Lockdown, Queen's Gambit 'Spectacular' for Chess, Says Indian Grandmaster

Indian grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand. (AFP)
Indian grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand. (AFP)
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Lockdown, Queen's Gambit 'Spectacular' for Chess, Says Indian Grandmaster

Indian grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand. (AFP)
Indian grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand. (AFP)

Mass lockdowns and "The Queen's Gambit" have brought unexpected gains for chess during the coronavirus, Indian grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand told AFP, praising the hit TV show's "accurate portrayal" of the game.

Anand, who spent three months stranded in Germany waiting for a flight back to India, said chess has enjoyed a surprise boom during the pandemic, with millions more people playing and following games online.

It has been helped by the runaway success of "The Queen's Gambit", which follows the rise of a troubled chess genius -- based on America's Bobby Fischer -- and has set new viewing records for Netflix.

"People sitting at home seem to have discovered the game of chess," Anand, a five-time world champion, said in a phone interview from his home in Chennai.

"There are now 13 million people playing online. And then during the pandemic there was also a Netflix show about chess, 'The Queen's Gambit', and that is also a bit spectacular."

While many sports have suffered during the pandemic, chess has thrived. Online platform Chess.com last month said it had added 2.5 million new members since the release of "The Queen's Gambit".

"Just like other sports have TV audiences, our audiences are principally online. So all that happened was that the chess players moved online to join the spectators," said Anand, 50.

"That's not to say there were no adjustments to be made. It was quite complicated and there was a learning curve, but yes chess has done very well."

'Federer, Maradona in your room'
Anand, acclaimed as the greatest player India has produced, said technology had brought about deep changes for chess, with the internet now providing the platform to take it to a mass audience.

"Almost anyone, even someone who doesn't know the rules of chess can follow online," said Anand. "A spectator-friendly experience is being created."

Anand won his first world title aged 30 in 2000, three years after super-computer Deep Blue's epochal defeat of Russian world champion Garry Kasparov.

"I was the crossover generation. I was 17 when the first chess database came along. I have pretty much worked with computers from that time onwards till today," said Anand.

"I think computers have changed the way you study the game. Every person no matter how weak, how isolated, has the world's strongest chess player sitting in the room with them always willing to answer any question.

"Think of it, you have a Roger Federer and Diego Maradona in your room and saying, 'Ask and I will give you any answer'. That's been the impact of chess computers."

Anand enjoyed great rivalries with the likes of Kasparov, Russian grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik and Soviet-born Israeli Boris Gelfand.

He said there are still muscular showdowns such as Magnus Carlsen against Fabiano Caruana -- the current leading players -- and tipped teenage sensation Alireza Firouzja, who was born in Iran but plays for France, for future stardom.

'You need that tension'
He said Russian domination is increasingly being challenged, with Ding Liren and Wang Hao leading a wave of Chinese players and Caruana at the forefront of a growing US onslaught.

"China may have peaked recently in terms of having two really strong players stand out but they have had considerable depth for a while," said Anand.

"And the other thing is that they are very good in chess Olympiads, so they play well as a team. So we aren't surprised by good Chinese results any more."

Anand, who became a grandmaster at 18 and remains in the world top 20, was playing in a chess league in Germany when most international travel came to a halt in February.

He kept himself busy following his favorite football team Real Madrid, doing commentaries and leading India in the Online Nations Cup before finally returning home in May.

But despite the advances in technology, he said it was impossible to replicate the tension and atmosphere of a live game.

"If you want to play, you need that sense of being sitting there in the hall feeling that tension," he said.

"All those things, I think I need to remember again. It has been a very, very long break.

"We never had the world grind to a halt like this."



Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito Revisit ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ for Its 50th Anniversary

Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
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Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito Revisit ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ for Its 50th Anniversary

Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)

Jack Nicholson did not want to go to the Oscars. It was 1976 and he was nominated for best actor in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The Miloš Forman film, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a nationwide theatrical re-release on July 13 and July 16, had become a bit of a sensation — the second highest grossing picture of 1975, behind “Jaws,” and had received nine Oscar nominations.

But Nicholson wasn’t feeling optimistic. In five years, he’d already been nominated five times. He’d also lost five times. And he told his producer, Michael Douglas, that he couldn’t go through it again.

