Shallow, Slow and Sad

Rating: 4/10 (16 April 2006)

I consider David Lean to be one of the greatest filmmakers ever--but this is far from his best film. The cinematography is sweeping in it beauty (not unlike other films from its day such as the Sound of Music) and the actors were talented but the love story was so simplified that it lacked the emotional depth needed to give the characters arcs or even elicit sympathy. Such is the stuff that fluff is made.
Another disappointing aspect of this film was it's award winning score. The short dominating theme (which can be heard in its entirety as the DVD menu music) reoccurs every time the star crossed lovers met or are about to meet. The variations on the theme are not well developed so we hear the same 30 seconds of mandolin music again, and again and again. Out of all of the Academy's nominations in 1965 for Substantially Original Musical Score (which included Alex North's brilliant work Agony and the Ecstasy-- Alfred Newman's awe-inspiring Greatest Story Ever Told and what many consider to be the finest musical ever filmed: Michel Legrand and Jacques Demy's Umbrellas of Cherbourg) this was the least deserving of an Oscar. I would have awarded Frank DeVol the prize for Cat Balou (also nominated) before I would have given it to Maurice Jarre for this score.
After finally seeing the film--and being so disappointed--i looked into the history of the movie to discover why this is such a well-known work, and here is what i discovered: Dr Zhivago was a epic book by Boris Pasternak that was truncated for the movie stripping it of many layers of meaning. As a film it was not critically acclaimed--in fact the reviews were so bad that David Lean swore he would never make another movie again (and he didn't for almost 20 years until Passage to India). But the public loved it. Dr. Zhivago made more money, up until that point in time, than all of David Lean's previous films combined. Dr Zhavago was an anti-communist film made during the cold war (probably not an unpopular position) during an era of greater sexual repression. So a movie made in 1965 about a cheating man whose pride and extra-marital affair trumps his concern for his child and wife could--in its time--be seen as romanticized heroism. But not from many people's point of view today. The movie isn't even erotic--just shallow, slow and sad.
Dr Zhavago is more comparable to Titanic (which is superior musically and artistically) than it would be to a truly great epic such as Lawrence of Arabia or The Bridge on the River Kwai. There are far better ways to spend three hours than Dr Zhivago.