Рецепция шахматного спорта в отечественном кино 1970–1980-х годов

Abstract

In this article, the author analyzes the image of chess in the Soviet films of the 1970s–1980s. The relevance of the topic is associated with the renewed interest in chess and its history in modern films and television series. The author focuses on the Soviet back story of films about chess players, which until recently remained on the periphery of research. The subject of the article is the reception of chess in three Soviet films of the selected period: Grandmaster, White Snow of Russia, and Capablanca. The choice of the films under analysis was motivated by their thematic unity, which consists in translating the image of chess not as a game, leisure activity, or a way of communication but as a sport. The novelty of the research lies in studying insufficiently explored material, comparing the film plot with historical events, and identifying conceptual patterns of how a personality is perceived in late Soviet art. The main characters of the films are professional chess players, two of them based on real people. The film Grandmaster depicts an image of a Soviet intellectual who finds a game of chess to be a form of self-reflection. White Snow of Russia is based on the facts from the life of the chess player Alexander Alekhine. As presented in the film, for the protagonist chess is a vocation and the only suitable mode of existence. Although the narrative is centered around the political aspects of Alexander Alekhine’s biography, he is portrayed as a typical character of late Soviet cinema, involved in a personal conflict. The third film is a biographical melodrama about the idealized historical figure of the Cuban chess player José Raúl Capablanca, which presents a mixture of real historical facts and fiction. In all three films, the filmmakers focus on the international sport of chess, which appears to be inseparable from politics. In Capablanca, the political theme is the least developed one, but it is still important for the plot. Through the analysis of the semantic layers and expressive means of the films, the author of the article points out specific features of the presentation of chess in the Soviet screen culture. This allows identifying three different patterns of the development of the image of chess: a way of self-knowledge and self-development for the character, a sport for the intelligentsia based on the triumph of reason, and an allegory of love relationships between a man and a woman.