“I remember how hard I had to persuade Jack to come to the ceremony. He was so reluctant, but we got him there,” Douglas said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “And then of course we lost the first four awards. Jack was sitting right in front of me and sort of leaned back and said ’Oh, Mikey D, Mikey D, I told you, man.’ I just said, ‘Hang in there.’”

Douglas, of course, was right. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” would go on to sweep the “big five” — screenplay, director, actor, actress and picture — the first film to do so in 41 years, (“It Happened One Night,” in 1934) which only “The Silence of the Lambs” has done since. That night was one of many vindicating moments for a film that no one wanted to make or distribute that has quite literally stood the test of time.

“This is my first 50th anniversary,” Douglas said. “It’s the first movie I ever produced. To have a movie that’s so lasting, that people get a lot out of, it’s a wonderful feeling. It’s bringing back a lot of great memories.”

The film adaption of Ken Kesey’s countercultural novel was a defining moment for Douglas, a son of Hollywood who was stuck in television and got a lifeline to film when his father, Kirk Douglas, gave him the rights to the book, and many of the then-unknown cast like Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd.

DeVito was actually the first person officially cast. Douglas, who’d known him for nearly 10 years, brought Forman to see him play Martini on stage.

“Miloš said, ‘Yes! Danny! Perfect! Cast!’” Douglas said in his best Czech accent. “It was a big moment for Danny. But I always knew how talented he was.”

A Joyful Shoot

Though the film's themes are challenging, unlike many of its New Hollywood contemporaries it wasn’t a tortured shoot by any stretch. They had their annoyances (like Forman refusing to show the cast dailies) and more serious trials (they found out halfway through production that William Redfield was dying of leukemia), but for the most part it was fun.

“We were very serious about the work, because Miloš was very serious. And we had the material, Kesey’s work, and the reverence for that. We were not frivolous about it. But we did have a ball doing it,” DeVito said, laughing.

Part of that is because they filmed on location at a real state hospital in Salem, Oregon. Everyone stayed in the same motel and would board the same bus in the morning to get to set. It would have been hard not to bond and even harder if they hadn’t.

“There was full commitment,” Douglas said. “That comes when you don’t go home at night to your own lives. We stopped for lunch on the first day and I saw Jack kind of push his tray away and go outside to get some air. I said, ‘Jack, you OK?’ He said, ’Who are these guys? Nobody breaks character! It’s lunch time and they’re all acting the same way!'”

Not disproving Nicholson’s point, DeVito remembers he and the cast even asked if they could just sleep in the hospital.

“They wouldn’t let us,” DeVito said. “The floor above us had some seriously disturbed people who had committed murder.”

A lasting legacy

The film will be in theaters again on July 13 and July 16 from Fathom Entertainment. It’s a new 4K restoration from the Academy Film Archive and Teatro Della Pace Films with an introduction by Leonard Maltin.

“It’s a gorgeous print and reminds me how good the sound was,” Douglas said.

DeVito thinks it, “holds up in a really big way, because Miloš really was paying attention to all great things in the screenplay and the story originally.”

Besides the shock of “holy Toledo, am I that old?” DeVito said that it was a treasure to be part of — and he continues to see his old friends, including Douglas, Lloyd and, of course, Nicholson, who played the protagonist, R.P. McMurphy.

One person Douglas thinks hasn’t gotten the proper attention for his contributions to “Cuckoo’s Nest” is producer Saul Zaentz, who died in 2014. His music company, Fantasy Records who had Creedence Clearwater Revival, funded the endeavor which started at a $1.6 million budget and ballooned to $4 million by the end. He was a gambler, Douglas said, and it paid off.

And whatever sour grapes might have existed between Douglas and his father, who played R.P. McMurphy on Broadway and dreamt of doing so on film, were perhaps over-exaggerated. It was ultimately important for their relationship.

“McMurphy is as good a part as any actor is going to get, and I’m now far enough in my career to understand maybe you have four, maybe five good parts, really great parts. I’m sure for dad that was one of them,” Douglas said.

“To not be able to see it through was probably disappointing on one side. On the other, the fact that his son did it and the picture turned out so good? Thank God the picture turned out. It would have been a disaster if it hadn’t.”

Douglas added: “It was a fairy tale from beginning to end. I doubt anything else really came close to it. Even my Oscar for best actor years later didn’t really surpass that moment very early in my career.”