O Jogador de Xadrez

The European aristocracy have had always a special fondness and interest in decadent sports; elegant hobbies the object of which is to avoid any physical effort that might cause sweat and thus spoil the rice powder on their pale faces.

Having in mind these special characteristics, only the scarce bold ones show an interest for, MEIN GOTT!!... intellectual sports!!... like chess, a very complicated sport for this German count. Chess is important in "Le Joueur d'échecs", together with European war disputes among Poles and Russians ( for once, Germans were not involved in such domestic affairs ) and a passionate and patriotic love story, all in a film directed by the French Herr Raymond Bernard.

"Le Jouer d'échecs" is a strange, interesting but failed oeuvre, a mixture of "fantastique" and historical film not well combined; it seems that Herr Bernard 's artistic ambitions eluded his grasp, in a film unevenly paced and over-long.

The successful elements of "Le Joueur d'échecs" are the historical events ( the resistance of the Polish nobility in front of the Russian omnipotence ) and the atmosphere, especially during the first part of the oeuvre in which a curious and vigorous camera captures carefully the different surroundings involved in those martial conflicts.

Another interesting aspect of the film are the bizarre robots designed by the Baron von Kempelen ( Herr Charles Dullin ), strange automatons that give to the film an eerie atmosphere, classicism entwined with early technology. This stands out very much at the end of the film depicting a phantasmagorical and peculiar revenge of the robots.

So we have a combination of historical film with powerfully and excessive patriotic Polish elements ( obviously, the Russian are again the bad ones ) together with XVIII century robots and a classical love story involving a revolutionary ( Herr Pierre Blanchar ) and the symbol of that revolution ( Dame Édith Jéhanne ) entwined with Russian court intrigues that involve Dame Catherine II of Russia herself and a machine that plays chess; certainly, Herr Bernard didn't like simple or easy plots… The superb art direction of the film, in which set design, lavish settings and costumes gives the audience the feeling of the Centre European XVIII epoch is perhaps Herr Bernard's major accomplishment in the film but the Pole-Russian intrigues ( film narrative in standby ) sometimes seem a mere excuse for the décor . The love story is obvious and predictable and performed by uninspired actors. Particularly stiff is Herr Charles Dullin, who is surpassed by his own robots who show more emotion and facial gestures than their creator.

"Le Joueur d'échecs" is an ambitious film that aims for excellence but precisely due to those many various and diversified elements is not well assembled by Herr Bernard and must be regarded as a failure, a good example, as a German proverb said: "that you can bite off more than you can chew".

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must keep in check some Teutonic rich heiress.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

This is a very beautiful film, artistically speaking. The French crew that made this movie really tried to make it transcend traditional films by having it look exceptional through the use of wonderful camera-work, exquisite sets, great music, sumptuous costumes and a very slow and deliberate pace. While the film does look great, after a little while I also noticed that slow pacing! While it might have impacted the look and sound of the film, it really did need a bit of editing and the guy playing the creator of the automatons should have been told he, too, was not to emote and move as one as well! While none of this ruined the film, it did over time lessen the film's impact. And, frankly, by the time it was over, I felt pretty tired and was more than ready for it to end. This is all a real shame, though, as the basic plot is very interesting and the film has so much going for it. The film is still well worth seeing, but for a better paced "art film", try some of F. W. Murnau's or Fritz Lang's silent films--they've got a great look but just seem better paced.

In his book THE PARADE'S GONE BY Kevin Brownlow mentions THE CHESS PLAYER and other films by Raymond Bernard as being among the treasures of late silent cinema so it's no surprise that his Photoplay Productions was responsible for this magnificent restoration. What is surprising is that the restoration was done in 1990 and is only now coming to DVD. At least four different 35mm prints were used to create this complete version which also features a modern recording of the original Henri Rambaud score done by Brownlow's longtime musical partner Carl Davis.

