Bobby Fischer Against the World
- Posted: 30th Jun 2011
- Category: Reviews
by Laura Thornley
Who knew a documentary about chess could be quite so interesting? It’s the game I associate with war, the pseudo philosophers of the world, and old men in Central Park putting the world to rights. So with this prejudice-laden mind, my hopes weren’t too high about making it through 96 minutes without at least 30 winks. However, I am pleased to report that Liz Garbus’ new doc is a gripping (yes gripping!) portrait of the youngest chess champion in the world and his cataclysmic demise into madness.
I’m not saying I can’t play the game – I mean I know how to move the pieces, but when a chess expert breaks it down during an interview – ‘after moving the first pawn there are literally hundreds of thousands of next step possibilities’ – I had the feeling I had much to learn. The story goes that Bobby Fischer shook the chess world back in 1958 by becoming the Grand Master at the age of 14 – the youngest in history. Up until this point the chess world had been dominated by the Soviets, using their successes to exemplify intellectual superiority over the Americans. And when the Americans discovered they had a genius on their side, a young boy who had been singularly obsessed by the game since the age of six, chess became a very marketable, symbolic commodity. Not so dissimilar from the exporting of abstract expressionism as the paradigm of American freedom.
The doc doesn’t just focus solely on the direct politics of the day, but rather they serve to echo the already existing war-like paranoia that Fischer’s personality embodied. Chess players have to be paranoid to anticipate the infinite amount of attacks they are faced with – but differentiating between the game and life seemed to be Fischer’s ultimate downfall. The doc takes most of its focus from the match between Fischer and Spassky (the reigning Soviet world champion) in 1972, which was an overwrought moment in chess history as Fischer lived up to his Prima Dona moniker, to-ing and fro-ing from the match. Garbus makes great use of TV footage from the day, drawing on interviews of Fischer and even getting a few laughs from the out of date reportage styles. Post 1972 Fischer became reclusive and descended into madness and this section of his life is equally well documented but often makes for uncomfortable viewing. Fischer died in 2008 an intolerable character, filled with paranoia, racism and bitterness.
The portrait or biographical documentary is a popular style at the moment and often leads me to scepticism – isn’t our society overly concerned already with individualism and celebrity culture? But this question is actually what lies at the heart of the doc. Bobby Fischer represents an almost Michael Jackson-esque figure of the chess world; he was the best, a genius but his difference ultimately drove him mad. A powerful and poetic insight… and to think I was cynical.
Dir. Liz Garbus | 92 mins | USA
Read Laura Thornley's interview with director Liz Garbus here.