and ANOTHER thing about adapting ttss with insufficient dialogue is that it just isn't a very visual story!!

like, when i was planning this thread in the shower (lmao) it took me a good long while to come up with some really visually striking images to pull from ttss

like, some of the stuff at thursgood's, particularly the moment where jim looks out the window and sees smiley's car, and the moment with the gun are probably the strongest.

then there's jim getting shot, which is kind of an easy pull but if it was sufficiently shocking and chaotic and disorienting could be pretty good

some of the fun tradcraft stuff with ricki and irina, and maybe the scene where smiley walks in on ann playing records for bill. jan's flat w bill's art. and MAYBE the moment when the light goes on in alleline's office and mendel sees it because of the reflection of the skylight.

contrast, say, smiley's people, i can instantly think of a million striking images which would absolutely sparkle in technicolor and surround sound.

the first thing i thought of was smiley's dreamscape journey around germany. the sex club, the young lovers renting otto's house, the isadora, pulling up the gym shoe, the kids fucking up his car, smiley abandoning the car in a lot,

and then finally showing up to talk to kretzschmar in a dweeby bucket hat. like, that sequence, lovingly rendered, would be a GARDEN of audiovisual delights

slight detour, who wants to see a curse meme i made years ago

everyone, that's who https://voca.ro/nqLwA8lEJfX 

yknow, just, speaking of audiovisual adaptation of the sex club scene

AAAAAAANYWAY i can imagine a million other bits of sp that could really get up and go in a visual medium. the bit where they pick up grigoriev watching the chess match, the grigoriev blackmail table, the part at the end at the wall, connie and hilary's love shack

another detour, i absolutely love that bit in the sp miniseries where george is leaving and hilary stands outside in the rain with a lantern like a VENGEFUL FUCKING SPIRIT screaming "fascist! woman-hater!" at george as he goes by

AAAANYWAY the fucking bit where george goes through vladimir's apartment, too, that would be stellar. the scene where otto gets kursky to talk in the brothel. like all of these really get up and go in a visual (and audio, sometimes that's what really makes it) medium

ttss, on the other hand, is really really really just all about people talking to each other. words are the most important things in that book. all the artistry is in the dialogue