Friday, January 18, 2008

Bobby Fischer

The death today of U.S. chess grandmaster/Cold War icon/paranoid cable installer Bobby Fischer begs the question, why hasn't someone made a biopic? Sure, Searching for Bobby Fischer touches on his myth. Yet no one has gone the full measure. It's very natural material, somewhat like A Beautiful Mind without an escape hatch. There are few weirder stories. The youngest ever chess grandmaster, high IQ genius, and high school dropout. American icon and Cold War hero in a game that few Americans understood at the time. Reclusive figure of mystery. Anti-semitic Jew who removed his tooth fillings because he thought they were being used by the KGB to spy on him. This thing begs for the script. I suppose, though, that getting the authorization from the man, much less working with the man, would have been a tangle. You never like to see anyone go, but perhaps his death will make it an easier project.

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