not only mounted the photos on a wall as visual references for the film, but even did camera tests to see whether they could match the photos\u2019 graininess (see Kasia Taras\u2019 interview<\/a>). It was not the specific subjects of Fieger\u2019s photos that caught the filmmakers\u2019s attention, but their aesthetic qualities of framing, compression, grain structure, and consistent streaks of transient color. In varying combination these qualities became the organizing principles of the film\u2019s mise-en-scene employed by everyone responsible for the film\u2019s visuals. As Alfredson explained to Nick Allen at \u201cThe Scorecard Review,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our approach was, me and Hoytema, the director of photography, was to sort of create a voyeur in all the scenes that everything is sort of peeked in upon, like outside windows, through the keyhole feeling, and also to create such a -how should you say?- uh, bubbles, where these people are captured in bubbles. And one way we thought to create that was to work with very long lenses to sort of squeeze everything together. So everything is done in locations where we actually could get far away with the camera in order to use very long lenses to make everything squeeze together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thematically, \u201cthe keyhole feeling\u201d and \u201cpeople\u2026 captured in bubbles\u201d perfectly visualize the secrecy and compartmentalization of those operating at the top of The Circus who Smiley and his small group must penetrate to expose the mole among them. The shot (fig. 7) of Jerry Westerby, at the left, asking for a cover story to minimize the effect of the failure of the earlier mission in Budapest, perfectly illustrates both the bubble effect and voyeur\u2019s point of view described by Alfredson. Undoubtedly, the image that springs to mind for most viewers asked to recall a shot from the film in which everything is squeezed together would be the lengthy sequence on a deserted tarmac (fig. 8) where Smiley questions an increasingly uneasy Toby Esterhase as an airplane seems to bear down on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 7. Jerry Westerby and Control framed in \u201cbubbles.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 8. Smiley questions Toby Esterhase.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One need only place Fieger\u2019s photograph, \u201cTaxi Rank, Victoria Station,\u201d (4-5) (fig. 9) with its flattened perspective and multiple framings of individuals seen through a series of rectangular windows beside the similarly flattened and framed images of Smiley and Peter Guillam behind the window of a Wimpy Bar (fig. 10), Jim Prideaux awaiting debriefing after his return from the behind the Iron Curtain (fig. 11), and Ricki Tarr searching for his girlfriend in Istanbul (fig. 12) to see the influence of Fieger\u2019s images on the film\u2019s set designs, staging, and cinematography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 9. Erwin Fieger, \u201cTaxi Rank, Victoria Station.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 10. Guillam and Smiley in a Wimpy bar. Some layered images, like the Wimpy Bar, as well as the grid-like archive in The Circus were constructed by computer graphics. For a discussion of the creation of these shots see \u201cDigital Tinkering and Tailoring by Framestore<\/a>\u201d and Vincent Frei\u2019s interview \u201cTinker Taylor Soldier Spy: Sirio Quintavalle\u2014VFX Supervisor\u2014Framestore.<\/a>\u201d.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 11. Jim Prideaux awaits debriefing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 12. Ricki Tarr searches for his girlfriend in Istanbul.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In addition to employing long lenses to flatten images, Maria Djurkovic\u2019s production design in conjunction with careful camera placement achieves a similar effect at times. For instance the actual depth of the locker room in this shot (fig. 13) is difficult to discern because of the way the verticals that frame the actors also hide the edges of the doorway to the showers and the back corner of the dressing room. The overall illusory effect this creates of shifting planes is quite similar to the actual shifting planes captured as reflections in the shot of Prideaux awaiting debriefing. The images are at once realistic and spatially uncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 13. Percy Alleline meets with government officials in a locker room.