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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful:-
Don't play against the board play against the man, 3 July 2005
Author:
sol from Brooklyn NY USA
***SPOILERS*** The movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" parallels the
lives of Grand Chess Master Bobby Fischer with that of young seven
year-old chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, Max Pomeranc, and does it by
inserting newsreel footage of Bobby winning the World Chess
Championship Tournament in Reykjavik Iceland back in 1972 against the
Soviet Unions Boris Spassky and then jumps back to when Bobby Fischer
was a young boy, and man, in the 1950's and 1960's as his obsession
with chess brought him the fame and glory that he sought but at the
same time denied him the life of a normal boy growing up in post WWII
America that his night and day chess fixation cost him.
Josh has lots of promise in becoming a future Bobby Fischer; he has a
computer-like mind and a natural ability to foresee moves by his
opponents, even before they even know that they'll make them, but one
thing that Josh doesn't have is that drive and determination, as well
as killer-instinct, that Bobby Fisher had and as far as I know still
does in playing to win and pulverizing his opponents into the ground by
doing it.
Josh likes all kinds of sports, besides chess, and his dad Fred
Waitzkin, Joe Mantegna, is a sports writer who takes Josh along to the
Yankee and New York Mets baseball games where the young boy really has
as much of a good time watching the ball games as he has playing chess.
Fred realizes what a whiz his young son Josh is in the game of chess
and wants to have him study the finer points of the game by hiring
former national chess champion Bruce Pandolfini, Ben Kingsley, to tutor
him and Bruce right away realizes that Josh has the makings of another
Bobby Fischer. What does bother Bruce about Josh is his playing with
the local chess hustlers like Winnie, Laurence Fishburn, in Washington
Square Park in Greenwich Village which, in Bruce's opinion, is far to
fast and doesn't give young Josh time to develop his all around
concentration and understanding of the game of chess.
During the course of the movie Josh is driven relentlessly by Bruce in
his attempt to mold him into another Bobby Fischer but Josh slowly
starts to lose his interest in winning all the chess tournaments that
he enters and the very fact of his invincibility makes Josh feel uneasy
since it's always expected of him to win, like the sun is expected to
rise in the morning, that there's no fun or excitement in it for him
any more and losing becomes more of a growing experience for Josh and
even arouses his passions in making him feel more human; Josh is also
too sensitive to beat down his opponents, like Bobby Fischer did, and
that later lost him the championship game against the likewise seven
year-old chess phenomenon Jonathan Poe, Michael Nirenberg.
After his defeat to Jonathan Josh is looked on as if he let down all
those who believed in him and at the same time he starts to get his
life back together as a young boy living a normal life and not carrying
the weight of the entire world of chess on his shoulders. It's during
this time that the real talent that Josh had in playing chess comes up
to the surface, without him being driven relentlessly by Bruce, and it
leads him to go back to playing chess, first with his friend at the
park Winnie, and then working his way back in winning a number of
tournaments to his becoming a top chess champion competitor and finally
earning a re-match with Jonathan for the Junior Chess Championship of
the US in Chicago at the conclusion of the film.
Powerful movie and very intense for the young boys and girls in it in
how they drive and push themselves to be the best at the game of chess
and at the same time putting themselves in danger of sacrificing their
one and only childhood to do it.
Josh Waitzkin did reach the top back then when the movie "Searching for
Bobby Fischer" was made in 1993 and is still there some ten years, and
dozens of tournaments, later but he did it without losing both his
childhood and his kind heart and sensitivity for his fellow man by
doing it.
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