THE LUZHIN DEFENCE
UK, 2000, 109 minutes, Colour.
John Turturro, Emily Watson, Geraldine James, Stuart Wilson, Christopher Thompson, Fabio Sartor, Peter Blythe, Orla Brady, Mark Tandy, Kelly Hunter, Alexander Hunting.
Directed by Marleen Gorris.
Never having been a chessplayer, never patient enough to learn the game or to sit for long periods playing it, I approached this adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's 1930 novel, The Luzhin Defence, with great hesitation. I need not have been concerned. Dutch director, Marleen Gorris, who directed Mrs Dalloway and the Oscar-winner, Antonia's Line, has made a very elegant period drama. And, she has been able to generate interest in the championship playing of chess even for those who don't know the meaning of the moves.
This immediately raises the issue of what is 'boring' in movies. One person's boredom is another's masterpiece. One person's 'slow' is another's 'measured pace'. Are we bored by something which touches our inferior function? Bored means having to endure something in which we are not interested. So, a strong extravert/sensate may well be bored by chess. I found that I was bored by the very-well choreographed and edited violent boxing bouts in Play it to the Bone. It did not appeal to my introvert/intuitive interests even though it was well-paced and action-packed.
But, with Luzhin, it soon became evident to me that I should be responding to the portrayal of type as well as to the action of the movie. In fact, I found myself mesmerised by the portrait of Alexander Luzhin and in admiration of yet another completely different performance from John Turturro.
The setting is an Italian lakeside resort in Mussolini's Italy where a dishevelled, absent-minded Russian is playing a suave Italian for the world chess championship. A young Russian emigre from Berlin (Emily Watson) becomes attracted to him and he suddenly proposes marriage to the horror of her marriage-arranging mother (Geraldine James). The movie threads the three elements - chess, marriage, family interference - with flashbacks to Alexander's childhood and love for chess. The complicating factor is his school principal and former manager who arrives to watch the competition.
But, what is of great interest, is Luzhin himself.
Luzhin is one of the screen's introverts. He lives almost entirely from energies within: he plans chess moves all the time, he is oblivious of most of what is going on around him, he is tormented by memories of his past, the influence of his parents and aunt, the abandonment of his manager, the risk that his obsession with chess will destroy his physical and mental health.
Which means that Luzhin is an introverted thinker. He is a big picture man, not only in having in his mind the moves and counter-moves of himself and his opponent, but part of the championship is to play many games of chess at once and as fast as possible, moving rapidly from one table to the next, remembering each game in detail and making winning moves. The screenplay has the boy Alexander as well as the adult recreating by working on jigsaw puzzles - a pastime of literally putting together big pictures. This means that Luzhin's extraverted activity is his chess-playing.
Because Luzhin is so obsessed with the game, his profile can be presented simply, almost simplistically. Were you to read the classic descriptions, you would be reading descriptions of Luzhin. You might enjoy the sequence where he takes Elizabeth to see the chess tournament building, talking excitedly to her but not realising she has got lost and is no longer there. When his manager abandons him, he has to enquire what city they are in. And the bewilderment when he works out his masterpiece defence while being abducted and left wandering the mountain fields.
But there is a genuine niceness about him and the movie shows us some possibilities for his development. His is love at first sight, proposing to the kindly Elizabeth who helped him, even before he knows her name, a spontaneous response from his inferior function. Being with her also enables him to observe the world around him. The first half of the film shows him changing, becoming more whole, even, perhaps, with the flashbacks moving towards a healing of memories. The montage of his championship play becoming even more skilful is intercut with a montage of his lovemaking with Elizabeth, a dramatically symbolic way of showing Thinking and Feeling complementing each other.
However, the movie is more complex as the championship progresses, as the marriage ceremony nears, as his manager intervenes and, once again, the dilemma arises of whether he will find health and peace in letting go of the obsession through the love of Elizabeth or whether his love of the game will stop any development and trap him.
The other excellent chess movie is Steven Zaillian's Searching for Bobby Fischer with its focus on a young boy prodigy.
1. A film about chess? Skill? Obsession? Addiction? Sanity and personality?
2. The novel by Vladimir Nabokov, based on an actual character and event in 1924? The Russian background? The tournament in Italy? The locations for Luzhin his past, for the tournament?
3. The recreation of the 1920s, costumes and decor, hotels and style, manners? The musical score?
4. John Turturro's performance as Luzhin, in himself, his age, his experience, coming to Italy, obsessed with the competition, his attitudes, his skills?
5. The presentation of the tournament, the competitors, the different characters, the Italian, Valentinov, different attitudes? The preparations? The attention to detail in the hotel, in the room for the tournament?
6. Natalie, her mother, betrothed, encountering loose in? Her personality, the attraction, walking and sharing with him? Love?
7. Turati, the rival? Valentinov, the past, his coaching Luzhin, the falling out, the meeting, malevolence?
8. The insertion of the flashbacks, Luzhin as a young boy, his parents, abandonment? The other relatives and their care? His ineptitude? Retreating into himself? His reliance on his skills at chess?
9. The game, Turati, Luzhin nervous, Natalie and her support? The different games, the tensions, skills and mistakes? His reaching the final?
10. Valentinov, malevolence and cheating, taking Luzhin, abandoning him, knowing that his weakness was abandonment, memories of his parents? His wandering? Picked up by the Blackshirts? Going to hospital, the doctor and his verdict? About the chess, obsession, his addiction, threatening his energy and his life?
11. Recuperation, Valentinov arriving, the chess board, the challenge? Natalie disagreeing?
12. The marriage ceremony, Valentinov, taking Luzhin in the car? The effect on him, his leaping from the car, his return to the hotel, searching for the chess pieces he had buried there?
13. Luzhin, determination, madness, locked in the room, hurling himself out the window? Valentinov seeing it?
14. The novel ending at this point? The film continuing, Natalie studying her husband's notes, having some coaching, playing his moves, Turati doing the expected thing, Natalie winning, Luzhin winning, but?
