Today I had two bona-fide geniuses to deal with:
Bobby Fischer and
Belá Tarr. The first was the subject of a new documentary,
Bobby Fischer Against the World. The second is here in Edinburgh with his new and according to Tarr, last movie,
Turin Horse. In short, I highly recommend both. As Ive said before I find the documentary selection at Edinburgh invariably to be the most reliable at the festival, in terms of quality. This one comes from documentarian
Liz Garbus, and is produced by HBO. One of the first interviewees is a writer who has written a book on Fischer. I did not necessarily take this as a good sign; would all the interviewees be Fischer experts? The next person interviewed was
Henry Kissinger. Its fair to say I did not know how big Bobby Fischer once was. Im not a chess expert, so maybe Im not in a position to call him a genius, but I dont think anyone would argue. His match to Russian player
Boris Spassky was such a big deal that it was shown on a screen in Times Square, and news stories about such trivialities as the Vietnam War and Watergate were relegated from the top spot. For a brief while, he was one of the most famous people in the world.
David Fincher (The Social Network, Zodiac)
is desperate to make a movie about him.
Aside from being a stunning player he was also a very troubled man. The documentary paints a picture of a loner with a difficult childhood who cannot handle the pressures of fame and celebrity and ultimately withdraws into paranoia. At the height of his fame, he is deeply uncomfortable, almost forfeiting the match with Spassky by not turning up on time. He gets frustrated by the position of the cameras and has them moved. In the second game, he makes an amateurish mistake. He was clearly a near-impossible man to get along with, following various conspiracy theories and responding with hostility to reasonable questions. Despite having a Jewish mother he became anti-Semitic, and would eventually fall even further from public affection by applauding the attack on the Twin Towers the day after they fell. But then, he never really sought public affection, and if he did he quickly realised what a poisoned chalice it turned out to be.
Béla Tarrs Turin Horse is clearly not for everyone. It was not for everyone I was in the cinema with today, where I could tell it divided opinion. Tarr, a Hungarian master whose works have included Werckmeister Harmonies and the seven-and-a-half-hour-long Sátántangó, is the sort of director whose work you may dismiss, then come back to a few weeks later when you realise you cant get it out of your head; for me this was an early highlight of this years Festival, and Ill be interested in hearing other peoples take on it. My full review is available on this site. Tarr is in Edinburgh both to introduce the movie and because he is one of the guest curators. This is a new concept from the EIFF team brought in to fill the vacuum left by all the stuff that has been abandoned, which as well as red-carpet premieres includes the jury and prizes. The retrospectives at the festival are generally interesting, although I seldom have time to see much of them. Tarr has programmed a series of little-known (to British audiences, at least) Hungarian movies. Other guest curators include Gus Van Sant, who has programmed a series of Derek Jarman films. Thats five movies down and I have, to some degree, liked all of them. This is no small feat, given some of the dreck Ive sat through in the past. At the risk of speaking too soon tomorrows offerings suggest the quality will continue: there is British thriller
Page Eight, whose impressive cast includes
Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz and
Bill Nighy;
Project Nim, the new documentary from
James Marsh, whose Man On Wire was a Festival highlight in 2008, and
Elite Squad 2, sequel to the Brazilian crime movie. Tonight (Wednesday) the Festival kicks off for the public, while I sit at home watching the first Elite Squad so tomorrow it will sound like I know what I am talking about. The
opening film is The Guard, which will fill out Edinburghs Festival Theatre. As this is the first official screening of the redesigned Festival, those in charge will be keen to see the response. Too bad they also scrapped the Audience Award, then.