The Queen’s Gambit: Not Just Chess

The Queen’s Gambit is a miniseries based on Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel of the same name. I will talk about this series that has recently caused viewers to be interested in chess. Although the general fiction of the series seems to be about chess, it actually tells about the struggle of a chess-lover woman in the male-dominated society in the 1950s.

And also the civil war of a genius with herself.

The events go through our main hero, Beth Harmon, (Anya Taylor Joy). Beth is a very impressive character with her intelligence, beauty and style, as well as arousing curiosity with her life. Beth Harmon is a chess lover, but it is not enough to just say she likes it, it is at the center of her gaming life. She also looks at chess, which has a dark side, as an escape.

Beth is orphaned at the age of 9 and is introduced to chess by the janitor, Mr. Shaibel, in the orphanage where she is placed. Beth’s genius, family life, and experiences make her quite unstable. Besides, she was addicted, and in the late 50s, it was quite common to give sedatives to children in the orphanage, which made Beth a drug addict when she was 9, and chess for a lifetime enters the addiction process, which continues when she drinks her first drink at the age of 15. But it would be more correct for Beth Harmon to describe chess as an obsession rather than an addiction.

Queen’s Gambit

Our Beth is also psychosis and I say it would be absurd not to be so smart and mad by agreeing with the sentence “Creativity and psychosis are often together” in the series.

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Another aspect of the series that has watched the most is its cinematographic structure, cinematographer Steven Meizler has done a very good job, the angles and light balances taken while watching the series are quite impressive. Of course, another factor is hair, makeup and clothes. If you like 60s fashion, you will definitely love clothes. By the way, it is a very nice detail that the white dress he wears in Russia in the last scene is made to simulate the white queen.

You’ll always wonder if you’re watching Beth will she recover or will she quit?