Review of Pawn Sacrifice

Originally posted on another chess site which it is unlawful to mention here, I thought that those on chess dot com might be interested in reading the review for themselves.  Thanks to GP for bringing it to our attention.

I was invited to an advanced screening of the movie Pawn Sacrifice held 
on Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 10AM in New York City, based on the 
fact that I had been a close friend of Bobby Fischer. 

I was invited to the screening by Katherine Matthews. Only three other 
people were there. Two were non-chess players who work for Chess in 
the Schools. I do not know if other advanced screenings were held. 

After the screening, I sent my comments on the movie as follows: 

The movie was wonderful, marvelous. It brought tears to my eyes. 
I had no idea it would be so good. 

It accurately depicted the turmoil going on within Fischer and the turmoil 
going on outside of him while he was on his way to the World Championship. 

The movie is intended to provide entertainment and not to be historically 
accurate. However, there are mistakes in the movie and it would be best 
to have them corrected, if possible, before the release of the movie in 
September 2015. 

The movie calls the Chief Arbiter Wolfgang Schmid. His actual name 
was Lothar Schmid. I see you have corrected it on the website but it 
needs to be corrected in the sound track too. 

Carmine Nigro who was Bobby's first and only teacher was not one of 
the top 25 rated players in the country. He was a Class B player but did 
not have an official rating. The movie depicts him as being with Bobby 
all the way from the beginning in about 1949 to the Fischer Spassky 
Match in Reykjavik Iceland in 1972. In reality, Carmine Nigro had only a 
brief relationship with Fischer lasting only a few years at most. 

William Lombardy will not like the way he is depicted but that is his own 
fault as he refused to cooperate in the making of the movie. 

It shows Lombardy first meeting and becoming involved with him at the 
time of the Olympiad in Yugoslavia. That is not true. I first met both 
Fischer and Lombardy together at the November, 1956 Eastern States 
Open Chess Championship in Washington DC, so Fischer and 
Lombardy were together at that time. 

You scan see our pictures together at 

http://www.anusha.com/post1956.htm 

The movie shows Lombardy continuously involved with Fischer from 
their first meeting until the 1972 match. Not true. Lombardy dropped out 
of chess in 1961 after deciding to become a Catholic Priest. He did not 
become involved with Fischer again until the time of the 1972 match. In 
between those years Fischer was mostly involved with Grandmaster 
Larry Evans. 


It says that Fischer won his first round game against Grandmaster 
Ivanovich at the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup in Los Angeles. This is not true. 
There is no Grandmaster Ivanovich. Fischer's first win in that 
tournament was against Grandmaster Ivkov in Round 3. 

It says Fischer defeated Korchnoi in Round 5 of that event. This is not 
true. Korchnoi never played in the Piatigorsky Cup. Fischer did defeat 
Korchnoi in two earlier tournament games in 1962 but never defeated 
him in a tournament game after that. 

It shows Paul Marshall informing Fischer that Nixon had tried to call him 
three times but had been unable to reach him because Fischer had 
taken apart the telephone receivers searching for bugs in the telephone. 
I doubt this is true. 

It says that they had found bugs in Fischer's room during the Interzonal 
chess tournament in Tunisia. I do not think this is true but I am sure 
Fischer was concerned about the Soviets and others spying on him. 

It shows lawyer Paul Marshall first meeting Fischer in the park and then 
being involved with him for years leading up to the 1972 match. I do not 
know when Paul Marshall first met Fischer but I do not believe they had 
such a long relationship. 

It shows Fischer's mother having a man sleep with her in the apartment 
disturbing Fischer while he is trying to study chess. I would like to know 
the source for this. You should not put such a salacious thing in a movie 
unless you are sure of your source. 

It shows Fischer analyzing the moves 1. P-KR4 P-KR4 Ridiculous. You 
should take that out. Have Fischer studying 1. P-K4 P-K4 instead. 

It shows Fischer's virginity being lost to a street prostitute in Los 
Angeles. This becomes the love interest in the movie. Fischer's first 
known encounter with a woman was with a prostitute but it was in 
Argentina. Grandmaster Larry Evans brought Fischer to a whorehouse. 
Fischer lost his chess game right after that and had the worst 
tournament in his life. Fischer never mixed sex and chess again. 