As for the picture itself, I wish I could say that I was totally bowled over by the film as I have waited a long time to see it, but I wasn't. The sets and costumes are the equal of NAPOLEON, the cinematography is a striking combination of Eisenstein and Gance, and part of the story is based on historical fact (there really was a Baron von Kempelen in the late 18th century who created a mechanical chess player called the Turk) but Bernard is no Abel Gance. At 140 minutes the film seemed far too long for the story it had to tell. The pace flags from time to time especially in the romantic scenes which seem to interrupt the flow of the movie. Nevertheless THE CHESS PLAYER is chock full of startling images thanks to the automaton subplot. The final sequence inside the inventor's house will stay with you for a long time afterwards. The performances for the most part are subservient to the overall look of the film but Charles Dullin as the Baron makes the most of the film's best role.

The film is definitely worth having as there is so little of late European silent cinema available on home video. One only hopes that Brownlow's restorations of Gance's NAPOLEON, Rex Ingram's FOUR HORSEMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE, Stroheim's GREED, and many others will be fully restored . While THE CHESS PLAYER may not be a film for the ages, it's still a mighty good one and an epic of true proportions as well. We all owe Kevin Brownlow & Co our heartfelt thanks for making these movies available to us once again...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

"Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine" is a new feature length documentary from famed British film maker Vikram Jayanti. Seen at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival , it documents the 1997 match between Garry Kasparov arguably the greatest chess player ever and IBM's Deep Blue. The computer won, but subtly the film slyly hints at the possibility that a human mind might have been behind Deep Blue, throwing Kasparov off balance. The Kasparov narrative is interspersed with clips from The Chess Player, although I did not notice any verbal credits in Game Over's narration to that 1927 film.This inclusion was particularly interestng to me, since I saw the original silent film as a boy and remembered vividly how Major Nicolaieff, invading von Kempelen's workshop is hacked to death by the inventor's "bodyguard" of sabre wielding automatons. The Milestone DVD is most certainly the longer version mentioned by a previous commentator on this site. THe DVD also carries a recent radio interview with the author of "The Turk" which deals with the real Wolfgang Von Kempelen and his remarkable chess playing automaton. URTL is <theTurkbook.com?> The movie is undeed slightly confusing, but to movie buffs well worth a viewing for the striking action cinematography wwith tinted footage ranging from black and white to blue of night.

Comparable to Abel Gance's Napoleon in its scale and stylistic bravura, this romantic epic about the Polish nobility's 1776 uprising against Catherine the Great differs from the more famous film in its lack of nationalist fervour and Tricolour bombast. Its one 'rousing battle scene' is a pure fantasy, a daydream of its naive heroine as she thumps out a patriotic hymn on her piano. This dream sequence is daringly intercut with the actual battle - a fiasco whose leaders are killed and maimed, bringing no glory to either Russian imperialists or Polish rebels.

In place of Boys Own heroics, director Raymond Bernard conjures up an eerily perverse atmosphere of ETA Hoffman-style Gothic Expressionism. The young hero's 'protector', the Baron von Kempelen, is based on a real-life inventor who stunned the courts of Europe with his life-size mechanical dolls. On the run after his abortive revolution, young Boleslav is disguised by the Baron as a chess-playing robot - not a man, but a mechanical image of one. He finds his true self, not on the battlefield, but in the wholly unreal world of chess. His sister Sophie becomes an icon of Polish liberation, not in person, but as a woven banner. Her forbidden love for a Russian officer is consummated, not in the flesh, but in a portrait he paints of her.

In short, Bernard is a film-maker in thrall to illusion - and to the inherently unreal nature of the cinematic image. At the film's climax, not one but two artificial worlds fight it out for control of the screen. A sumptuous masked ball at the Imperial Court, and the villain's showdown with Baron von Kempelen's army of automatons. History, or so Bernard seems to be saying, is not a fact but an illusion, a masquerade, a war of manufactured images that its leaders manipulate for their own ends. Heroism has nothing to do with it.

David Melville