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Bobby Fischer Against The World
| Released |
15 July 2011 |
| Director |
Liz Garbus |
| Starring |
Bobby Fischer |
Producer(s)
|
Liz Garbus, Stanley Buchtal, Rory Kennedy, Matthew Justus |
Origin
|
United States, United Kingdom, Iceland |
| Running Time |
93 minutes |
| Genre |
Documentary, biography, sport |
| Rating |
TBC |
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The Immortal Game.
This is the first documentary feature, directed by Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Liz Garbus, to explore in depth the tragic and bizarre life of the late chess genius Robert James "Bobby" Fischer.
Raised in a modest Brooklyn household by his Communist activist mother and elder sister, Bobby Fischer lived a largely isolated and cloistered life until his penchant for chess brought him the fame and notoriety which he detested. Early photographs show the gangly, crew-cutted Bobby shyly smiling amid the detritus of a solo chess game while neighbours recall the young, gawky adolescent with the loping stride who cut a lonely figure trudging from chess club to chess club all over New York City. At fifteen, Bobby became the youngest grandmaster in chess history, but it was his 1972 World Championship match against the Russian Boris Spassky that secured Fischer's status as a Cold War icon and national hero. The ensuing hysteria however was the beginning of the end for the notoriously paranoid and increasingly obstreperous chess star. He increasingly shunned the spotlight-ceding his status as world champion by refusing to defend his title-and gradually drifted into years of hermetic existence until his death in 2008.
Garbus's documentary is an exemplary account of the unravelling of a genius. The fine line that exists between enormous intellectual capability and madness is expertly plumbed. In the end what made Bobby Fischer so brilliant was the same thing that engineered his spectacular downfall. With neither embellishment nor dramatic accoutrements, Garbus presents Fischer as an almost sympathetic character, an unwitting pawn in a universal game of chess. A first rate roster of people including Malcolm Gladwell and Garry Kasparov offer a variety of explanations or personal anecdotes which help to explain Fischer's apparent self-destructiveness. Oftentimes the truth appears stranger than fiction-the fact that Fischer was of Jewish heritage yet often spewed violent anti-Semitic comments was one of the more baffling facets of his character. In 1992 when he was indicted by the US Government for violating US sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia, he steadfastly refused to return to the country of his birth and instead remained a fugitive so to speak, until Iceland came to his assistance and offered him full citizenship. Grizzled, wild-eyed and bloated, Fischer's latter years were marked by embittered tirades against the US and the Mossad until eventually, he died alone and virtually penniless in a country that had been the scene of his most celebrated victory. Garbus's excellent documentary leaves us imagining what might have been if things had turned out differently.
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Louisa McElwee |
