Bobby Fischer v. Planet Earth

<p> In his long-stemmed intro to “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Edgar Allan Poe decried chess as an example of the common confusion between complexity and profundity. The “higher powers of the reflective intellect,” he asserted, are better exercised in playing cards than a game of arbitrary, bizarre rules and an infinitude of possibilities. The master of the macabre might have felt vindicated had he lived to witness the spectacle of Bobby Fischer. </p> <p>The strange career and stranger life of the world champion is investigated in the documentary <em>Bobby Fischer Against the World</em> (out on DVD). Director Liz Garbus found what might have been the neurotic through-line for Fischer. Raised by a single mother, a Communist under FBI surveillance who denied their Jewish heritage, Fischer gravitated to an apocalyptic Christian cult in his youth and, despairing of its failed prophesies, sank into <em>The Protocols of the Elders of Zion</em> and turned raging anti-Semite. In the shabby Brooklyn apartment of his damaged 1950s childhood, Fischer became obsessed with chess, spending his hours mastering its many moves and eluding the outside world.</p> <p> Footage from the era of his celebrity, kindled by his 1972 victory over reigning world champion Boris Spassky, reveal an intensely focused man whose mind clicked as rapidly as a computer. The already deeply erratic Fischer almost didn't go to Iceland for the match, but was coaxed onto the plane by a phone call from Henry Kissinger. The contest with the Soviet master Spassky was no mere game but a theater of the Cold War. It was given all the attention of a Mohammad Ali rumble in the jungle. Imagine a chess game covered live on network television in a Super Bowl of the mind. After Fischer's victory his behavior became more bizarre and the common perception was that the media attention unhinged him. Garbus' documentary seems to show that if the spotlight finally sent him into the abyss, he had already been wobbling at the edge. </p> <p>Fischer finally emerged from 20 years of seclusion for his ill-stared 1992 rematch with Spassky. Unfortunately, the match occurred in Yugoslavia as the country collapsed in civil war and Fischer played chess there in violation of a U.S. embargo. He won the prize money along with a federal indictment; conviction carried a 10-year sentence. The documentary falls sketchy during Fischer's man without a country period. After publicly praising the terrorists of 911, Fischer was finally arrested in Tokyo but before he could be extradited to the U.S., Iceland intervened by granting him citizenship. Although greeted as a hero by the island nation, he soon managed to alienate everyone with his rants about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. He was the man everyone edged away from when he walked into the room. Finally, in 2008, after refusing medical treatment, Fischer died in unhappy exile, although it might be accurate to add that his entire life was spent in exile from humankind. </p>