leethomas-11621 Compulsive doco. Still leaves you wishing they had delved more into his obvious mental condition instead of explaining it as part of his chess genius. And also, where exactly was he before he was tracked down and enticed to play again in '92? There may not be much to explain besides the fact he was part of the Church and then became converted to wacky hateful ideologies and then the Hungarian girl Zita appeared. It's all still a bit sketchy but fascinating. And that neurologist in Iceland, how did he get into the picture and why? Maybe as the film more or less concludes these questions are all distractions and Bobby's legacy is his games and what he achieved, mostly alone. Will he inspire others? We are certainly left with the understanding that his childhood (or lack of one) caused his troubled life.

Dhaval Vyas For those who do not play chess or know anything about it, the game is something that is commonly referenced in books, poetry, movies, etc. It is seen as somewhat of a metaphor for happenings in real life. For those who play chess and are in love with the game, it is something of an art or science, or something cosmic that is unexplainable. They may often be frustrated as to why the majority of society does not share their passion.Chess has survived for thousands of years and is arguably the hardest game in the world. Through the eons, if there is one name or one master that has towered above anyone else, it is the American Bobby Fischer. When Fischer defeated Boris Spassky in 1972, the match created more publicity than any other chess event in history (even more than when IBM's computer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in 1996). A lone American had defeated the mighty Soviet chess machine during the cold war. What should have been just the beginning of an already great career for Fischer, it was actually just the end.Bobby Fischer made one of the great disappearances of any famous person of the 20th century. He did not die, but was as elusive as Bigfoot after he won the world championship. For those who encountered him only would end of becoming frustrated because they realized he was slowly going insane. 20 years after winning the Championship (1992), Fischer reappeared to play Spassky for another match. When he appeared, it became even more obvious that the man had lost his mind. When the September 11th attacks happened, Fischer shocked the world when he applauded the acts on a radio program. He never played again and passed away in 2008.This HBO program is fantastic in that it is presented in a manner that is suitable for those who barely know anything about chess or those who know the intricate details of Fischer's career and life. It keeps the viewers' attention by playing nice music in the background throughout. The program shows numerous photographs and television footage that most people have never seen. The central focus of the program is the Fischer - Spassky match of 1972, but it juxtaposes all kind of other topics such as Fischer's family and love life, and his affiliation with a cult group. The program even has Henry Kissinger talking about the match. Kissinger had encouraged Fischer to follow through with the match when Fischer was about to not show up. But, the program does not blame Fischer's religious obsession with chess for this mental breakdown. It posits that it could have been a possibility.I will have to strongly disagree with one part of this documentary. It stated that when after Fischer won the world championship, he was arguably the most famous man in the world (aside from Jesus). I find this really hard to believe. One because Fischer was a merely just a chess champion and (2) there were many other gigantic figures at that time; Muhammad Ali, Richard Nixon, Chairman Mao, just to name a few.In the end, the enigma will always remain the enigma. Nobody really knows why Fischer quit playing after 1972 or what caused his mental disintegration. Even though he forfeited his title to Karpov in 1975, why did he completely give up playing even tournaments and simuls altogether? What we are left is speculation. Many chess lovers will proudly proclaim that Fischer was the best player of all time. There maybe some truth to this, but I believe Garry Kasparov finally deserves this title. This is because Kasparov was willing to take on all comers, human beings or computers. Kasparov did this for almost 3 decades. Kasparov defeated an ongoing Champion Anatoly Karpov (one of the top 5 players ever) 5 times and he continued to defend this title beating brilliant and talented young players - Ivanchuck, Shirov, Topalov, Anand, Short, Leko, Kramnik, Kamsky, and so many others for another 2 decades.*Please do not comment if you are going to get into a "greatest ever" debate - it will be yet another endless discussion and will lead to nowhere.* Fishcer's story is one of the great tragedies of chess, but in the short time that he was brilliant, he shined so brightly that it continues to illuminate to this day. Although his life ended to a sad decline, keep in mind, we remember and admire him for what he produced.

