Are you an avid chess player? Then you probably will know Bobby Fischer. Personally I didn’t know anything about him, I didn’t know that he was considered to be one of the best chess players who ever lived. He became U.S. champion at the age of 14 and could have been the reigning world champion for years. As this documentary shows, brilliance and being obsessive about something are very close to each other.
When Bobby Fischer was a kid he became interested in chess and did almost nothing else. His whole life was about chess. He read stacks of books about chess, going through all the moves and was brilliant at the game. After he became U.S. champion he had a shot at the world title against Boris Spassky, a game which would take place in Iceland. Slowly everyone was finding out that Fischer was very eccentric and nobody knew if he would actually show up to play the game. He made specific demands and even when the game went ahead he wasn’t happy with cameras filming the event, which he claimed broke his concentration. After the match he slowly seemed to be obsessing about other things like religion, secret societies and other things. He was a recluse who wouldn’t talk to people and wouldn’t show himself. He became a criminal after he played a game in former Yugoslavia, which wasn’t allowed because of international sanctions which meant he couldn’t return to the U.S. It really is an amazing story of a very unique man.
Bobby Fischer Against the World shows that Fischer was responsible for making chess a popular sport. The world championship match at the time was compared to the Rumble in the Jungle fight by Mohammad Ali. It shows that with enough coverage people can be interested in something they normally wouldn’t watch. This documentary paints a very interesting portrait of a man haunted by his past and the way he grew up. Who became a champion but had deep flaws which made it hard for him to be a normal part of society. It succeeds in showing the viewer who Bobby Fischer was, interviewing the people who knew him and showing archival footage and is an enjoyable documentary to watch.
Score: 8
manonmona reblogged this on Espacio de MANON.
Nice. I wanted to watch this but was discouraged because some other review said it was boring because of long scenes of chess playing. It’s gone back up on my watch list now.
I didn’t think there was that much chess playing actually, this is not really about that as it focuses more on him….
Nice write-up. I watched this last night and enjoyed it, mostly. I think perhaps the director went a little overboard with the ‘chess makes you nuts’ angle, (although the guy at the end, describing other famous chess nut jobs was pretty funny), but you’re right; it makes you aware of Fischer and the time he came to prominence.
(I was also thrilled that he started most games with p-k4, ‘cos it’s about the only opening I know…!)
Thanks, well you have to admit that he had some pretty extreme ideas!
I never studied chess so I just do anything as an opening 😉