 Videos about Chess
Videos and movies to learn how to play chess, famous chess stories and related information on chess masters.
Marcel Duchamp: A Game of Chess
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Marcel Duchamp: A Game of Chess
Marcel Duchamp remains a major influence in contemporary art, and Marcel Duchamp: A Game of Chess shows why. This French program includes original footage of interviews filmed during Duchamp's first retrospective exhibition, held at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1963, five years before he died. The program has voice-overs in English, with black-and-white footage supplemented by color shots of the art works. The first half focuses mainly on Duchamp's early oil paintings and his ease at adapting the very latest innovations in painting from Matisse and Cézanne to cubism and futurism. We watch Duchamp speak about his famous painting shown at the Armory in 1913, Nude Descending the Staircase, while standing in front of it. We gain insights into his Dada period, which continues to influence conceptual art today. Duchamp explains that that work was the result of a humanitarian protest against the war, against a society that was becoming "absurd and unacceptable." We hear a number of his ideas, such as "repetition is a form of death." Duchamp explains in detail the various levels of meaning of his 1923 work entitled "Why Not a Sneeze," which was a cage full of what resembled sugar lumps but which were actually made of marble. Original music by the French composer Edgar Varèse, Duchamp's contemporary, adds to the sense of the revolutionary nature of Duchamp's art production and ideas. Including visual metaphors and interviews with numerous French luminaries, this program addresses an array of audiences, from art and history buffs to those interested in new ideas in the 20th century. --Anne Barclay Morgan
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Chess Kids
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Chess Kids
Filmmaker Lynn Hamrick was inspired by the story of the Hungarian player Judit Polgar, who at 12 became the youngest person to win the International Master title in chess. Although she never gets an interview with Polgar (his father demands cash for quotes), writer-director Hamrick does get to play the young prodigy--along with 29 others simultaneously--in an exhibition tournament. From there, Hamrick takes viewers to Wisconsin for a youth tournament, where we meet Josh Waitzkin, the subject of his father's book Searching for Bobby Fischer, and several other American players as they brave the high-pressure world of youth chess. Although most of the children insist they wanted the chess life, there is something a little spooky about watching a 7-year-old demonstrate her game face. On the other hand, one boy admits his mind drifts during the game and another confesses to being distracted by the beauty of female opponents. Hamrick asks some of the tough questions about parental pressures and boy-versus-girl smarts that make this 51-minute documentary a staple for any young chess player and for chess fans of all ages. --Kimberly Heinrichs
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