Doctor Zhivago

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.

By this stage of my life, I've seen thousands of movies and I can still say this movie is still one of the 10 best I've seen. Especially considering it was produced in 1964 /1965 without todays technology. When considering the cinematography, acting, story line and overall dynamics of the story... WOW don't know how it could get any better; in my mind anyway. I don't understand how or why it only has an overall rating of 7.9 on IMDb (majority of votes at 7/10) and not even in the top 150 movies list. In all fairness though, probably 90% of the viewing audience today hasn't even seen it Well, times have changed and SiFi and fantasy seem to be more popular now.

No wonder the highest directorial achievement for direction of the British Academy of Film and Television is named after David Lean. An artist who knew how to combine great performances, with breathtaking settings, haunting soundtrack, in order to create works of art that are to remain as pillars for the future generations of film-makers.

"Doctor Zhivago" is definitely one of his most outstanding works, a film that breathes with life, and suffers with passion. Neither, though, of the credited people can take as much credit for it, as David Lean. Omar Sharif delivers one of his best performances of his career, Julie Christie has never been as stunning, or Rod Steiger as Komarovsky or Tom Courtenay as Antipov ever left more memorable performances than these ones. Not even Maurice Jarre, who composed one of the most unforgettable themes in film history, or Robert Bolt, for his skillful adaptation on Pasternak's difficult novel, not even Freddy Young's cinematography, can rise above the vibration of genius, which is David Lean. We almost feel the complexity of the universe collapsing on us with a mad power that we instantly become part of it, and fall in love with all its particles.

For those who haven't seen the film, this might make little sense, and it can give a misleading understanding of what one is to expect. "Doctor Zhivago" is a poet, who at the beginning of the 20th Century is caught in the historical Bolshevik revolution. An outstanding doctor, married to his childhood friend, Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin in a warm performance), finds that there is beauty beyond deceit, love beyond commitment, by starting an affair with an enigmatic lady which appears often in his path in the most unnoticeable of moments. Their destiny is as confused as Russia in the turmoil started by the Reds, it is shaped by history without their approval. There is no solution for a country that abandoned its passions in its desire of self-improvement, just as for the two lovers, which find themselves abandoned in the middle of the Siberian taiga.

This is a slow film and for the good reasons. We are allowed to breathe the story, to give it momentum, and to judge it from within, as if the choices were not Yury's, Lara's or Tonya's, but our own creation. And this is the brilliance of Lean's direction. The story transcends time and space, and it melts within the triviality of our life. Beyond it, we are left with nothing but love, pure and blindingly real.

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.

As much as I love cinema, it comes as a shock to me that I never sat down and watched this film. I was very young when it came out, my parents saw it and quite liked it, and I remember them buying the stereo record soundtrack, with details of the film and pictures of the cast, and reading it in detail. Still, the thought of sitting down and watching the whole movie, of what appeared to be cold, dark, alien Russia, was of no interest to me. However, I finally watched it a half century plus since it came out. I also read both current and contemporary critical ratings of the film, and could not be in greater disagreement with most of them.

This is a great movie. It is long. It is memorable. But it is neither a soap opera nor foolish. It is not a documentary of Russia in WW1 and then going communist. It is a life and love story against a backdrop of these things. Critics should accept what a movie is about, rather than what they wish it were about.

A movie like this, like all epics, gets a chance to show detail and immerse you in the environment. I never felt so chilled, and so bothered by the wind--all in my head--as during watching this film. In that way, actually feeling like you were there, has only been as realized for me in one other film, "The Last Picture Show", where the feel of chill and desolation in that movie is pervasive.

All performances are great, don't let the idiots tell you otherwise. I read that many felt the Sharif was wrong, or expressionless. Sorry, but that is his character. He is trying to be a professional physician, and keep the appropriate facade in the face of changes that are absolutely surreal. Christie possesses the kind of visual magnetism that makes the infatuation of Zhivago plausible. Rod Steiger, who is guilty of preposterous performances in other films, hits the keys of his performance so perfectly you never disbelieve him. Lesser actors would have just made him the perverted rapist that he is, but nothing more to add to the dynamics of his personality. Courtney as high-minded, full of foolishness, and in the end, blinded by frustration and I believe a touch of madness.

Another thing I found splendid about this film was how it illuminated how evil, twisted, and preposterous the scheme of communism truly is. In this film, and of course in history, all the wealth of the rich is removed, and redistributed. This fixes nothing. What it does allow for, in its BS concepts that all men are the same and are all "comrades", is that you don't rise due to merit, you rise because of who you know. The movie time and again shows complete idiots in charge of things...the "managers" of the old Zhivago house who have converted into mass housing for the jealous poor who hate Zhivago and his family. They couldn't be more useless. The leaders of various combat units. The guy who tells people on the disgusting train about the "features" of the accommodations. Yes, in communist countries, the cream never does rise to the top. The working class does whatever is told, just for the benefit of the scraps and their survival. Lara at one point states something like "it's a horrible time to be alive"....and nothing is closer to the truth than that.

Again, not documentary or a wartime story, but its concepts and truths are right there.

The production, of course, top notch. Watch it, take a break or two and soak it all up. It is a special kind of movie, back when they made such a thing.