"Closing Gambit" - A Quick Comment or Two
In the preceding post I mentioned the 2018 chess documentary, "Closing Gambit: 1978 Korchnoi vs. Karpov and the Kremlin". It's short, so I took a short vacation from normal life to watch. As a comment to the aforementioned post suspects, the narrative is, unsurprisingly, slanted in Korchnoi's favor - and why wouldn't it be? But it's not portrayed as saint vs. devil. Viktor Korchnoi's prickliness is acknowledged by all, and it does not ignore the fact that he abandoned his family. And while Anatoly Karpov is portrayed as opportunistically accepting every advantage that his Soviet supporters could bestow on him, he is presented with humanity, and he is one of the major participants in the documentary, as an interviewee. Near the end of the film, he is painted in a somewhat sympathetic life - at least after he lost his title.
It's difficult for me to know exactly how someone who doesn't already know the story and have long-standing opinions about the dramatis personae would see it. I don't think they'd come away from it hating Karpov or believing that Korchnoi is the embodiment of goodness and light, though they probably would see Korchnoi as a man with an admirably strong fighting spirit, and this helped him not only as a competitor but as a survivor in life.
Should those of you who know the story well already watch it? There's a good chance you won't learn anything new, but many of you are probably young enough to learn quite a bit. And it's always fun to see all the old footage of these players, not to mention contemporary interviews with Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Boris Gelfand and other greats reflecting on the match and its participants. So, crack open your wallets and spend 99 cents over on Amazon to watch a tale of one of the two most important matches of the previous century.
Reader Comments (2)
"it does not ignore the fact that he abandoned his family."
Good to read; I'll watch the docu when I get the chance.
"spend 99 cents over on Amazon"
Uh no. I won't pay a single cent to a business that treats its employees like near slaves (the same for its Dutch counterpart bol.com). Never. I order my chess books at the Dutch online bookstore De Beste Zet.
[DM: Where you buy your books and movies is up to you, obviously, but kudos to anyone who avoids Amazon when possible. (Unfortunately, it's not cheap to do so). There are good and appropriate criticisms of Amazon (e.g. its monopsony power), but likening their employment to slavery isn't one of them. Hard, even unpleasant work is, well, hard and unpleasant, but the workers won't be beaten or murdered if they quit. Indeed, they can quit. (I'm not saying that Amazon or working at Amazon is great. Just objecting to such an analogy.)]
Thanks for the recommendation.
Micheal Stean summed it up nice at the end:
This is a story of one mans fight against the Soviet system. A system that does not exist anymore, so I fear all of this will soon be forgotten.
It's a bit of nostalgia and a reminder of something from my youth that simply is no longer.
Highly recommended to anyone that has an hour or two to spend