johnnyboyz Bobby Fischer Against the World is a documentary rigorously trying to wedge its way beneath the skin of the idea that chess and madness might be a little closer to one another than one would first think. The amusing reactions one hears of the Americans often having in understanding that a game of Cricket can last all day, for five days, and that draws are often the end result came to mind during the Bobby Fischer Against the World; Chess, it is revealed, being a game that, when the two best players in the world face off against one another for the world title, is played out across a good dozen-or-so matches of intense gamesmanship wherein which individual matches can only really be called off as a draw after something ridiculous like five hours - at least you're outdoors and you're moving about when you play Cricket. Chess is another animal; just the two people, at a table, at the forefront of a large hall engaged in a game of such emotional and cerebral manpower that it doesn't matter what the weather is, just make sure you guard that damn king piece. You don't have to be a little off-kilter to take it up as a profession nor indeed study it religiously as a nine year old boy, but it would seem that if you want your name echoed and remembered through its future echelons, it certainly helps.In a sense, I'm digressing; it is to director Liz Garbus' great credit that she explores the life of the titular American chess player Bobby Fischer and doesn't paint some sort of wacky image of him, nor indeed chess enthusiasts in general, as complete kooks enjoying the procession of remaining stationary for a good few hours a day over a period of a week moving small items around a board. Better that than sitting in front of a screen moving a computer generated 'piece' around an online warzone arena, I say. On the contrary, it is an informative and striking documentary; a piece with a good balance between the detailing of a man's life as he gradually gets deeper into something he enjoys, but arriving with a steady air of both desperation and gloom as he goes on to get deeper-still into something else of which has a cold and frightening nature.When it begins, it does so with a range of voices and views; a scattergun series of opinions from an array of people from a number of different countries. They are on Fischer with some speaking ill of him, others highly – the tones are ones of anger and sympathy all-at-once, and if the presence of a chess board this early on informs us of where Fischer's skills lie, then it is this to a simplistic degree on top of the fact Garbus is calling on this item synonymous with conflict and constant shifts to establish the notion that this man's existence itself is a bit of a war-zone. Heading straight into the man's life as a boy in 1950s America, we learn of both how he conquered varying levels of infant chess, leading to a rise through certain ranks and unfettered television appearances, as well as the state of the game in his nation prior to all the larger happenings instigated by this man.It would appear that Fischer was always a different kettle of fish; a boy who took chess boards to dinner and, through a piece of stock footage that might have been used four or five times to create the illusion he was doing it more often, appeared to 'begin' matches against himself half way through so as to devise the best tactics one might use to strike – this would result in a draughts-like series of manoeuvres resulting in the mass-removal of the opponents' pieces. He read, but he read magazines on issues such as water pollution and got involved in theories and political conspiracies to do with how the American government was supposedly up to no good. His childhood was mostly fatherless, and his mother did everything she could in bringing him up; he got very lonely as a kid, but later found solace in occupying large, open and lonely looking spaces, in the form of pastures, by himself but for a Scottish photographer, of whom snapped him with his consent.Primarily, we learn that Chess featured very little on the American sociological sporting curriculum before Fischer, and that he helped change this. Chess is a game of intense conflict, but who needs it when you've got games of conflict in the form of NFL and Ice Hockey? It is a different story over in the Soviet Union, we're told; wherein which Chess is celebrated as a national sport of sorts, it is encouraged and funded – the most fascinating thing being that it is even categorised as a sport, in that I sense very few people would necessarily bestow such a title onto that of, say, Ludo. A large chunk of the film is dedicated to a certain match in the nation of Iceland against a certain Boris Spassky, an instance highlighting both Fischer's psychological deficiencies which would later come to plague him as well as his superb skills in the art of Chess playing. Here, Chess is likened to boxing or bullfighting; indeed, Fischer prepares for it as if some sort of duelling - it is a contest, it requires training away from a board. "How does one train away from a board?" I hear one asking, by powering up your wrist so that when you shake your opponent's hand, he feels it. The film is Garbus taking the "sport" of Chess and placing it onto screens – not in a stilted nor mundane fashion, but in a way that is cinematic and appealing; it is a winning documentary and one I thoroughly enjoyed.

siderite A very comprehensive documentary about Bobby Fischer, this film doesn't constitute in itself a masterpiece of the documentary genre, yet its subject is very interesting to me.Bobby Fischer is this brilliant chess player coming out of Brooklyn and literally living the American dream. He starts playing at 6 years old, quickly outshining players in his categories, reaches a moment when he fights the Russian chess world champion in the height of the cold war and wins, thus making popular the game of chess even in an anti- intellectual country as the US and revolutionising the game of chess itself.Alas, soon after he pretty much goes insane, with bouts of paranoia and psychosis and ridiculous antisemitism (he was Jewish himself). The greatest win of the chess world was in the same time its greatest loss. It is painful to watch this great mind shrink and die under the weight of mental illness. The film is merciless in displaying it and does as much in bringing forth the legend of the greatest chess player of all time as it does to totally demolish it in the end. It is one of those stories where you would wish for the main character to die right after he wins the world championship. Too sad.As for the chess itself, there was none. It is strictly a layman's story, about Bobby the man and of the people around him and the human footprint of his existence.