Interesting article ~ Gen
Why do the movies love chess?
By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine
The late Ingmar Bergman's film the Seventh Seal helped cement his
reputation as a cerebral director, and might explain why chess is such
an enduring theme for film makers.
In the Seventh Seal a Swedish knight returns from the crusades to find
his home country ravaged by tragedy and is soon locked in a game of
chess with death.
Without giving much away, it's a fairly intense game.
Bergman's arthouse favourite is perhaps the most notorious example of
chess on celluloid, but there are hundreds and hundreds of others.
>From the brainiest to the schlockiest, one of the movie world's
favourite devices is chess.
And among the chess-playing fraternity there's a whole subculture of
"chess in the movies" discussion, with a number of dedicated websites,
and Bob Basalla's book Chess in the Movies, providing exhaustive lists
stretching up to 2,000 titles.
Perhaps the second best known chess scene is in the Thomas Crown
Affair, where Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway enjoy a romantically-
charged game.
Satyajit Ray's the Chess Players is another arthouse classic, while
2000's Luzhin Defence had a grandmaster as its central character.
But for many chess aficionados, the best example of the game has to be
in the second James Bond film, From Russia With Love, where the
Spectre agent Kronsteen ruthlessly beats the Canadian master McAdams.
Plotting moves
This fictional struggle was based on a real and much-discussed game
between Boris Spassky and David Bronstein - who inspired the name
Kronsteen despite being the loser in the real-life game - in Leningrad
in 1960.
Grandmaster, writer and chess entrepreneur Raymond Keene says it is
easily his favourite chess scene.
"It leaves off two of the pawns on the queen-side but the way they
stage it in the movie is really magnificent, the giant chessboards and
the 'Venice' set. When I try and arrange a chess tournament I'm aiming
for that. The position itself is very well chosen."
CHESS MOVIES
The Chess Players
Blade Runner
Seventh Seal
>From Russia With Love
Casablanca
Chess Fever
Thomas Crown Affair
And the chess scene perfectly sets up the character of the evil
Kronsteen. He is a chess master so he is someone who plots every move
in great detail and thinks a long way ahead.
"Kronsteen works for Spectre. He's an evil genius of vast cunning but
he is defeated by Bond's British bravura, attacking each problem as it
comes.
"I feel flattered that we chess grandmasters are regarded as
geniuses," Keene adds
And the use in From Russia With Love certainly gives us a clue as to
the nature of Hollywood's relationship with chess.
Aficionado woe
Hollywood is a place often chided for being disproportionately full of
airheads, and movie-makers therefore use chess to add gravitas into
movies. And it's gravitas that comes with a bit of interaction.
Illustrating the cleverness of your baddie by showing him with his
head in an encyclopaedia is not quite so engaging.
But for the "chess in movies" enthusiasts there are problems. Many
positions are wrongly set-up with pieces in places they cannot be.
Characters playing are always saying "check" to illustrate a dramatic
point. But most of all aficionados like to sniff at the regularity
with which the board has a black square on the right. In chess the
board is always set up with the white square on the right.
Malcolm Pein, who was once asked to devise a chess game for an
EastEnders scene, says the mistakes can be annoying, but there are
still many chess scenes to love.
"Every time a chess board appears a million chess fans squeal 'the
boards the wrong way round'."
Sometimes chess is in a movie because a star or director is a player.
Humphrey Bogart was reputed to be at the top end of amateur players,
and suggested a chess scene for Casablanca. And Stanley Kubrick was so
taken with chess that it features in The Killing, Lolita and 2001 and
alluded to the game in Paths of Glory.
"The best scenes are where there is some tension between the
protagonists. Humphrey Bogart has a special place in my affections
because he did love chess. The board was definitely the right way
round in Casablanca," Pein adds.
The chess authorities have tried to capitalise on the movies to
recruit new players, such as when the game was heavily featured in a
Harry Potter movie.
And the fans like most the movies - such as From Russia With Love -
that at least attempt to use a real game. Blade Runner features a game
based on Anderssen against Kieseritzky in London in 1851, known to
some as the Immortal Game, and 1925's Chess Fever which featured Cuban
world champion Jose Raul Capablanca playing a champion.
WHAT CHESS SCENES CONVEY
Lonely men
Evil geniuses
Romantic interaction
Planning ahead
Achievement through struggle
Prospero's Books is said to allude to "the Game of the Century"
between Donald Byrne and a young Bobby Fischer in 1956.
