First things first what’s the attraction to Chess? The King of Games…Well first it’s one of the oldest games known to man, it’s technical and shows a lot of character of the person playing. As soon as you see a chess game set up in the movie you know there is a mental war going on. The cunning tactics that you need to lure a person into a trap, the poker face antics that are played until the final moments are all time which a director can really hit the message home that he’s playing for keeps, the characters are so high class and sophisticated if you’ve not picked up on a think or two then you’d better start taking notes.
There is usually a battle of minds, more than a battle of brawn, someone is up to an evil plan, so check the finer details and see if you can out play the director, and the most devastating move, death, usually this battle will result in some death in some way or in some scenes it will be played by death.
There has been a long lasting kinship between chess and cinema, often seen as the thinking man’s game it’s often used to display character and intelligence. Here’s a list of a few films that have some kind of chess connection.
01.Pawn sacrifice (2014)
The film that inspired this list. I am not a chess player myself, I struggle with draughts but I was really interested with this film, it had an usual atmosphere and based on real events, it was a chance to learn something and be entertained. Tobey Maguire, stars as Bobby Fischer, who battled against the soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). The film is as concentrated about the game as it the characters and tells a thrilling but tragic life story, filled with mental health issues and the US vs USSR cold war and how any event between the two countries was considered a full on war. 9/10
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