It correctly shows the most famous move ever made, Fischer's blunder 
in Game 1 with 29. …. BxKRP. Spassky replied 30. P-KN3. However, 
the movie shows Fischer resigning immediately in disgust. In reality, 
Fischer did not resign then and was not yet lost. Fischer made another 
mistake. He could have drawn the game with 40. … K-Q4. The game 
continued until move 56. This is one of the most famous games ever 
played, so every chess player will recognize that you made a mistake 
when you say that Fischer resigned after 30. P-KN3. 

These little mistakes will cause chess playing viewers to deride the movie. 

Others will say that this that person or this or that event or incident 
should be included in the movie. I disagree. The story line should be 
simple and easy for non-chess players to follow. 

Having more characters would not help anything. I think the producers 
of this movie did a great job. 

Sam Sloan

Wow! That's a lot of errors

yes especially since they hired some guy to prevent such errors. Having Fischer analyse 1.h4 ...h5, seriously?

That's the one that stuck out for me!

Lombardy is a fascinating character, he was a very strong chess player when him and Fischer new each other in their youth and Fischer obviously trusted him a great deal.  I suspect that he refused to commit to the film out of respect for Fischer although this is pure conjecture :D

He may have been the person who got Fischer started with the pro-christian/anti-jew thing, also?

wow i never considered that, amazing, i mean like it had to have come from somewhere, some influence.

I grew up catholic and I've known a few catholics who were completely anti-jewish;)

Ok, thats interesting, my father is Catholic but not a big catholic, still we did make pancakes on pancake Tuesday :D  Nom Nom Nom.  I like your theory of Lombardys Influence, it makes sense.  I have listened to the radio broadcasts that Fischer made way after his world championship win and even after he realised that the church he was affiliated to was bogus he publicly stated that he liked to read the Bible.  His own Christianity had a strictness about it, keeping a Sabbath etc which is ironically akin to Judaism itself.

And he stayed with the Polgars for a spell after he was convinced of a 'world-wide-jewish-collusion' theory. The theory though, usually involves people with power.

The movie was better than I thought it would be. Not something you would watch to learn about chess but worth seeing. I certainly would not have put up with Bobby Fisher's diva behavior as one of his opponents, mental issues or not.  It also makes me wonder if chess could ever capture America’s attention again as it shows in the movie during that time. 

It's a movie. You have to consider the audience. These kinds of "errors" are pointless to focus on.

the movie sounds decent, but like most movies it is not worth the $12 movie ticket, $8 popcorn and $5 drink.

Ill just wait until it comes out on torrents.

http://www.chess.com/blog/JamieDelarosa/pawn-sacrifice-movie-review

Extra!  Extra!  Read all about it ;^)

Let me add that Sloan is not entirely correct about Lombardy giving up chess in 1961.  Lombardy continued to play.  For instance, Lombardy placed first or second at the US Opens in 1962, 1963, and 1965.

Woa JamieDelarosa you freerider to breenge in here and posting links to your own thread, gee I dunno - kids these days!  You must have Scottish blood running through those veins to try and get away with that! :P

Wow so even the movies errors has errors.

that´s the reason why in this century  american movies are pure garbage, poor perfomances ( ex : in love scenes are not credible because of the coldness of screenplay and poor acting  )  , explosions, superficial dialogues ,  ridiculous scripts ....  Special effects sucks too,  i remember see dinosaurs in Jurassic Park in 1993 and they are more realistic than today. 

A weak movie in 1980 is  more enterteining than many movies in this days. 

A good science fiction movie in 1980 is too good for these times.

There are two possibilities, orr the intellectual level is dropping at the audience or directors are not worried about to make good  original movies anymore , just  be fast and collect money   ,  i believe this second one,  Money Talks in this century more than ever and the consequeence is simple, art is corrupted.

Anyway ,  everything is not black or white,    i found good movies in this century  with great perfomances. 

But the rate of good movies in other decades is clearly superior.

of course i´m talking about commercial movies . 

My own opinion is that CGI has been used to such an extent that it has eroded the human element almost completely and we are thus left with something that is empty and devoid because it neglects that which appeals to us most, the human element.  This is why a director like Bergman was so successful and made such great films, he appealed to our humanity.  There needs to be a link with the theatrical and I suspect that many modern movie directors have no such link and thus make very poor films relying mostly on gimmicks with little or no intellectual content.

thxs Robbie_1969 for your thoughts

thanx for the encouragment fiddletim :D