Norway’s Magnus Carlsen celebrated his 26th birthday this year by retaining his World Chess Champion title for the second successive time. Freda Cooper talked to Benjamin Ree, who directed the recent documentary about the man known as “the Mozart of chess.”…
Magnus Carlsen recently retained his World Chess Champion title for the second time running. Have you spoken to Magnus about his win and what was his reaction?
I spoke with his father and manager and congratulated them all. I didn’t get to speak to Magnus directly, but I think Magnus’ thank you speech says it all: “My father is really the best support I have. He is the best person I know and he always sacrifices his time and energy for me to be able to perform the best way I can and he has done so since I started to play. I am eternally grateful to him. You mean all to me.” Our film is really about their father-son relationship.
In the film, Magnus comes across as a very private person. You were allowed to film him in the moments after major chess games. Did it take long to gain his confidence and how did you go about it?
Actually it didn’t take that long. When Magnus had been filmed before there was a whole film crew following him around, like with 60 Minutes. I met him alone with the camera, and that was an advantage for me. Magnus didn’t notice me that much and felt calm having me around. I think another reason why I got access was because I am from Norway and I am at the same age as Magnus.
This is your first feature film. What encouraged you to make the leap from short films?
Magnus started out as a short film and then developed to become much bigger. I like to start out a project as a short film, because you don’t know what kind of access you will get, what kind of archival footage there is and you really don’t know what’s going to happen in the subject’s life. So with Magnus we got good access, had a lot of great archival footage, and he even ended up becoming the World Chess Champion. It was a story worth telling as a feature documentary.
I remember the first time I approached Magnus Carlsen about doing a feature length film about him. So I asked, “What do you think about me making a feature length film about your life?” He responded: “That film will be boring. It’s better that I make a film about you, trying to make a film about me.” Fortunately that didn’t happen.
How did the idea for a documentary about Magnus come about? What appealed to you about his story?
I was very fascinated about Magnus’s approach to life and chess. Magnus has studied the game in a completely different way than all the greatest chess players in history. He was driven by playfulness and curiosity, rather than discipline and structure. Chess experts told the family he needed discipline: if not they would waste a potential talent. “The apple is almost rotten,” World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov said about Magnus back then, but Magnus’s father Henrik did not agree.
Magnus and his family stuck to their beliefs. His parents let the boy play and have fun, all voluntarily. And something extraordinary happened: Magnus developed a unique intuition for the game that no one had seen before. Today there are so many people that force their children into discipline, and along the way they forget the importance of playfulness and curiosity. Not only that, but Magnus was the first modern professional chess player to try to avoid computers in chess preparations. In a society that is relying more and more on computers, he brings the human element back to the game, and that is why he is regarded as a modern icon for creative thinking. I found this immensely fascinating and a story worth telling.
The film shows how Magnus had to adapt to media attention. What do you think his story has to tell us about the pressures that go with being a celebrity?
I think this can be really stressful if you are trying to focus on your chess. Like in India when he played the first World Chess Championship match, the photographers were smashing the glass wall. Magnus was so nervous that he dropped his chess pieces because the pressure was so high.
When Magnus is not playing chess, he tries to focus on things other than what the media writes about him. He is really good at that. In fact, he hasn’t seen the film about his life yet. His family has, but Magnus didn’t want to see it before the World Chess Championship, so he could stay focused. I’m still looking forward to hear what he thinks about the film.
You’ve directed, photographed and written this film. What challenges did you face in doing all three? Would you do it again in the future?
Yes. But I had a great co-writer and co-photographer with me on Magnus. Without them I couldn’t have done it. I like how close you can get a person if it’s only you there with the camera.
Chess has played a key role in a number of films, both dramas and documentaries. What makes it so dramatic? And how do you overcome the fact that the game is essentially all in the mind?
Chess is dramatic because it’s a psychological game. And as a filmmaker, it’s a huge challenge to take an internalized sport like chess and convert it to a visual medium. I think many filmmakers like that challenge.
What we did in the film was to do long interviews with Magnus where he narrated exactly what he was feeling during chess games. Then we put it all together like a PowerPoint presentation: “This is what Magnus is feeling and thinking in the chess games”. That was a great starting point. We deleted all his voice-overs and started working with the cinematic language to convert what he was thinking and feeling. We used editing, music, sound and photography to get as close to what he was saying in the interviews.
Do you play chess yourself? Have you played chess against Magnus himself and how did you get on?
I am very fascinated by the chess game, but I don’t play it myself. I think that was an advantage for the film. I wanted to focus on the human drama of the story, so that everybody could enjoy the film.
Thanks to Benjamin Ree for taking the time for this interview.
Magnus will be available on digital, VoD, Blu-ray & DVD from 12th December.
Read my review of Magnus here
Freda Cooper – Follow me on Twitter, check out my movie blog and listen to my podcast, Talking Pictures.
Originally published December 8, 2016. Updated November 14, 2019.
