ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
On the big screen, spies can come in many forms. There's the impervious, suave seducer of women...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CASINO ROYALE")
DANIEL CRAIG: (As James Bond) The name's Bond - James Bond.
SCHMITZ: ...Or Jason Bourne, the super assassin who has no idea how he became a super assassin.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE BOURNE IDENTITY")
MATT DAMON: (As Jason Bourne) I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside. And at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hand starts shaking. How can I know that and not know who I am?
SCHMITZ: Then there's the haunted ordinary guy wading through moral and political quagmires with a slow gait and a grim demeanor, like in the John le Carre adaptation, "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD")
RICHARD BURTON: (As Alec Leamas) What the hell do you think spies are - moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not. They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid b******s like me.
SCHMITZ: That is a fantastic line from Richard Burton. And whatever form these films come in, spy movies can reflect the anxieties or the geopolitics of a place and of a time. To talk more about this genre, we brought in NPR editor and spy film junkie Barrie Hardymon and our national security editor Andrew Sussman. Hey, guys.
BARRIE HARDYMON, BYLINE: Hi.
ANDREW SUSSMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Rob.
SCHMITZ: So I am usually based in Berlin, and I'm now covering an election at this moment here in Hungary in the former Eastern Bloc. In some ways, it is a perfect setting for this conversation. There are tons of spy films, and to make this easier, I've taken the liberty of separating them into two buckets. The first one is the fun popcorn spy movies like James Bond, Jason Bourne, or the "Mission Impossible" movies with Tom Cruise. And then bucket No. 2, the more realistic spy films, films based on a semblance of the actual world of spy craft - I mentioned "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" or "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," both John le Carre adaptations. So I want to start with the fun spy films that have very little basis in reality. Andrew, what are some of your favorites?
SUSSMAN: You're making me think of "Atomic Blonde."
HARDYMON: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ATOMIC BLONDE")
CHARLIZE THERON: (As Lorraine Broughton) I chose this life. And someday, it's going to get me killed.
SUSSMAN: As we're talking kind of both this silly but fun, and "Atomic Blonde" is also capturing this era that's just so fascinating. These places are in this state of becoming, and you're - there's uncertainty.
SCHMITZ: Tell us a little bit about that film. I'm not familiar with "Atomic Blonde." I didn't see that one.
SUSSMAN: "Atomic Blonde" is Charlize Theron, who's - it taps right into the spy thing because it's, like, a puzzle, and it's steeped in paranoia, and it's trying to kind of navigate Eastern Europe and figure out who the good guys and the bad guys are.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ATOMIC BLONDE")
EDDIE MARSAN: (As Spyglass) The list contains every active clandestine officer, all their shady deals. It's an atomic bomb of information that could extend the Cold War for another 40 years.
SUSSMAN: And it's mercury (ph) and murkier, but it's really just for incredible action set pieces that she's doing throughout the movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ATOMIC BLONDE")
THERON: (As Lorraine Broughton, grunting).
SUSSMAN: But it's also got, like, the music in New Order and some of these bands of the time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BLUE MONDAY")
NEW ORDER: (Singing) How does it feel to treat me like you do?
SUSSMAN: It's almost like this pop explosion with that kind of end of the Soviet Union when the Cold War was becoming - you know, in a sense, the Cold War hasn't ended. We're still watching, in some ways, the Soviet Union collapsing as we watch what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. But it's kind of tapping into that sense of uncertainty, but not in that kind of way that a - like, a 1970s movie kind of steeped in that dark paranoia is. This is full of kind of bright colors and great action.
SCHMITZ: Barrie, how about you?
HARDYMON: I have to say, my favorite spy movies are really not the funny ones. I kind of - I like the ones that have more - a little bit more meat to them. And so I tend not to divide the films into popcorn and not-popcorn. I try - I like to sort of think of them on a kind of a moral continuum of, like...
SCHMITZ: Interesting.
HARDYMON: ...Gray to less gray.
SCHMITZ: OK.
HARDYMON: And those are - yeah.
SCHMITZ: So tell me what fits - what would fit in the less gray?
HARDYMON: So, a film like "Zero Dark Thirty"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ZERO DARK THIRTY")
JESSICA CHASTAIN: (As Maya) Bin Laden is there. And you're going to kill him for me.
