The TV show Queen's Gambit has once again brought the spotlight on the game
of chess. This seems to happen in America every couple of decades. This occurred
back in 1985 when IBM developed the Big Blue computer that beat a World Champion,
Garry Kasparov, in one game though Kasparov ended up winning the match. And
there was the subject of this film - the Bobby Fischer vs Boris Spassky World
Champion match in 1972. People get excited, go out and buy a chess set or
bring one out of the closet where it has sat for years, learn a bit, play
a few games, likely lose badly and end up putting the chess set away in the
closet again. Chess is not an easy game to play well without study and discipline.
You have to understand the many openings and variations of those openings,
you have to learn to be both aggressive and defensive, you have to control
the center, you have to be careful not to leave a piece unprotected - unless
it is meant as a sacrifice. You have to be willing to lose early on because
very few of us are chess prodigies.
Many chess movies are not really about chess as much as about obsession.
The sort of obsession that crawls into your brain and starts to eat the rest
of you - your mental stability, your personality, your social graces, your
other interests, your ability to love. It takes them all and chews them up
like a voracious locust. No doubt there was something already there or perhaps
something lacking that invited this obsession in but once inside it is there
to stay. Filming a chess game and making it exciting isn't easy to do - it
is a serious, thoughtful and slow game - so films focus on the players and
what chess has done to them. This film makes the few games it shows actually
quite tense but it is still really about the two players who face each other
across the board. Chess is war and ego. You against one other person - who
is better, who is smarter, who is more innovative - your brain against your
opponent's and losing can be more than just a game - it is a repudiation
of your ability, your intelligence. It is a tough game to get very good at.
It is a wonderful game just to play casually but even then there is a sting
to losing. It feels personal.
Bobby Fischer was perhaps the greatest player of all time though of course
it is impossible to compare him to those who came before and those who have
come after. But he was without a doubt a genius, playing games that are still
considered classics. Aggressive and without mercy. Relentless. Obsessed.
This film begins with the Championship Match in Iceland, has a flashback
to his life that got him there, goes back to the match and ends with a text
epilogue about his life after the match. By the time of the match Fischer
was already in the process of his mental disintegration - paranoia
and delusion - fully immersed in conspiracy theories about the Jews taking
over the world (he was Jewish) and the Russians bugging his room, following
him. planning to kill him. But even with all this jetsam floating in his
brain he played some of the greatest games of his life and beat the Russian
World Champion, Spassky. And then for all intents to the world he disappeared
only to reappear years later a crazed man. It is by the end not a story of
redemption or victory but of tragedy and loss.
If you were around at the time, you will recall just how huge an event this
was. Enormous pressure on Fischer to win. It was a proxy for the Cold War
- the Russians were the best chess players in the world. It was a mark of
pride and propaganda for them. And then along comes this Brooklyn nobody
with more phobias than you could count and he beat them. He beat them all.
With flair. With ease. No government mandated training or financial help
on his way up - just a boy and then a man obsessed. America went crazy for
him, huge TV screens in Times Sq showed the games, he showed those damn Russkies.
He lived so beautifully on his chess board but was lost off of it. Tobey
Maguire is great as Fischer in capturing his dysfunction, his at times giant
ego and at other times his insecurity. Though if you watch Fischer doing
an interview with Cavett on YouTube right before the match he comes across
as a very nice normal guy so perhaps the writers over did it a bit. Spassky
is played by Liev Schreiber - in Russian! He also is excellent. This is a
solid film that falls into the trap of monitoring Fischer's every outburst
and mood swing - that can be a bit too much at times. But if you don't, you
just have a film about chess. I was a huge fan of Fischer and waited for
years for his heroic comeback. It never came.
