*. You can understand why someone would have thought it was an interesting project. The Fischer-Spassky chess tournament was a very big deal in 1972, and a good book and a good documentary had recently come out on it. Then there’s the fact that Bobby Fischer was a nut, and they always play well in biopics. There were a number of fruitful angles to be explored here: mental health, politics, genius, celebrity.
*. Then there’s the fact that movies love dramatizing these classic battles of the titans. Pretty soon we’d be seeing Borg vs. McEnroe, Battle of the Sexes (Bobby Riggs vs. Billie Jean King), Ford v Ferrari, and Godzilla vs. Kong. Pawn Sacrifice was at the start of all this.
*. But there were hurdles to overcome. How was Fischer’s fragile and paranoid mental state going to be presented? And how do you make a chess tournament interesting in such a format? The classic games go on for hours, with little action and moves that a general audience even well versed in chess can’t be expected to understand.
*. Pawn Sacrifice can’t solve either of these problems, and manages to add some new ones all its own. First off there’s the casting. Tobey Maguire as Bobby Fischer? Anthony Hopkins was more believable as Nixon. Yes Maguire is game, but he’s just not the thing. He was a producer on the project though so I’m guessing it’s something he really wanted to do.
*. Liev Schreiber actually does look a bit like Boris Spassky, and apparently even spoke his own Russian lines, but the cool shades kind of lost me. Were they there to make him seem more villainous? Because wasn’t the real Spassky a more sympathetic figure?
*. Alas, movies about high-level competition need conflict. So we even get an imaginary scene on a Californian beach where Fischer yells at Spassky and his Kremlin handlers “I’m coming for you! I’m coming for you!” Yeah! And as the crowd cheers in the auditorium and around the world at Fischer’s beautiful game 6 (even Spassky himself applauded Fischer) we can almost hear the chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”
*. Apparently the title comes from the idea that both Fischer and Spassky were “pawns of their nation” (director Edward Zwick), fighting the Cold War by proxy. This is another angle that is briefly suggested (a phone call to Bobby from Kissinger, for example) but it doesn’t make Pawn Sacrifice a political movie. Although given Fischer’s own paranoid thoughts on political matters any such message would be problematic anyway.
*. So it’s one of those movies that must have seemed a good idea at the time but which turned out to be very difficult to realize. On top of that, Maguire wasn’t right for the part, they make almost no attempt to explain or even represent the chess being played, and the politics comes down to the usual us vs. them stuff. I’m not sure it would have worked even if the stars were in alignment, and in this case they weren’t.
Alex on Film 
Doesn’t The Queen’s Gambit answer most of the questions you’ve asked? How do you make a chess tournament gripping to a wide audience?
That was a series wasn’t it? I didn’t see it, but I take it they had more time for development and explanation.
I’m learning more about Fischer by reading this blog than I have in the last 40+ years!
You should become a professional blogger and start raking in the millions….
I know, I know. I’m leaving a fortune on the table.
If Dix can become a bajillionaire by talking about talking animals, the opportunity is there for you. Think of all the bins you could buy…
A master of bins only needs a few in the right colours. Too many bins demonstrates a lack of recycling skill, not to mention a prodigiously wasteful lifestyle.
But if you recycle it all, then it all balances out. And if you have more bins, that means more work for the bin workers, which means they’ll get paid more.
And thus the wealth cycles upward TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!
As you appear to have become a chess addict, Queen’s Gambit is indeed a good recommendation. Would be interesting to know your thoughts contrasted against these substandard Fischer biopics. Very effective at helping the audience understand the intellect, mental anguish and skill required on the grueling odyssey of chess mastery – without any knowledge of the rules.
I do want to see it sometime. It sounds good. The doc on Fischer was pretty good. This movie is a miss though.
No Breaking Bad, but worth a watch. I’ll have to catch the doc.
Also going to big up the Queens Gambit, though I think I’ve said as much on your book blog when discussing Walter Tevis. I didn’t see this movie, but it sounds meh, so I won’t look for it.
Also why are you going to Tamworth?
Tamworth?
Otsy has been blithering on abut it on my post today, something to do with the snow dome but I have no idea really.
Gotcha.