Chess - Stefan Zweig (1942) AKA Chess Story, AKA The Royal Game

Rating: Excellent

I found my copy of Chess in my local street library, a well-loved source of great finds in the neighbourhood. The book’s eye-catching cover stood out, despite its slender 104 page-count. Stefan Zweig was a name I vaguely recognised, but I didn’t realise that the Austrian writer was one of the most popular writers in the world during the 1920’s, through the 1930s. Zweig’s story is unfortunately typical of Jewish born artists and intellectuals in central Europe during the time of the rise of Nazism in Germany. Zweig emigrated to England in the mid-1930s to escape Nazism, eventually settling in Brazil, where he was initially happy. Unfortunately he and his wife became so depressed by the state of war-torn Europe and humanity that they committed suicide by barbiturate overdose in 1942. Chess was the last work Zweig submitted for publication, emerging just before his death. An anonymous narrator recalls his experience aboard a passenger liner travelling from the USA to Buenos Aires, where he recognises world chess champion Mirko Czentovic. The narrator first establishes Czentovic’s background, his emergence from obscurity to being a world-renowned chess genius – an idiot savant basically. The narrator very much wishes to play Czentovic and engineers a situation, the playing of a chess game in the bar on the liner, in which to attract his attention. This ploy works, but it also attracts the attention of one Dr B., who, before long, takes up the challenge of playing the champion, with alarming results.

Stefan Zweig, contemplating the future

It is the background story of Dr B., who recounts his past experiences to the narrator during the middle section of the narrative, that is the crux of this short but affecting novella. Dr B., when living and working in Austria, is arrested by the Gestapo in order to find the whereabouts of Church assets he had helped to hide. Dr B is imprisoned in isolation for many months, with his only respite coming from the stolen contents of an instructional book on chess, which also outlines a number of famous games. Dr B., in attempting to survive captivity, plays games of chess in his mind, becoming highly skilled in the process. Such a premise allows Zweig to explore the insidious reach of Nazism, which caused untold physical damage to the world, but also emotional and psychological damage as well. The suicide of Zweig and his wife, Lotte Altmann, indicates that they very much felt the terrible psychological effects of having been driven from their home country, only to helplessly watch as Nazi Germany threatened the world with their tyranny. Dr B., who is physically safe from the Gestapo, still suffers from psychological trauma, something that emerges during his games with Czentovic. It’s a clever device; one made all the more affecting by Zweig’s precise style and the exacting brevity of the novella. Easily read in one sitting, Chess remains in your mind long after, making it a powerful artistic statement from a dark era in modern history.

Cinema Speculation - Quentin Tarantino (2022)

Rating: Excellent

Quentin Tarantino has always come across as someone who can’t keep his mouth shut, most recently he’s been rounded on for his description of Paul Dano as the worst living actor in America, among other more colourful insults. If you’ve heard Tarantino talk then you know that he is an enthusiastic and opinionated motormouth and when you read Cinema Speculation you can’t help but hear his voice, which, ultimately, is a good thing. Cinema Speculation is a blend of memoir and critical appraisal, beginning with ‘Little Q Watching Big Movies’, in which he talks candidly about his childhood brought up by his mother and being taken to the movies by her and his stepfather, and then a succession of boyfriends. Basically, Tarantino was taken to see movies in the 60’s and 70’s that he was far too young to see, and this then informed his approach to making his own movies. It’s a fascinating opening chapter, setting the scene for a foray into his favourite movies between 1968 and 1981. This is film theory, but not the kind you’re used to, it’s fast paced, both irreverent and reverent, taking no prisoners with opinions blasted from the gun used by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry (1971). Tarantino starts with Bullitt (1968), a Steve McQueen feature, in which he riffs on the leading male actors of the time, claiming that Elvis could have been up there with the likes of McQueen and Paul Newman if he’d taken his movie career more seriously. Such conclusions are a feature of Cinema Speculation. Dirty Harry (1971) is next and there’s no stopping Tarantino’s motormouth and at only the third chapter in you are caught up in his endless enthusiasms, wanting to see these movies again, to see them through his eyes, with his voice running through your addled brain.

Steve McQueen as Bullitt - 1968

During each chapter he references many other actors and movies, most of them obscure and lost to time, but kept alive by cinephiles just like Tarantino. This is the kind of book to have a notepad by your side to write down all the obscure movies he mentions for later viewing. Cinema Speculation is totally digressive, but all the better for it. It’s an invaluable insight into what became known as ‘New Hollywood’, when actors and styles that had been rusted on were swept away by the likes of Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg (whom Tarantino refers to as a genius) and Francis Ford Coppola. There’s a chapter entitled – 'New Hollywood in the Seventies' that is brilliant. Tarantino loves these directors, but throughout the book he really champions the ‘Grindhouse’ and the ‘Revengeorama’ sub-genres that existed in the darker realms of movie-houses. He writes great pieces on the likes of Deliverance (1972) and Taxi Driver (1976), but also on the more obscure likes of Rolling Thunder (1977) and The Funhouse (1981), movies made by smaller studios and risk-taking directors. It’s these movies that Tarantino talks about that really make Cinema Speculation something special, to the extent that I’m going to try and watch as many of these movies as possible. They are out there, existing in the search engines of lesser streamers like Tubi or floating around in the piles of DVDs that are filling up op-shops these days (people are dumping their physical media in their droves). Ultimately Cinema Speculation leaves you with a deeper understanding of where Tarantino came from and what informed his stylistic choices when it came to his own movies. I don’t love all of Tarantino’s movies (I’m one of the few people who aren’t partial to Reservoir Dogs (1992), for example), but I do believe that he is one of the most significant writers and directors around. If you have any interest in cinema history or Tarantino, then Cinema Speculation is well worth the read.