chess in cinema

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jstripes
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2003 3:56 pm

chess in cinema

Post by jstripes » Thu Apr 08, 2004 5:31 pm

This week ChessBase news has directed its readers to two short chess films at Atom films. Both use chess as a vehicle for exploring male/female relationships.

Take a look http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1566

speartooth
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue May 18, 2004 5:28 pm

Bergman's Seventh Seal: Death plays Black

Post by speartooth » Tue Jun 15, 2004 4:04 pm

From internet move database:


Quotes from The Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection:

Antonius Block: I shall remember this moment: the silence, the twilight, the bowl of strawberries, the bowl of milk. Your faces in the evening light. Mikael asleep, Jof with his lyre. I shall try to remember our talk. I shall carry this memory carefully in my hands as if it were a bowl brimful of fresh milk. It will be a sign to me, and a great sufficiency.

Antonius Block: Nothing escapes you!
Death: Nothing escapes me. No one escapes me.

In response to Death coming for him.
Jonas Skat: Is there no exemption for actors?

Antonius Block: I met Death today. We are playing chess.

Jöns: Love is the blackest of all plagues... if one could die of it, there would be some pleasure in love, but you don't die of it.

Antonius Block: I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to men has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.

Antonius Block: Who are you?
Death: I am Death.
Antonius Block: Have you come for me?
Death: I have long walked by your side.
Antonius Block: I know.
Death: Are you prepared?
Antonius Block: My body is frightened, but I am not.

Antonius Block: Have you met the devil? I want to meet him too.
Witch: Why do you want to do that?
Antonius Block: I want to ask him about God. He must know. He, if anyone.

Jöns: Who will take care of that child. God, the devil, the nothingness? The nothingness, perhaps?
Antonius Block: It can't be so!

Death: Don't you ever stop asking?
Antonius Block: No. I never stop.
Death: But you're not getting an answer.

Death approaches Antonius Block
Antonius Block: Wait a moment.
Death: You all say that. But I grant no reprieves.

Antonius Block lets Death choose which chess pieces to play
Antonius Block: You drew black.
Death: Appropriate, don't you think?

The church painter explains why he is painting a mural about death
Church Painter: Why should one always make people happy? It might be a good idea to scare them once in a while.
Jöns: Then they'll close their eyes and refuse to look.
Church Painter: They'll look. A skull is more interesting than a naked woman.
Jöns: If you do scare them...
Church Painter: Then they think.
Jöns: And then?
Church Painter: They'll become more scared.

Jöns: Do you have any brandy? I've had nothing but water. It's made me as thirsty as a camel in the desert.

Jöns: Our crusade was such madness that only a real idealist could have thought it up.

Mia: You don't look so happy.
Antonius Block: No.
Mia: Are you tired?
Antonius Block: Yes. I have boring company.
Mia: You mean your squire?
Antonius Block: No, not him.
Mia: Who do you mean, then?
Antonius Block: Myself.

Antonius Block: Faith is a torment. It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call.

Jöns: Love is as contagious as a cold. It eats away at your strength, morale... If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection.
Blacksmith Plog: You're happy, you with your oily words. You believe your own drivel.
Jöns: Believe it? Who said? But I love to give pieces of advice.

Jonas Skat: Kill me. I'll thank you afterwards.

Blacksmith Plog: Jons, between you and me, isn't life a dirty mess?
Jöns: Yes, but don't think of that now.
Blacksmith Plog: It's what you make it.

Jonas Skat is in a tree which Death is cutting down
Jonas Skat: Hey, you scurvy knave, what are you doing with my tree? You might at least answer. Who are you?
Death: I'm felling your tree. Your time is up.
Jonas Skat: You can't. I haven't time.
Death: So you haven't time?
Jonas Skat: No. My performance...
Death: Cancelled... because of Death.

http://www.erikssonstunnbrod.se/max/seal2.jpg

zugzwanged
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 4:22 am

Re: chess in cinema

Post by zugzwanged » Mon Aug 16, 2004 6:19 am

jstripes wrote:This week ChessBase news has directed its readers to two short chess films at Atom films. Both use chess as a vehicle for exploring male/female relationships.
Both of those short movies were unbelievably bad. Very weak plots, predictable, horribly over-acted productions with no *suspension of disbelief* factor to keep a someone who actually knows something about chess interested. It is clear that Luis Camara Silva & crew know very little about the game of chess, and about making a good short movie for that matter.

To date, the only decent chess films that i've come across are: "The great chess movie", and "Game Over". Both documentaries. It would be nice to see a good dramatic movie about chess and the life of Bobby Fischer. I think James Woods would be a great choice of actor to play Fischer.

Zug

jstripes
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2003 3:56 pm

Re: chess in cinema

Post by jstripes » Sun Aug 29, 2004 1:46 pm

zugzwanged wrote: ... weak plots, predictable, horribly over-acted productions with no *suspension of disbelief* ...

To date, the only decent chess films that i've come across are: "The great chess movie", and "Game Over". ...
I am sorry that your expeirence is so limited, and that you have failed to develop your aesthetic standards for short work beyond those of Coleridge.

My notice about the films offered no assessment of their quality. Yet, the notice itself did imply at least a sense that they might be of historical interest.

Endgame is clearly derivative of a passage by T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land. Although, by adding a few additional elements, and presenting it in a format other than poetry, it adds something new. Eliot would certainly approve of that much.

Neither of the films, nor Eliot's poem concern chess. Chess is merely a rhetorical vehicle.

redketchuplover
Posts: 706
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2004 7:41 pm

Bobby Fischer films

Post by redketchuplover » Fri Sep 03, 2010 5:25 pm

Two films pertaining to Bobby Fischer hit theaters in 2013. "Pawn Sacrifices" and "Bobby Fischer Goes to War" Get your tickets now!

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