Game Over - Kasparov and the Machine

From Mark Weeks,
Your Guide to Chess.
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Guide Rating -

The Bottom Line

(June 2005) 'Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine' directed by Vikram Jayanti. • Documentary about the 1997 man - machine chess match between World Champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue. • Photographed by Maryse Alberti; edited by David Hill; music by Rob Lane; produced by Hal Vogel. • With Garry Kasparov, Frederic Friedel, Murray Campbell, Feng-hsiung Hsu, Joel Benjamin, John Searle, Mig Greengard, Steven Levy, Yasser Seirawan, Owen Williams, Pete Murphy, Jeff Kisselhof.

Pros

'Game over' is one of the best chess movies we've ever seen. The whole concept works well.
The story has a good logical flow and the film is worth watching more than once.
Kasparov is an excellent subject; he is charismatic and engaging; his English is excellent.
The other interviewees are also knowledgeable, articulate, and interesting.
Lots of great video clips -- silent movie & historical news footage -- woven together.

Cons

Fact: Kasparov accused IBM of cheating. The film assumes he had valid points and was probably right.
Lacks objectivity and balance. The good guys are on Kasparov's team; the bad guys are on IBM's team.
Portrayal of IBM (e.g. security) and Deep Blue (i.e. the Turk) is unnecessarily sinister.
Some personalities aren't identified. The prime time news footage is not identified.
Artistic inferences and connections are sometimes overbearing, farfetched, or downright corny.

Description

Garry Kasparov visits New York, 'scene of the crime', where in 1997 he played Deep Blue and lost.
The film explains who Kasparov is, how he became World Champ in 1985, and why he played Deep Blue.
It pursues the idea that, for its own economic advantage, IBM cheated Kasparov during the match.
This idea recalls the Turk, a chess automaton and magic trick of the 18th & 19th centuries.
The story is explained using several visual techniques to illustrate its themes:
-> interviews with Kasparov, other match participants, and well known chess personalities;
-> news footage from the time of the match plus videos of the post-game press conferences;
-> clips from a silent movie ('The Chess Player', 1927) plus modern shots of a sinister Turk;
-> historical video clips incl. the Moscow Chess Club and the 1984-85 matches with Anatoly Karpov.
The film hints that the match depressed Kasparov and affected his career after the match.

Guide Review - Game Over - Kasparov and the Machine

'Game over' operates successfully at different levels. As a chess movie, it's one of the best ever made. Everything about the chess is well done. As art, it weaves into the story original music, scenes from a silent movie, and shots of the Turk. As chess history, it includes video clips from the 1980s and from all six games of the match plus post-game press conferences. As a film about computer chess, it gives a good, nontechnical explanation of computer play and explains the difficulty of programming a computer to play world class chess. As human drama, it shows Kasparov crack under the pressure of meeting a strong, mysterious adversary who is not subject to being rattled. As suspense, it poses the central question, 'Did IBM cheat?' • It builds on two core ideas that support the cheating accusation: 1) Kasparov claimed certain moves couldn't possibly be played by a computer; 2) IBM put Deep Blue in mothballs without a rematch. The film strongly suggests that 'yes, IBM cheated'; we lost track of the number of times we were reminded that there was a real person inside the 19th century Turk. It fails to examine the IBM side of the story: 1) there is no mention that the machine's move logs were released in 2000; 2) there are no interviews with the IBM executives who rejected the rematch -or- who decided to mothball the machine. • Rating: Chess - 5 stars; Art - 4 stars; History - 4 stars; Objectivity - 1 star -> Average: 3.5 stars.

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