Was Bobby Fischer the greatest chess player who ever lived? Probably, but as this HBO-produced documentaryreveals there was also a darker side to his genius. Drawing upon a wealth of fascinating archival footage, veteran documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus (Girlhood, The Execution Of Wanda Jean, etc) draws a complex portrait of the man, depicting him as stubborn, arrogant, obsessive and a temperamental but typically flawed genius who crumpled under enormous pressure. The portrait of Fischer is rounded out through a series of extensive and candid interviews with colleagues and those who knew him best. There is even an interview with a sad, pathetic and paranoid Fischer himself, filmed a couple of years before his death. Garbus traces his life from his first public appearances as a self-taught child prodigy, becoming US chess champion at the age of 15 and world champion in 1972, to his lonely death in Iceland in 2008 where the disgraced former champion was living in exile. The film spends a lot of time examining his challenge against Russian world champion Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, arguably the most famous chess match in history, looking at the psychological ploys Fischer used to rattle his opponent. The film also looks at the impact his victory had for the profile of chess in general, but the far more fascinating context of the Cold War paranoia against which the match was played is skimmed over. Following his victory Fischer's fragile mental state declined and he failed to deal with the public adulation that followed, and Garbus examines his tragic fall. The film unfolds in a somewhat conventional fashion, but it still makes for compelling viewing.
Review of Bobby Fischer Against the World
