Doctor Zhivago

I can't remember the origin of the quote, but I remember it distinctly. A Communist Party official of the Soviet Union, justifying the Bolshevik destruction of Tsarist Russia, told a foreign observer, `If you want to make an omelet, you've got to break some eggs.' The visitor replied, `I see the broken eggs, but Where's the omelet?' Dr. Zhivago is set at the time when the Bolsheviks, feverishly ideological, were creating their socialist state. The epochal drama that unfolds is the age-old question about whether the ends justify the means.

As materialists (matter precedes spirit, not vice versa), the Bolsheviks believed that they had found the holy grail of human progress in Marxism-Leninism, and were now able to assume the reins of history in their own hands. They believed that their violence was not only justified, but necessary, oblivious to the fact that they, too, somehow felt the angel of medieval teleology smiling over their shoulders.

In contrast to the Bolsheviks, Zhivago's ethos, if he had one, was almost identical to Kant's `categorical imperative,' which had just one axiom: treat people as ends in themselves, and not as ends to a mean. There couldn't be a sharper moral contrast.

There's a fabulous scene midway through the movie that highlights the difference in moral attitude. Dr. Zhivago confronts a communist functionary who has ordered the destruction of a village, a hamlet suspected of aiding the Mensheviks by selling them horses. To the Bolsheviks, if you weren't 100 percent behind them, you were a `counterrevolutionary,' sorta like Dubya's idea that you're either for us, or against us. And so Strelnikov, the passionate Bolshevik, glibly justifies his actions to Dr. Zhivago as easy as if he were tossing his hair aside, saying that the annihilation of the village, however cruel, is necessary to make a point. Zhivago replies: `Your point; their village.'

I love this film, a timeless epic. If there's a more beautiful heroine in all of movie-making history than Julie Christie (Lara), I'm not aware of it. And Omar Sharif is stunning as Iuri Zhivago, who heals the body with emetics, scalpels, antiseptic, and gauze, while he heals the soul with his poetry. Although the movie is three hours and 20 minutes long, the cinematography is so efficient, evocative, and densely layered that one hardly notices. This is, in my opinion, one of the best films of all time.

Great performances, story and cinematography - you could gaze into, fall into the eyes of the protagonists all day and be mesmerised by their beauty and charm, along with the passionate and heartfelt performances. A love story set among a complex and continuously evolving social and cultural landscape with a fair bit of coincidence and luck - we all need a slice of that. Some of the most impressive scenes, scenery and camerawork you're ever likely to come across. It all makes for a film that can truly class itself as epic and classic but, in the modern era the exceedingly long duration and the traction required to get up a head of steam renders it a rarely revisited history lesson of the limited attention spans of contemporary times, albeit something that should grab your attention on at least one occasion during your cinematic journey.

Apparently, "Doctor Zhivago" is one of the most successful films in movie history. Although critics weren't particularly impressed, the public sure was and came to the film in droves. Today it's considered by many to be a classic. I've seen it a couple times before and decided to watch it again tonight--since it's been several decades since I last saw it. While I would agree it is a very good film and has a HUGE scope (like so many of David Lean's films), I would hardly suspect while watching it that, adjusted for inflation, it's one of the 10 highest grossing films in history.

The film is a sweeping saga of several people during the period of the Russian Revolution--both before and after. I could summarize the film but considering that there are already over 200 reviews, I'll spare you. At three hours and twenty minutes, oddly, not a lot seemed to occur in the film. I am not complaining or saying it was dull, as it was a lovely film--with very nice cinematography and music. It's just that the film is the type that slowly and deliberately unfolds--and the more hyperactive might not find that to their liking. The acting is quite nice but I think the real star is the direction. My only reservation is that with the great romance between Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and Lara (Julie Christie)--they both were married and Zhivago's wife (Geraldine Chaplin) was a lovely person. This did make it difficult for me to care about the characters more. Still, it's a lovely spectacle and well worth your time.

Omar Sharif remains indelibly associated with Dr. Yuri Zhivago, a Russian physician-poet who participates in the Bolshevik Revolution, only to have political history affect him against his will. Julie Christie is beautiful as ever as Lara Antipova, Zhivago's true love.

"Doctor Zhivago" certainly pulled off a coup by showing the conditions that led to the revolution: the czar's despotic rule, the crushing poverty, and forced conscription (especially since the generals cared nothing about the men under their command). Then, of course, the Russian people thought that they would have a workers' society, but it didn't turn out that way. The theme song "Lara's Theme" kept the movie going every step of the way. Maybe not the greatest historical drama of all time, but this is a movie that I recommend to everyone.

You really do miss something when you see a formatted version of Doctor Zhivago as I recently did. This is the kind of film that was made literally for the big screen. It's what epic movie making is all about.

I also think that you should see this on the big screen back to back with Warren Beatty's Reds. Two very opposite views of the Russian Revolution, one from the inside and one from the outside. You could have a very interesting discussion on which is which.

The title character, played by Omar Sharif, is Dr. Yuri Zhivago who is both doctor and poet. He was orphaned as a child and raised in the house of Ralph Richardson and Siobhan McKenna. He marries their daughter, Geraldine Chaplin who of course he loves, but naturally like a sister.

The real passion of his life is Julie Christie who is married to a committed Bolshevik in Tom Courtenay. Courtenay is also a guy, with shall we say, some issues. She loves him in her own way though and goes to search for him when he volunteers for the army to subvert it as the Bolshevik plan was when Russia entered World War I.

Christie meets Sharif at the front and the passion ignites. But all around them the society they knew and were brought up in is crumbling about them. Their story set against the background of the Russian Revolution is what Doctor Zhivago is all about.

Zhivago knows change was inevitable, the old order in Russia was ready to be toppled. But he's a poet and not one to let his art be subverted for the sake of the state. Fortunately he's also a doctor and his services are needed, in fact the Bolsheviks rather brutally insist on his accompanying one of their brigades as a medical officer.

I still remember as a lad the acclaim Boris Pasternak's novel got world wide when it was published while being banned in his home land. After winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pasternak died shortly thereafter. It's a pity he did not live to see this film, I think he would have approved.

From the deserts of Arabia to the steppes of Russia, David Lean certainly knew how to direct a film that involved vastness. Yet the people of his stories be it Lawrence of Arabia or Doctor Zhivago never get lost in the spectacle. Lean makes you care about the characters that Pasternak created, you get involved in the romance of Sharif and Christie, you want to know if they'll make it in this country undergoing revolutionary convulsions.

Other performances of note are Alec Guinness as Sharif's half brother Yevgeny Zhivago, a committed Bolshevik himself and Rod Steiger as the opportunistic Komorovsky.

Doctor Zhivago won a host of awards in several technical categories, strangely enough it wasn't nominated for Best Picture in 1965 though. It is a classic and even now with the Soviet Union a memory, I doubt if even a Russian made remake of Zhivago could equal what David Lean and his wonderful cast gave us in 1965.