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Chessville
From the
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Publishing Quality: The film can be purchased in two formats: VHS and DVD. The DVD version is recommended for two reasons: First, for the inherently higher visual quality of that media, and second, for the extra features included. The DVD has director’s commentary, play by play of each game, a trial version of Chessmaster 10, and a Kasparov biography. Subject Coverage: The big question might be, what is the “real” subject? On the surface this movie is a documentary on the match, but the story goes much deeper. The director, Vikram Jayanti, presents the story primarily from Kasparov’s perspective. Kasparov is too classy of an act to overtly say cheating occurred, but the viewer could hardly be left with another feeling, re there was a mysterious conspiracy on IBM’s part. The movie has Kasparov in present time (2003) reflecting back on the match and other points in his chess career. Kasparov takes us on a tour, he tells us comments from the present (he is shown from that perspective), while at times the director has the movie flash back to archival photos and film footage. This works nicely. The movie also interviews other key figures associated with the match. In particular the Joel Benjamin portion is quite interesting. Joel is quite passionate that the match was played clean, and this adds some balance to the subject coverage. Author’s Knowledge: A check of www.imdb.com shows Jayanti has directed four pervious films. On the director’s level the movie is excellently done. However, since this is a documentary, some viewers may not agree with the director’s perspective (message). Informative: In reading old match reports I do not recall ever reading of Kasparov’s protest on how Deep Blue’s playing style changed from game one to game two. Kasparov demanded to see the computer printouts. The implication was IBM somehow altered the program, or that Deep Blue was somehow getting outside assistance, re human. The IBM team kept a tight lid on Deep Blue, and Kasparov was not allowed to see any printouts or the main computer tower in operation (it was kept in a locked room). This might have been a well-calculated psychological ploy on their part. Regardless, Kasparov became paranoid about Deep Blue’s change in play. Then Kasparov found out he resigned a drawn position in game two. And as history shows, by the start of the sixth game Kasparov was psychologically broken. New Ideas: The documentary’s pushing of the conspiracy theory to the forefront may be new to some. I did not fully appreciate that as an option. The movie does not have Kasparov overtly accusing the IBM team of foul play, but recently in issue #5 of New In Chess, within his article titled “Chess 2.0” Kasparov talks about two amateurs (players rated below 1700) winning a “freestyle” (computer assistance allowed) tournament on Playchess.com. These two (unknown at the time) amateurs beat out three grandmasters from the semifinals. And in turn, Kasparov makes the following statement:
A powerful statement adding to the documentary’s message. Accuracy: By nature documentaries are controversial in that a director can selectively show facts as they want. This movie cannot escape that criticism. A viewer, especially a chess player, will probably agree that there was something shady was going on, or at a minimum there is more to be told on this story. Overall Appraisal: I cannot completely agree there was a conspiracy; I find it hard to believe IBM would do that. Nonetheless, I can recommend this movie to chess players simply because of the historical film footage. I like the movie on that level alone. For the general non-chess public, the documentary does an excellent job of capturing the drama often contained within a chess match, and that chess is not merely a board game.
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine Also available in Region 2 format - not US & Canada
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