And ultimately, chess fans love the movies, because they add a glamour
that chess struggles to find on its own.
Go to a real chess tournament and you don't immediately sense an
ambience of espionage and romance.
So maybe the occasional "black on the right" and misplaced queen is an
acceptable price to pay.
Here is a selection of your comments.
Don't forget Alan Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad." It's one of the
most chess-centric movies out there--right down to the production
design.
David Walker, Columbia, MD, USA
Though chess may indeed be used as a cinematic metaphor for
cleverness, the Oriental game of go (a.k.a. weiqi or baduk) seems to
be used when directors want to go a step further. Western movie
references to go seem to go back to 1957 (Robert Mitchum in Heaven
Knows Mr Allison) and it's a central theme in A Beautiful Mind (2001)
and Pi (1997). There are, of course, a massive number of references in
Japanese, Chinese and Korean films. The monthly go magazine Gekkan Go
World is currently up to No. 52 in a series on Japanese films that
feature go boards strongly (Soko ni go ban ga atta).
John Fairbairn, London, UK
I always liked the chess game in The Thing where Kurt Russells
character is resoundingly beaten by the computer and doesn't take it
too well.
Nelly, Liverpool
Chess scenes in movies & TV are almost always moronic. Usually it's
used for comic bathos: the arrogant male fool (of a Hancock type)
thinks he's winning against a minor character (female/ child) who then
immediately proclaims an entirely unforeseen 'checkmate'. This is a
terribly repetitive cliche. One example is George losing to his
girlfriend in Seinfeld. How often is checkmate unforeseen in real
matches?!
PTS, UK
One of the best movie chess games is that played between Alec Guiness
and Ernie Kovacs with shot-glass pieces primed with strong alcohol, in
which the pieces taken have to be drunk, with predictable results!
Francis, Seaford, UK
Satyajit Ray's movie "Shatranj ke Khiladi" (The Chess players) is one
of my alltime favorites. A beautiful allegorical tale where two nobles
spend their time playing chess while life around them is crumbling
down. The wife of one nobleman is having an affair and another is so
consumed by the game that has no mood to sleep with his. Their state,
Oudh, meanwhile is taken over by the Raj. The way chess is used as a
means to convey the flaccidness and weakness of the aristocracy in
19th century India is nothing short of brilliant and is a measure of
the genius of Ray.
Padmanabha Kamath, Redmond, USA
Many years ago I saw a German film at a theater in Paris with the
English title,"Black and White as in Day and Night", featuring Bruno
Ganz as a chess player who descends into madness and, as I recall,
blows up the chess board of his final match and is eventually
institutionalized. Great stuff!
Chazmet, Birmingham, Michigan
I'm a filmmaker as well, and a strong "A" class player, so I might
give you a run for your money, Mr. Bartlett. I have written a feature
length screenplay about the life of Paul Morphy, if anyone is
interested.
John Goldner, Montreal, Canada
Mathew Taylor may like to know that the chess game used in the
Laurence Harvey Columbo episode is indeed of master quality. It was
won by Wolthuis against Alexander at Maastricht in 1946, and the moves
can be found on New In Chess website and other databases. In the TV
episode the game is interrupted, and on resumption the Russian
challenger Dudek (Jack Kruschen) demonstrates how he can win to the
mortified world champion Clayton (Harvey). In the actual game
Alexander resigned at this point, having seen what was coming!
Kruschen's performance as the jovial Russian challenger on the come-
back trail who loves good food and attractive female company even more
than chess is the funniest and most accurate portrayal of a chess
master I have ever seen in films or on TV.
Mike Trolan, Alnwick, Northumberland
Nobody mentioning Mr. Spock in Star Trek, and his three dimensional
chess set, especially in the episode, Charlie X? For shame!
Brian Carr, St. Helens
One of the best: "Dangerous Moves", starring Liv Ullmann and made in
1984. It is a drama surrounding the World Chess Championship.
Doug, Coos Bay, Oregon, USA
In the 1920s Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes observe that
excelling at chess was "one sign of a scheming mind".
David Boothoryd, London
In 'Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey', Bill and Ted are challenged to a
game with Death for their lives, referencing the Seventh Seal
directly. Death suggests they play chess as the game but neither Bill
nor Ted fancy it and they play battleships instead. Real gravitas.
