Bobby Fischer Against the World

This fascinating film documents the rise and fall of chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer. It isn't really about chess; it's very much more about a man who was obsessed by it. As a result of his pursuit of perfection on the chess board, he piece by piece lost his own mind. The intensity of the mind games necessary to succeed in top level chess overflowed into the personal life of Fischer until he became a fully fledged paranoid schizophrenic. This ultimately resulted in his public anti-Semite and September 11th ravings. By the end it seems quite obvious that Fischer was a mentally ill man whose genius on the chess board was as much fuelled by his mental disorder than anything else. His obsessive immersion into all things chess at the expense of anything else in his life was after all an extremely unhealthy pursuit; it made him the genius he was but at a terrible human cost.

The key historical event that the film revolves around is the 1972 World Championship against the Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky. This dramatic confrontation hosted in Iceland had huge political significance seeing as it set the American against a Russian at the height of the cold war. As a result it was probably the most internationally famous chess match ever played. Even at this early stage, however, Fischer's erratic behaviour is quite evident. He almost never made it in the first place due to his own personal demons, when finally there he arrived absurdly late and then proceeded to complain about the hum of the TV cameras. You might find yourself wishing that the dignified Spassky actually defeated this highly strung man. But this is partially why this documentary is an interesting one, as its central character is not particularly likable at all. There is very little actual footage of Fischer; he remains a very enigmatic figure. After the Spassky match less and less is seen of him, so much so that his next public appearance in a match in Yugoslavia occurs the best part of twenty years later. In agreeing to this he contravenes international law, seeing as this country was in the midst of a terrible war. The sight of Fischer publicly spitting on the letter warning him that he would be breaking international law is a grim one indeed; the years that followed until his death in 2008 seem to be equally mysterious and sad.

Bobby Fischer Against the World is a very good documentary about a troubled man who was destroyed by the only thing he loved. The documentary states that he was the greatest player there ever was. Personally I think this is a somewhat romantic statement based mostly on the drama of his ascent. But for sure, he was one of the most fascinating chess players that ever lived and in many respects remains an enigma still.

Making a documentary film is always a challenge for the creator, especially when the topic has been barely touched. Director Liz Garbus, in making the documentary "Bobby Fischer Against the World", had to overcome three critical obstacles.

First she had to portray Fischer's complex character. Since filming started after his death, Garbus had to dig up footage—scattered around the world—and weave together the various strands of Fischer's life. Not only that, she had to gather together all those who played important role in his life.

The second critical obstacle for Grabus was that she had to depict the period where the tension of the Cold War was emerging (because of the Vietnam War), and the whole world was going through major changes, with the entire planet becoming a mortal battlefield. Although chess had started to become popular, the hostility of that time was somehow deeply reflected on the chessboard, and this was soon exploited even more, when the world of politics penetrated into the world of chess.

Garbus' third critical obstacle was that Fischer's life can be divided into three parts: i) his life (and chess career) before 1972, ii) his battle for the title in 1972, and iii) his life after 1972. This means that Fischer's life is often summarized within the boundaries of a single event, stripping away all the aspects that formed his character up to that point. How was Garbus then, going to tell the story of a man who spent half his life playing chess and then disappeared? To overcome these obstacles, Garbus chooses a nonlinear storytelling. Going back—to Fischer's childhood and early years, and then later—forward to his life after the championship games, Garbus uses the 1972 events as the spine of the story.

Visiting Fischer's childhood and adolescence, Garbus shows us his love for (and dedication to) chess, his mother's strong personality, his father's abandonment and absence, and how the precipitate publicity affected his privacy. But what no one mentions in the interviews is that Fischer, at a young age, struggled to gain the respect of others. He was a boy among men, playing (and trying to understand) their game. That struggle was slowly draining away Fischer's childhood (and transforming the first 29 years of his life to a prolonged chess game), the result of which Garbus masterfully displays—at what could be the climax of the film—when she shows Fischer, soon after he won the title, in an amusement park sitting inside a little airplane—flying towards his lost childhood.

The tense climate between the U.S. and the Soviet Union—and its echo in the chess world, is brilliantly shown by Garbus through the rare and previously unseen footage she managed to dig up. Unfortunately, Spassky is the great absentee from this documentary. Although the title of the film is Bobby Fischer Against the World (meaning that Fischer fights against everyone and no one at the same time, indicating that Fischer's whole world is nothing but chess—and Fischer himself is nothing but chess—therefore Fischer's only opponent is… Fischer), Garbus mistakenly diminishes Spassky's unique and independent personality by putting him in the same basket with all the others. After all, Spassky was the final external obstacle in Fischer's road to the crown—the one guy he did not yet win. And to paraphrase Thorarinsson, "I think we can agree on the point that Mr. Spassky exists".

