Disc Reviews
Bobby Fischer Against The World | DVD Review
“You may be old enough to remember the televised match with Spassky, an avid chess enthusiast yourself, or just a fascinated onlooker of the train wreck that Fischer became, but one and all will surely find it hard to turn away from this stirring biographic doc.”
Bobby Fischer was quite possibly the greatest to ever put his mind to the bi-colored board of chess. A child prodigy, at the age of 15, Fischer became the US Chess Champion, and by 29 he reached the pinnacle of his sport by beating out Boris Spassky to become the World Champion, but like many brilliant minds, Fischer’s talents came with significant mental instabilities that ultimately brought his downfall. In the 2010 Sundance preemed award-winning director Liz Garbus, Bobby Fischer Against The World, the Grandmaster’s neurotic life is empathetically analyzed by the few people he let get close to him.
At the age of 6, Fischer was living in a small Brooklyn apartment with his sister, and his incredibly intelligent Jewish Communist mother. Upon discovering chess, his young and obsessive mind became consumed by the game, and Fischer could do little else with his spare time, but play against himself, quickly surpassing the skills of every player he faced. Once he started to become a focal point of the media, his awkward introverted persona started to become quite obviously a man so confined by the rules of chess that sociopathy, and paranoia started to take center stage. Fischer’s erratic behavior leading up to, and during the 1972 World Champion match almost caused his forfeit on several occasions. His senseless actions did not wane, resulting in his forfeiting of the championship after refusing to defend his title. In the years following, Fischer detached himself from the media, and disassociated himself from the chess world. Through his paranoia, and an intensified interest in anti-Semitic ideologies, he started to publicly become an unhinged, mentally unstable radical who openly spouted hateful remarks about people of the Jewish faith, despite his own heritage. After a series of bizarre events that led to him becoming a US émigré, cut off from nearly everyone he knew and on the run from the US government, Fischer sunk deeper into depression, and the warped paranoid thoughts of a man who was very mentally ill. This brilliant decayed man lived out the rest of his life in Iceland, the only country that would take him in.
Garbus’s doc skillfully dissects the illusive character, shining light on his troubled childhood, and plagued relationship with his mother, which had a great impact on his intensely reclusive personality. Not only was he a genius with untreated mental issues, but because of his focus on chess, he missed out on having a normal childhood, leaving him to be somewhat of a brilliant, self absorbed man-child, who gave no thought to other human beings. Despite his insolency, Fischer is thought to be the best chess player that ever lived. His rock star rise to the top sparked a global interest in the game, but like some of the best rock stars, his unreliable spotlight burned out far too young because he could never seem to keep himself in check. Bobby Fischer Against The World dazzlingly puts the pieces of Fischer’s drama infused life into motion with an objective, and intimate handle on the chess master’s history. The film’s intelligent editing blends a variety of documents together with an international cast of interviewees, creating an enthralling tale out of an outlaw chess Grandmaster’s bizarre and tragic life.
Docurama Films picked up the film for DVD after it made a splash at Sundance and played on HBO’s summer doc series to a positive reception. Like many docs, the visuals are a mixed bag of old archival footage, new interviews, and home videos, making the image quality hard to judge. That said, everything flows well, and all of the old footage has been fitted to the widescreen frame, avoiding the dreaded stretch. Mostly dialog based, the stereo audio track sounds clear. Some cleaning up of aged audio seems to have been done, smoothing up distortion and the like.
A History of Chess
The first of two short pieces by Garbus, as the title implies, this is a short history of chess. It’s pieced together from material that was obviously cut from the feature. She even manages to sneak a Seventh Seal clip in there.
The Fight for Fischer’s Estate
Like the other feature, this piece looks like it just didn’t fit nicely in the feature and ended on the cutting room floor. Upon Fischer’s death, the chess champ had failed to make a will, leaving his $2 million estate in the balance. An Icelandic court was left to decide who the rightful inheritor of his estate was – his Japanese wife, his Filipino girlfriend, or a pair of greedy American nephews?
You may be old enough to remember the televised match with Spassky, an avid chess enthusiast yourself, or just a fascinated onlooker of the train wreck that Fischer became, but one and all will surely find it hard to turn away from this stirring biographic doc. Fischer teetered between insanity and genius like so many great minds of the past, but he failed to even try to hide his flaws, displaying his eccentricities for the world to see. Garbus has collected them all and constructed an effortless portrayal of tormented intellect that is at once haunting and highly entertaining.