For me, they are (or were) both great actors, but there is something masterful about Alec Guinness’s portrayal of George Smiley.
The film has the better supporting cast by far[0], but the original series is worth watching just for that portrayal. Watch his face as he slowly puts on his glasses during the beginning of the interrogation scene with Ricki Tarr for example.
[0] with the possible exception of another great performance by Ian Richardson
Edit: I very much enjoyed the film too, including Gary Oldman. But the miniseries captured the bleakness of the era, had time to explore more of the detail, and left more things implicit rather than explicit. All styles of production that I personally enjoy.
Phenomenal cast in that film - you would be hard pressed to hire even one of the supporting cast members these days with the $20m the film apparently cost at the time.
Agreed. It's a scene like that which separates the very good actors from the truly great. While I enjoyed the remake, I don't think it comes close to the original.
I watched the TV series some weeks or months after having seen the Gary Oldman movie, I enjoyed both, but the TV series is great while the movie I thought was just good. Both have excellent cast and are worth watching just for this reason, but the story with all the nuance seems better suited for the mini-series format than for a 2 hour movie.
I liked the scenery and set dressing of the new one greatly.
The old TV series had a superb ensemble cast. The new one in some ways let itself down. Hungary for Czechoslovakia. Turkey for Hong Kong. Peter Guillaim has a gay lover. Minor changes but also.. why?
I saw the movie with a friend who had never read the book nor seen the miniseries and he couldn't really follow it. I could (barely) from my experience from the book and series. Two hours is just too short to convey such a complex story.
I had read the book as well and I still had to watch it several times to appreciate all the nuance and really put it all together.
For example (warning: potential spoilers, though you'd have to be pretty super attentive to detail if you ended up noticing this the first time through the film):
Fortunately, it is (or was) on Netflix so I was able to do that.
I probably watched it at least a dozen times and with every viewing I would still manage to find some new little meaningful detail I had missed before. If I can't find anything new that interests me on Netflix (not hard), I'll usually just queue it up again. Great film.
The film has the better supporting cast by far[0], but the original series is worth watching just for that portrayal. Watch his face as he slowly puts on his glasses during the beginning of the interrogation scene with Ricki Tarr for example.
[0] with the possible exception of another great performance by Ian Richardson
Edit: I very much enjoyed the film too, including Gary Oldman. But the miniseries captured the bleakness of the era, had time to explore more of the detail, and left more things implicit rather than explicit. All styles of production that I personally enjoy.