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A somewhat more sophisticated flattening of an otherwise realistic image is achieved through the continuity of color in a shot of Smiley and Guillam seen from the inside of a laundry (fig. 14). The placement of the brightly-lit pile of linen at the center of the image is key to the effect. At its left end it overlaps the front of Guillam\u2019s auto; at its right end the shiny surface of the table top extends the seemingly continuous strip of color further across the image\u2019s middle ground. The band of continuous color flattens the image by apparently reducing the distance between the shot\u2019s foreground and middle ground in much the same way that a telephoto lens would compress the space. The uncertain depth of the image is heightened further by the way the words \u201cHOTEL ISLAY\u201d seem to project forward from the wall on which they are painted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 14. Smiley and Guillam\u2019s conversation seen from inside a laundry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Color Palette<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the flattening of the image and the frequent framing of characters, Fieger\u2019s photographs also determined the film\u2019s color palette. Here, too, they did so not through the colors that Fieger photographed directly, but through the transient hues that his photographs seemed to catch accidently. As Colin MacInnes, who wrote the commentary that accompanies Fieger\u2019s photographs, describes the effect, \u201c\u2026he has even contrived\u2014as in his creating harmonies out of the reflected hues on the banal door of a London taxi\u2014to take photographs in which the colour itself (rather than the mere topicality of the subject) becomes, as it should be, the most arresting feature of the total image.\u201d (xxxii) Though MacInnes does not identify the specific photograph, it is undoubtedly \u201cTaxi Driver\u201d (pp. 6-7) (fig. 15). The colors appear more prominently in the background of \u201cPoliceman at Piccadilly Circus\u201d (p.36) (fig. 16).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 15. Erwin Fieger, \u201cTaxi Driver.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 16. Erwin Fieger, \u201cPoliceman at Piccadilly Circus.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Although the film\u2019s color scheme is often described as being drab and monochromatic, the group of brighter colors reflected in the taxi\u2019s doors appears throughout the film. Without reference to Fieger\u2019s photographs, Katie MacGregor identified the film\u2019s color palette in her blog, \u201cDesign in Film,\u201d where she arranged them as a color bar which I reproduce with her permission (fig. 17). These colors appear in varying ways and varying intensities, though the logic of their grouping is always apparent as in Jim Prideaux\u2019s surroundings in Budapest as he makes his way to meet his contact (fig. 18); the colors frame the magazine photograph of Polyakov, the man who turns out to be the mole\u2019s Soviet contact (fig. 19); the colors seem perfectly plausible on Prideaux\u2019s car and trailer (fig. 20); the colors on the card announcing \u201cfresh fruit\u201d in the window of the market illustrates how set dressing frequently incorporates the palette in unobtrusive ways (fig. 21); costuming displays the colors during the Christmas party at The Circus (fig. 22). Though not symbolic in any way, the repetition of these colors, like the repeated framing discussed above, heightens the film\u2019s visual coherence across its breadth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 17. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy\u2019s Color Palette.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 18. Prideaux in Budapest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 19. Ricki Tarr telephones Oliver Lacon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 20. Magazine article about Soviet attach\u00e9 Polyakov.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 21. Jim Prideaux\u2019s car and trailer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 22. Smiley buys a bottle of whiskey for Connie Sachs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In sum, Alfredson and van Hoytema found in Fieger\u2019s photographs the appropriate visual qualities for rendering the uncertain, often deceptive world of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/i> that both Smiley and viewers are asked to comprehend. The Londoners framed in rectangles readily became employees of The Circus caught within a variety of frames that signal their compartmentalization and partial awareness, while the flattened depth of Fieger\u2019s photographs offered an optical equivalent for the slipperiness of appearances. As in the photographs, from time to time the film\u2019s realism is subtly distorted so true spatial depth becomes difficult to discern. Whether this is achieved through the use of a telephoto-lens, through set design in conjunction with camera placement, or through something as \u201csimple\u201d as the apparently coincidental alignment of an automobile with similarly colored laundry, and table top, the design program created by the filmmakers images forth the secrecy of the film\u2019s world, imbuing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy <\/i>with a visual texture that enriches its dramatic impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fig.<\/a>
Fig. 23. The Christmas party at the Circus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

* * *<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Faktaboks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Literature<\/h3>\n\n\n\n