However, Garbus does a great job regarding the events of 1972. She leaves out, though, the drama of the two players not having similar chairs (with Fischer's chair being superior to Spassky's), but generally, she covers the events accurately enough: from Fischer's training program, his antics of not showing up, his lists of demands, his growing hatred towards the Soviets, the defending of his principles, the antipathy to cameras and photographers, to his so long-awaited win, Garbus quietly and unpretentiously illustrates the events of the 1972 summer in Iceland.

There is another level in this documentary, a hidden level that Garbus unconsciously created. All the interviewees in the film are trying to label Fischer to a degree that fits their world of understanding. They believe that Fischer should have a particular role in their world, and serve that role in a specific manner.

We are in a society where everyone needs something to have a form in order to understand it. That's why we put labels on everything, and don't let things just be. In that sense, for me, Fischer died in 1972 and reborn after that, as a man with no home and no childhood, trying to play chess on a higher level, the one we all play and eventually lose

As a friend of Bobby Fischer for almost 20 years I am in an unusual position to critique this documentary. Let me say at the beginning that I think it is a brilliant work. Even so I am deeply troubled by the complete omission of three people who were as close to Bobby as any one who appears in the film, and probably closer. The three are Jack and Ethel Collins, and William Lombardy.

Bobby cut his teeth, as it were, at the home of the Collins's, spending an inordinate amount of spare time with them as a young child. In their home, he learned from Jack -- a New York State Champion, an editor of "Modern Chess Openings," (America's leading précis on opening play), a respected Correspondence Chess player, and the dean of American Chess Teachers -- and he received needed motherly sustenance from Jack's sister Ethel.

The Rev. William Lombardy was Fischer's "second" in Reykjavik. It is he who fought the battles for Bobby with the administrators and the arbiters. By his doing so, Bobby could stay somewhat in the background getting his needed rest. The tension and responsibilities lay on the broad shoulders of the Rev. Lombardy, who did a magnificent job on the front lines acting for the Mercurial Mr. Fischer. The full story of Bobby Fischer cannot be adequately told without these three Fischer companions making some contribution to his film life.

Given these three omissions one has the right to ask why Susan Polgar is represented as a Fischer expert. She was but three years old when the Fischer-Spassky match was played, and though she may have had later social connection with him, it is wrong to present her in the role she plays.

One can wonder too how Sam Sloan was chosen to give his views of Fischer. His knowledge of Fischer is a distant one at best.

Plaudits, though, are due for the in-depth interviews of Larry Evans and Tony Saidy, two who knew Bobby well. The same may be said of Asa Hofmann, to this day a legend in New York chess circles.

Bobby Fischer Against the World (2010)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Another very good documentary from HBO, this one taking a look at the life and career of Bobby Fischer, the chess genius who rose to fame at an early age and really put the sport on the U.S. map when he defeated the Russian Spassky in 1972. Fischer's rise was quickly put out when he refused to defend his championship and the genius spent the rest of his life trying to hide from the public and apparently driving closer to madness. David Edmonds, Dr. Anthony Saidy, Susan Polgar, Henry Kissinger, David Shenk, Malcolm Gladwell and Larry Evans are among the many people interviewed here as they try to explain what made Fischer a genius but also what eventually got him kick out of America. This is a very fascinating documentary because it really seems to be trying to tell the truth and not just sugar-coat some rather troubled moments in this man's life. It's clear that he was a genius at the game of chess and the documentary makes an interesting choice showing other great minds of the game who ended their lives in a mental breakdown. The majority of the running time is devoted to the Spassky match as we get a game-to-game breakdown of events, shown the important matches and also the various controversies that Fischer stirred up at the time. So, in reality, even in his greatest moments Fischer was still delivering controversy and upsetting people. Fans of chess, Fischer or those just interesting in great documentaries should really be entertained by this thing. The documentary doesn't really explain the rules of chess so some might want to read up a bit before going into the film but even if you know nothing the story is just so fascinating where it really doesn't matter.

"Bobby Fischer Against the World" is a great title. I never met him, but all of the original news coverage offered in this excellent documentary offers memories that match the title exactly. There are two things I would have liked to see done differently. The cutting in and out of Bobby's speaking while on camera is a current trend, perhaps due to the limited attention span of today. I would have preferred to see him more often on screen uninterrupted as I remember it was originally presented. This gives a better picture of his obsession and of his complete personality. And second, the music, while more or less contemporary, was not in line with Bobby's tastes. He was a recluse and eschewed crowds, coverage, and pop culture. And, as a passing thought, wasn't it great to see network coverage of chess as a ... sport!