Discover a new interpretation of why Limas, the protagonist of "Berlin", went back to the east of the wall to find death - because his colleague Smiley, who came to meet him on the west side of the wall, asked him where the heroine was.
At that time, he was in the hesitation between his recently deceased lover and the hope of life. As a result, Smiley's words completely wiped out his last desire for life, and he crawled back to die for love on a whim.
I have a creepy feeling. If Smiley really wanted to bring back Limas, who already knew the huge secret about Mutter, then he obviously guessed that the heroine was killed when he heard the gunshots several times.
What's more, when he saw Limas' face of shock and despair, how could he not guess the result? Why should he care about the life and death of a girl who has become cannon fodder at this time?
Then he deliberately asked this question to stimulate Limas, who was already deeply in love, to make him despair and choose suicide. Killing a person in one sentence, his shrewd and vicious thinking is also in line with the identity of a successful spy (note, He was later the protagonist of Le Carré's sequel, The Smiley Trilogy).
However, this sentence only exists in the original book, and it disappears in the movie. What is the purpose of deleting this sentence? Not to mention that the screenwriter was John Le Carre himself, and the script was revised at the request of Richard Burton, for which they studied and discussed it for a long time in the hotel room.
Then delete this sentence, it should be the common opinion of Burton and Le Carre, why?
Could it be that they thought this sentence was a little hard to justify? After all, if Smiley didn't want Limas to be alive, he could not come to pick him up at all. Wouldn't it be convenient to directly inform Mutter's people to silence Limas?
It doesn't make sense to have a temporary intention. After all, his level has no right to decide Limas' life or death. Only the highest head of the Circus, that is, their "head" can decide. If the head calls him to answer, then he How dare you kill Limas without permission?
In fact, even if Limas has found out the real purpose of Mutter's existence, there is no need for the boss to kill such an excellent and experienced subordinate as Limas. ?
What's more, if the boss really wants to kill people, he doesn't need to send Smiley to execute it, he just informs Mutter to do it. Mutter just asked someone to shoot them together under the Berlin Wall. The subordinate of Limas was shot dead in front of Limas by the cold shot behind his back when he crossed the border at the beginning of this book. Isn't that so? means? Obviously, the leader has no intention of killing Limas and Limas' subordinates at all. This is just Mutter's unilateral act.
As for Limas' death, it is more likely that he brought it upon himself. Mutter must have ordered his subordinates to shoot and kill the heroine under the Berlin Wall.
The reason for this choice was that Limas would explode if he killed the heroine halfway, and unforeseen variables would occur, so his subordinates specifically instructed Limas to climb up first, and then come back and pull the heroine up.
Such an excellent posture to separate the two without accidentally hurting Limas was obviously researched by Mutter himself. In this way, after the heroine was beaten to death, there were also people on the other side of the wall. As long as Limas was not stupid, he had no choice but to give up the dead heroine and go back to the west alone.
So in the original book, Smiley asked what happened to the heroine, which was to destroy the decision of Mutter and the boss, and directly stimulate Delimas to commit suicide.
And this sentence obviously shouldn't exist, it's too unreasonable. It is impossible for Smiley to disobey the decisions of the boss and Mutter at the same time and silence Limas without authorization.
So in the end, Le Carre deleted this sentence from the script, and did not add any other lines, so why Limas chose death really became suspenseful and confusing.
Burton obviously also considered how to express the inner struggle of why Limas suddenly chose to die when he did not have a single line after deleting Smiley's line. This is too difficult too difficult. .
After all, the expression of the film is not as rich and thorough as the book, and many times it requires the self-understanding of the audience, which will lead to the phenomenon of "a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people".
So take a closer look at the shot when the searchlight hit Burton's face. The close-up of his face lasted about five or six seconds. During these five or six seconds, his expression and eyes changed slightly.
I read it several times, and finally felt that Burton used his personal understanding to make a simple decision to sacrifice love in the original book. After the line that stimulated Limas to sacrifice love was deleted, he changed it.
His plan has also been adjusted accordingly, that is, it is no longer a simple sacrifice of love, but after discovering that all hope and the only remaining truth, goodness and beauty have all died out, all thoughts are lost in an instant, and he does not want to live.
And the line of Smiley in the original book can only prove that Limas still wants to live after the death of the heroine. It's a bit underwhelming.
As for why Limas is desperate? It's very complicated, and the heroine's death is just the last straw that breaks the camel's back.
Before that, he had been repressed and had absolutely restrained himself for too long, so that he had been training himself in his heart day and night on how to lie without revealing flaws, and how to be right before and after without being deceived by the enemy.
He even forgot what he was doing, and only set aside a few minutes before going to bed at midnight to tell himself that he was acting.
So no matter how you look at it, it looks like a tragic actor who gets too deep into the play and regards himself as the protagonist, becomes depressed, and can no longer get out of this whirlpool.
His only hope is to return to the UK after completing this damn task, to receive a pension, and to go to the seaside and feed the seagulls with the heroine. So even though he later experienced successive blows and tortures, and suffered various betrayals and frauds, he still racked his brains and lived on thin ice because of this little hope.
But now, a few gunshots took the heroine's life, as the last straw finally pressed down on his back, and he fell to the ground like a dying camel.
In fact, he didn't want to live for a long time, and it was only for the sake of the heroine that he dragged it on until now.
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