Movie Analysis Essay on The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Introduction

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is a unique film in that it presents disillusion and despair as if it were a reality, a mood that keeps the movie in its setting of East Berlin during the Cold War era. Various people have roles in the movie with burnt officers in the British intelligence service such as Leamas who is given an assignment before being sent to retire. He is sent to find his mole, operating in a cell and is assigned a new identity. The film uniquely features counter-intelligence agencies.

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The East German counterintelligence approaches Leamas which leads to him leaving the cold for apostate, who was the betrayer of his life. Leamas is the protagonist and a spy if the British Intelligence service in the movie, which is in charge of the operations in East Berlin. Just as government agencies are structured, he has agents who run in the East Berlin government (Prunckun, 2019). It was like a double agent operation in the modern intelligence system (CIA, 2011a). However, the network is in tatters and cannot assist him, letting him be prone to the hands of the counter-intelligence service. The counterintelligence service finds the agents and kills them one by one. In particular, Riemeck is shot at his eyesight before he could cross the border. Riemeck was an agent from the counterintelligence service - the East German government- who had precise information regarding the chain of command of the authority of the government. The intelligence community is responsible for pursuing the collection of information needed (CIA, 2011b). When he is fed up with it, he is called back from service by the British Intelligence service. Leamas' agents tend to either run or die at the hands of the efficient German counter-intelligence officers including Mundt.

Leamas was responsible for dealing with the end in the search of him. The society in the east and the west is open and devoted to more freedom and human dignity. The counterintelligence plan of actions would not let them experience conflict between their lives as agents and their positions in society.

The operation assigned to Riemeck was to take down the leader of the counterintelligence service of East Germany - Mundt. Leamas plans his steps to take him down as he was already in the business workforce and under care by another lady from London. Leamas first fakes a defection where he defects for East Germany and teams up with Fiedler, an employee under Mundt. He pretty well knew that Fiedler would expose Mundt as the British spy and falls for Leamas plans. Fielder wrongly thinks that Riemeck couldn't have found information alone without an assistant mole. The lady from London - Elizabeth - was by chance an activist for the British Communist party. Several cases regarding activists are evident in intelligence systems. (Duvenage & Von Solms, 2014) Therefore, the action of George trying to help lead to further problems for Leamas. He is made to lose his job in banking with British intelligence through fake embezzlement scams.

While Mundt was a spy, he was an ally to the counterintelligence service. When matters get worse, Fiedler suspects Mundt as the spy who offered Riemeck with much information but betrays him letting him is shot to prevent his exposure. Fiedler uses Leamas' evidence from Rolling stone to prove that Mundt was the secret agent working with the British intelligence, calling for his arrest and tribunal for further investigation. Leamas was the spy who didn't come in from the cold as a spy but as a human, a staged action. His network of spies is destroyed, and he is called back to London led him to poverty, more alcoholism, and anger, letting him end into prisons for assault.

The idea of the cold is the central idea in the novel. It was noted that the one who was isolated in deceit lives in the cold and for control, the services ought to live without sympathy. The cold was the area of target for the counterintelligence service where spies lived duplicitous lives, taking advantage of other people and the state's political goals. Counterintelligence service is evident as betrayal after betrayal is featured in the film.

For the intelligence, counterintelligence, and spies, loyalty is of importance even though not an assurance that the organization will be loyal to the spy (Harrison & Zaksauskiene, 2016). For the movie, Leamas is loyal, but his intelligence group is not loyal to him in return. He is loyal to the British intelligence organization without understanding that he was cutting himself off from other people but understood that he was supposed to betray them at one time to be loyal to his tasks. Even though he did not isolate himself from the others totally, he found himself and his people in trouble since he cared about his people too much. The counterintelligence service from Germany would take advantage of the situation to get what they wanted from Leamas. The counterintelligence service says how concerned he was regarding the deaths of agents in Berlin and had harrowing memories of dead refugees. Leamas is also loyal to Liz, and the British intelligence goes a step that is very far in its betrayal of him by arranging for Liz's death. Leamas is trapped into the hands of the British intelligence service and chooses loyalty over the lady compared to the organization. Liz is also betrayed by the organization she pledged to be loyal to when the communist party organization advised her to join East Germany only to let her undermine Leamas' testimony in the courts. The smart counterintelligence led to questions between Lis and Leamas on whether individuals should be sacrificed for the good of the whole. Tension overpowers them, and Liz accepts the authority of the group without the consent that she was actually in a trap.

Loyalty and betrayal are featured from the film for either side of the intelligence and counterintelligence services. Some characters are loyal to their organizations and ideologies whereas some others are dedicated to their moral principles and work for the people. On the other hand, some such as Fiedler are willing to betray any persons for their benefit.

Mundt is selfish in regards to loyalty whilst at the German counterintelligence service. Instead of assisting agents such as himself he plans to escape from East Berlin, a move that does not impress the counterintelligence. Evidently, he kills the East Germans who were spying for the British before they were suspected by East Germans who would also expose his role as a spy for the British. The German counterintelligence service had a prison and court where they executed Leamas after all.

References

CIA. (2011a). Observations on the Double Agent. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol6no1/html/v06i1a05p_0001.htm

CIA. (2011b). Fifteen Axions for Intelligence Analysts. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol40no5/html/v40i5a06p.htm

Duvenage, P. C., & Von Solms, S. H. (2014). Cyber counterintelligence: Back to the future. Journal of Information Warfare, 13(4), 42-56.

Harrison, M., & Zaksauskiene, I. (2016). Counterintelligence in a command economy. The Economic History Review, 69(1), 131-158.

Prunckun, H. (2019). Counterintelligence theory and practice. Rowman & Littlefield.