HARDYMON: ...Which is the story of how the CIA hunted for bin Laden, and, you know, it was criticized by many because it seemed to sort of elevate the - you know, the torture program as being one that was so successful in this kind of rah-rah (ph) American way.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ZERO DARK THIRTY")
JASON CLARKE: (As Dan) I own you, Ammar. You belong to me. Look at me.
HARDYMON: And then, if you go back, you get more and more of that, right? So like, the Nazis are...
SCHMITZ: You know who the bad guys are.
HARDYMON: You know who the bad guys are, and that's like "All Through The Night," which is a 1942 Humphrey Bogart film.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT")
HUMPHREY BOGART: (As "Gloves" Donahue) We're going to let the cops in on some of your bright ideas.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Thank you. But for the present, I would rather keep my ideas to myself.
BOGART: (As "Gloves" Donahue) Ah, listen, buster, you ain't got no secrets from me. I just took a quick tour through your tunnel of love - looks like the No. 1 orbit of Hitler and company.
HARDYMON: Real classic - and it actually - it does have a little bit of silliness to it. And so that's the sort of, like, it's not gray. We know who the bad guys are.
SCHMITZ: Are there spy films that for you ring true or maybe are more accurate...
HARDYMON: From my time in the service? Yes, well...
SCHMITZ: ...Maybe. From your time in the service.
HARDYMON: (Laughter).
SCHMITZ: I mean, I know you can't talk about it.
HARDYMON: No. I know what you're saying.
SCHMITZ: But, you know, I know you have extensive experience in this.
HARDYMON: Well, I will say, I think one of the things that happened when le Carre started writing, you know, about the circus, as he calls it in his books, is that it took us from that less gray area into a more morally gray area where you saw, maybe, did the means not actually justify the ends. And so my favorite dramas are the ones where there's real decisions being made by people that are hard ones in which they're putting people...
SCHMITZ: Right.
HARDYMON: ...In danger that maybe are not - and so, you know, for me, the Richard Burton spy that came in from the cold is just the gold standard.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD")
BURTON: (As Alec Leamas) Yesterday, I would have killed Mundt because I thought him evil and an enemy, but not today. Today he's evil and my friend. London needs him. They need him so that the great moronic masses you admire so much can sleep soundly in their flea-bitten beds again.
HARDYMON: You know, one of the great things about that movie and the story in general is we all have information, whether we are in any closed networks, whether it's in, you know, the NPR network, or it is within our families or in, you know, circles of gossip, we all have information, and some information can do damage. And so this idea that, like, the most human thing in the world, which, you know, as journalists, we - you know, we trade in as well - that the most human thing is something we have to treat with real care and rigor is, to me, the most interesting thing about spy movies in general.
SCHMITZ: Andrew, the same question for you. I mean, are there films that you prefer because they, you know, capture, you know, the world of spy craft in a maybe more accurate way than some of the more hyperbolic films that we usually see?
SUSSMAN: Yeah. It's a really good question 'cause I think what really strikes me sometimes is how like with everything, it can be very mundane being a spy. It can be very boring. And there are these stories about, like, at the CIA, just trying to find a stapler, you know, and all these things. You know, it's like the same office politics. What I really like are the movies where you get glimpses of the truth but never the whole truth. And again, it does remind me in many ways of what we do with our work. It's not black-and-whites. It's grays, and that full picture, you're just working to see that full picture. But I think in the best ones, it never fully gets revealed. Like, I just recently watched "Black Bag."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
MICHAEL FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) You asked how it works to be with someone in this business. This is how. You each know what you know, and you know what you'll do, and you never discuss certain things again.
SUSSMAN: You're constantly asking who is good and who is bad, and it's really never fully answered because it's also about relationships. It's about office politics, relationships, spies and also potentially lethal action.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
GUSTAF SKARSGARD: (As Philip Meacham) Thousands of innocent people will die.
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) Who's the suspect?
REGE-JEAN PAGE: (As Col. James Stokes) Your wife.
SUSSMAN: The stakes are very high, but it's also just about human nature. And I find that really compelling. I mean, I love a good spy movie that takes us around the world, but I also love ones that explore the human psyche.
SCHMITZ: That was NPR's Barrie Hardymon and Andrew Sussman. Thanks for joining us.
HARDYMON: Thank you.
SUSSMAN: Thanks so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID ARNOLD'S "THE NAME'S BOND... JAMES BOND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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