In the Soviet Union, for instance, the pressure on the chess stars was immense. When Boris Spassky came home after losing that match, he found he no longer had an apartment in Moscow.

It has a lot to do with just sort of trust in the relationship that builds between the filmmaker and the subject. There are some people who will never be relaxed in front of a camera, and in some ways that's my failing as a filmmaker to not put them at ease. It's also a function of time, and if you have that type of time.

I think the combination of genius and celebrity, in the case of Bobby Fischer, was a dangerous cocktail.

I don't think you make documentary films to get your country house. If you're trying to gamble on that, you've very foolish.

Managers all over the world will go crazy when their artists are not touting the party line and making things pretty in the way that they're supposed to, but it's different when your manager is your husband. It's contrary to your soul. That commercial interest presses in upon your whole personal life.

When your entire life is focused around one goal and one goal only, and you have no other pursuits, it enables you to achieve enormous mastery.

Each project draws you in on its own merits as opposed to an intellectual choice of, "Well, I'm going to shift from vérité filmmaking to more archival."