TDS, London
The American television show "The Wire", about the drugs wars in
Baltimore, has a brilliant episode in which one of the more senior
members of the drugs gang, D'Angelo Barksdale, is teaching several of
the younger members how to play chess. As he verses each of the
youngsters on the moves each piece can make, he uses analogies from
the world they understand: running drugs. The last piece he teaches
them about is the pawn, which is plentiful and quick to expire, just
like the young men who D'Angelo is teaching.
Steve, Edinburgh
How could one NOT include the Louis XVI's human chess game scene from
the Mel Brooks classic, "History of the World: Part One"?
Dennis Pepperack, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
As for "What chess scenes convey," how about "you are an
unsophisticated slob." I recall in Kubrick's Lolita, mentioned above,
the wonderful scene where chess is made to exemplify the
sophistication of Europeans (James Mason) and boorishness of Americans
(Shelly Winters). "So this thingy moves like this, and you're trying
trying to take my queen?" "That is my intention, yes, Charlotte."
Lorrin Kim, Honolulu, HI
I was surprised you did not mention one of the most memorable chess
movie ever made. Fresh (1994) was the debut film of writer and
director Boaz Yakin. Set in the violent and gang-ridden projects of
New York City, Fresh tells the story of Michael, nicknamed Fresh
(portrayed by Sean Nelson), a 12-year old kid running drugs for the
local drug lords (notably, Giancarlo Esposito). Inspired by the chess
lessons of his father, an alcoholic speed-chess master (Samuel L.
Jackson), Fresh devises and executes a brilliant plan to extricate
himself and his drug addicted sister (N'Bushe Wright) from their
hopeless lives.
Stephen, Washington DC
"Searching for Bobby Fisher" was a good chess film about a young boy
from NYC, based on a true story.
Ernest Hayfield, New York, NY, USA
I suppose it's just prejudice that's keeping the X-men movies off the
list. You'd think a film with Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart
playing chess in a plastic cell would be mentioned in a BBC article.
Oh well. 2007 and mutants still being held down by the man.
Derek Jeremiah Reid, Los Angeles, CA USA
Kubrick's '2001' has one of my favourite movie chess scenes involving
the infamous HAL9000 computer playing the game. Filmed in 1969, the
movie was way ahead of its time in so many respects, but that it
included a computer that can beat a human at chess! Brilliant
inclusion on Kubrick's part, I loved it.
Derek Kornelsen, Calgary, Canada
Columbo: The Most Dangerous Match, 1973, with guest star Laurence
Harvey, also featured chess. Perhaps a chess expert could comment
about how well the chess was played in this episode - when it's shown
every so often on TV, I've often wondered!
Mathew Taylor, Leeds, UK
There's a chess game between a police sergeant and Alastair Sim's
hitman character in the comedy film "The Green Man" from the 1950s.
Alan T, Salisbury UK
Independance Day. Jeff Goldblum figures out the plan of the alien
baddies for invading Earth. He likens the invasion to a game of chess,
meaning the aliens ships being placed over the cities are preparing
for the fatal strike. Checkmate!
Mike, London, UK
Quite a few Hollywood personnel are big chess fans. Sharon Stone is
rumoured to have once put a chess set down in the middle of her table
at a posh Beverley Hills restaurant and demanded the waiters put the
food around it to save from spoiling her game. Guy Richie is also
famed for his love of chess and from what I hear he spent more time
playing chess than actually directing his film Revolver which featured
the game.
I believe I am the strongest chess playing film director around. My
low budget flick "The Zombie Diaries" may not have the slick and
glamour of Richie's productions, but I openly challenge him here to
play me and promise a good hammering. That goes for anyone else in the
industry too!
Michael Bartlett, Letchworth, UK
I recall a psychological thriller called "Knight Moves", starring
Christopher Lambert as a chess grandmaster suspected of murder in the
middle of a tournament. He has to find the real serial killer who is
leaving bodies in the pattern of chess moves all over town (think of
the grid system that US cities are planned on). Well worth watching if
it crops up on late night TV.
RJP, Cambridge
You missed out Austin Powers 2, which had an amusing chess scene
(ripped from the Thomas Crown Affair) involving 'squeezing' a pawn
like a spot. All very funny, at least to my puerile little mind!
Ed, London
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/6924073.stm
Published: 2007/07/31 13:57:28 GMT
Movies