Errol Morris’s interview with the great English novelist John le Carré (born David Cornwell), deferential and unthreatening as it is, provides another example of a great truth in documentaries that the simple spectacle of clever people talking on camera is as gripping as any thriller. This one-on-one set piece in the classic Morris style (though co-produced by the author’s sons, Simon and Stephen Cornwell) was completed just before the author’s death in 2020.
Morris asks le Carré cordial questions about the great themes of betrayal and duplicity in his spy fiction and how they were inspired by his early life. Le Carré answers them with mesmeric fluency and charm, like a brilliant Oxbridge don who has brought a guest from the media to a special high table feast and treats his questions as an opportunity to hold forth. The answers are interspersed with clips from TV and movie adaptations of his work, old archive interviews and some dramatisations commissioned especially for this film.
