Catching up with Liz Garbus, director of Bobby Fischer Against the World
How did you first get interested in Bobby Fischer’s story?Liz Garbus: I was actually on a plane on January 18 of 2008, on my way to the Sundance Film Festival, when I read Bobby Fischer’s obituary, and I became fascinated with his story. When I got off the plane I immediately started doing some research into what had been done already, and I just kept thinking, wow, I really want this to be my next project.
Paste: As far as the research for the doc, there’s a ton of information out there to dive into. How’d you start that?
Garbus: Well, I did a lot of reading. Books about chess, the theory and ideology and history of chess. And of course books about Fischer himself, making notes about the scenes and high points. And also looking at who was there, who could help tell this story. And I started making a kind of hit list through all of that. And then of course there’s the archival research process, which on this film was a major undertaking. But it returned some great rewards, some great 70’s gems. It was a really lengthy process. Ultimately we ended up combing the globe and turning up clues about footage that we believed existed, and wanted in the movie.
Paste: for those photos, and they told us they were owned by Harry Benson himself. So we called him and learned that not only did he own those photos, but he actually spent a ton of time with Bobby Fischer, knew Bobby Fischer incredibly well, and has hundreds of Bobby Fischer photos that no one has ever seen. So that was an incredible find, and really helped create the film. It added so much visually.
Paste: Yeah, he has such a distinctive eye and his visual language really impacts and almost becomes the visual language of the film. And as you say, there are so many of them. What was it like really diving into someone else’s perspective on your subject that is so deep and rich and almost all-encompassing?
Garbus: Well, first of all it was amazing to imagine, based on everything we knew about Bobby and everything everyone said about him, that he would actually allow anyone that kind of access to his life – lying in bed, nearly passed out from exhaustion after a game, or in the shower, totally different naked. All the places that Harry went with him. It’s just hard to imagine Fischer, who really didn’t like the press, who really got anxious when someone got into his business, giving Benson that access. But when you meet Benson, you begin to understand. He’s this thoroughly charming, very witty guy, and he’s not above some dirty tricks to get close to Fischer. For instance, he told me a story once about how all these other journalists would ask him how he got so close to Bobby, and he’d say, “Oh, you know, Bobby loves to hear dirty jokes.” So they’d all go and tell him dirty jokes, which of course was the last thing Bobby Fischer was interested in. He had some good war stories like that. But it was really like Happy Birthday when I was able to make a deal with Harry Benson to use those images in the film. It was just a huge gift, and I can’t imagine what the film would have been like without them.
Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib - News
But more recently she collaborated with Rory Kennedy on Street Fight, which was also Oscar-nominated, and she produced the Emmy-winning Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. Her new picture is a fascinating work about a fascinating man. Bobby Fischer Against the World
BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD (HBO, Monday) Directed by Liz Garbus (“Ghosts of Abu Ghraib”), this portrait of the eccentric chess master opens HBO's Monday-night summer documentary series. Future installments include Lisa F. Jackson's “Sex Crimes
which was nominated for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; FREEHELD, which won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film; and THE GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB, which won the 2007 Emmy Award for Best Documentary Special.
Garbus has also directed the Oscar-nominated The Farm:Angola, USA and Emmy-winning Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, among other films. Among those interviewed in the new documentary: Malcolm Gladwell, Dick Cavett, famed photographer Harry Benson and various chess
Negation and violations of the American political values at Guantomobay and “Abu Ghraib” meant nothing to his “Audacity of Hope.” It was a political stunt to appease the public and win the elections. His re-election campaign for 2012 Presidential
“The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” — The Monkey Cage
. The guards recount pressure from military intelligence to “soften up” prisoners. MI would say things like “This guy needs to have a bad night.” Megan Ambuhl then says that it was “not my place to question anything.” Javal Davis recounts the statement of Charles Graner, who received the longest sentence of any of the guards: “I don’t have a choice.” In the Milgram experiments, the experimenter would prod subjects to continue by saying “You have no choice.”
The routinization of brutality . People are more likely to conform to others’ behavior ambiguous situations, which make us unsure how we ought to behave and attentive to others’ behavior for information and cues. Certain of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, such as stress positions , appear to reflect deliberate policy, and the film lays out the familiar evidence from various memoranda . But other kinds of abuses, such as the infamous pyramids , seem to have been innovations. Krol says that there were “so many changes in policy…It was kind of confusing.” Rivera asks, “At what point do you say it’s enough?” Ken Davis was told, “Use your imagination.” The guards did not know what they could and could not do, and their superiors did not say.
Situational causes of behavior do not exonerate the individuals involved—a point that is sometimes lost on people —but do help explain why individuals behave as they do and why an ordinary, apparently genial MP like Javal Davis would say that he “was a different person” once he walked through the prison doors.
I highly recommend “The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.
Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib - Bookshelf
n+1, Number Seven: Correction
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib takes the visual simile of “ghost” ... The problem is that scary music—and the music in Ghosts of Abu Ghraib is pretty scary—makes too ...Cloning Terror, The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present
reporters Mark Benjamin and Michael Scherer produced “The Abu Ghraib Files,” ... beginning with Rory Kennedy's The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, first screened at ...Monstering, Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War
As many as 4000 prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib in 1984, according to ... "Unfortunately the Abu Ghraib prison complex includes a building where death ...U.S. news & world report
But other types of prisoners— off-the book "ghosts"— were also held at Abu Ghraib. In a sworn deposition obtained by US. News, Colonel Sabatino, who worked ...Political psychology, situations, individuals, and cases
Rory Kennedy's thought-provoking film Ghosts of Abu Ghraib begins with scenes from Milgram's documentary Obedience, overlain with a haunting soundtrack. ...Check Information Directory
HBO: Ghosts of Abu Ghraib: Home
The official website for the HBO Documentary Film Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, featuring videos, images, interviews, resources and schedule information.
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib - Wikipedia
User-created article about Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, the Rory Kennedy documentary examining the 2004 Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (2007) - IMDb
Directed by Rory Kennedy. With Israel Rivera, Megan Ambuhl Graner, Javal Davis, George W. Bush.
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib Movie Reviews - Rotten Tomatoes
Review: This inside look at the abuses that occurred at the infamous Iraqi prison in the fall of 2003 uses direct, personal narratives of perpetrators,
National Religious Campaign Against Torture - Screenings of ...
"Ghosts of Abu Ghraib," an 80-minute HBO film, features the familiar ... How much damage has the aftermath of Abu Ghraib had on America's credibility as a ...