The Luzhin Defence

I just saw "The Luzhin Defence," a movie about a contender for the world championship of chess. It's a good drama, with the game of chess playing a major role in the film, and definitely worth seeing. But it wasn't made for the chess-loving crowd -- though there is some chess play in the movie, no particulars of any game are portrayed. It's a bit frustrating on that count, but a good drama, nonetheless.

it is a great movie

I enjoyed it, but it's not a movie you show people who you are recruiting to play chess!

"It is one thing to conceive the main play of a composition and another to construct it. The strain on the mind is formidable; the element of time drops out of one’s consciousness altogether: the building hand gropes for a pawn in the box, holds it, while the mind still ponders the need for a foil or a stopgap, and while the fist opens, a whole hour, perhaps, has gone by, has burned to ashes in the incandescent cerebration of the schemer. The chessboard before him is a magnetic field, a system of stresses and abysses, a starry firmament. The bishops move over it like searchlights. This or that knight is a lever adjusted and tried, and readjusted and tried again, till the problem is tuned up to the necessary level of beauty and surprise." - Nabokov

Originally posted by wargamer66
I enjoyed it, but it's not a movie you show people who you are recruiting to play chess!

I actually have this movie... it's alright, but it's not a movie you can watch over and over without getting sick of it.

In stark contrast, "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and more recently, "Knights of the South Bronx" are great movies.

And lastly, I have seen "Fresh", and wish that I haven't. Not a good one, especially for kids.

The structure of the novel is important. In Lolita, for example, I discovered foreshadowing embedded in Morse Code. CQ, the initials of the psychonym Clare Quilty, is used by the author as a device trying to tell us something. CQ, like ICQ now famous on the Internet, is saying, "I seek you; I want to talk." Guild was haunting him.

Nabokov was a pretty good chess player, and enjoyed solving chess problems as well as composing them. The book is full of auto-illusions. There is a veiled reference to Nabokov's Russian penname Sirin that is derived from the name of a fairy-tale bird with a human head and breast. This also implies a connection between the character and the author of the story. There is also a strong hint at a divinational code. All of this is missed in the movie. Read the book.

I felt sorry for the man who was the main chess player for being used by his trainer who pushed him too far. Chess can cause a nervous breakdown cause I've been there and it happens without a player even knowing it while they are in one. Setting up a board wrong is one sign and writing the wrong recorded moves another. To find a game you scribbled that is not like your writing yet you played it is another. The movie does good showing the obsessioness of chess over any dedicated individual who talents are seldom realized while they are alive as much as when they are gone.

I just saw it...it is not a bad movie(especially that the chess looks somehow real: not like in those poor chess scenes in some movies when the bad person says "check" and looks very happy and the heroe says "checkmate" to prove how good and smart he is)
I thought the guy is Alexandr Alekhine...
but in the end...this sacrifice for creation("result" theme) is a bit too sad...
and I am also wandering if the chess players madnesses theme was not because of Boby Fischer

Originally posted by vipiu
I just saw it...it is not a bad movie(especially that the chess looks somehow real: not like in those poor chess scenes in some movies when the bad person says "check" and looks very happy and the heroe says "checkmate" to prove how good and smart he is)
I thought the guy is Alexandr Alekhine...
but in the end...this sacrifice for creation("result" theme) is ...[text shortened]... I am also wandering if the chess players madnesses theme was not because of Boby Fischer

Originally posted by petrovitch
The structure of the novel is important. In Lolita, for example, I discovered foreshadowing embedded in Morse Code. CQ, the initials of the psychonym Clare Quilty, is used by the author as a device trying to tell us something. CQ, like ICQ now famous on the Internet, is saying, "I seek you; I want to talk." Guild was haunting him.

Nabokov was a pre ...[text shortened]... so a strong hint at a divinational code. All of this is missed in the movie. Read the book.