David Lean's Doctor Zhivago

Rating: Null/10 (1 September 2006)

Though it doesn't equal his 1962 Oscar-winning epic "Lawrence Of Arabia",David Lean's epic wartime romance may be his most accessible film. It tells a simple love story in a complex setting,and for the most part,avoids easy resolutions to messy emotional relationships. Even though the focus is squarely on those relationships,everything in the film revolves around the Russian Revolution. The vagaries of both World War I and the prolonged struggles among the various Bolshevik factions are the driving forces behind the plot.
In adapting Boris Pasternak's novel to the screen,writer Robert Bolt tells the story in flashback,with the powerful General Yevgraf Zhivago (Alec Guinness)questioning a teenaged girl(Rita Tushingham)about her past. He thinks she might be the daughter of his brother Yuri(Omar Sharif)and Lara(Julie Christie). Flashback to their youth and the first time that Yuri and Lara's paths cross on a streetcar. He's promising,prosperous medical student and poet,engaged to his childhood sweetheart Tonya(Geraldine Chaplin). Lara is the daughter of a dressmaker who has a long-term "arrangement" with Komarovsky(Rod Steiger),a well-connected lawyer who understands the political changes that are coming. Lara's fiancé Pasha(Tom Courtenay) is an idealistic revolutionary who is part of that change. Komarovsky's interest in Lara is not platonic. As those relationships are being sorted out,protesters are marching in the streets and the Czar's troops are taking them seriously. In the first big confrontation between a demonstration and a cavalry charge on snow-covered streets,Lean avoids the inevitable comparisons to Eisenstein's Odessa steps scene in "Battleship Potemkin",but he can't help but make a few references to it. The clash in the streets also serves as a counterpoint to Komarovsky's seduction of Lara,and the two elements are deftly interwoven. The combination of the personal life and the political has seldom been so seamless or effective as it is in that long sequence. The most memorable scenes,however,take place during World War I and the revolution:a mass of deserters meets a mass of replacement troops on a lonely road;Yuri and family embark on a long grim rail journey from Moscow to the Urals and negotiate territory controlled at times Red Guards and at times by White Guards;a machine gun attack on an unseen ememy across a field;Yuri being dragooned into service and then his long trek back home through the snow.
The Cold War being what it was in 1965(the time this film was released around Christmas of that year),Lean was denied permission to make the film in the Soviet Union,but locations in Spain,Finland,and Canada were more adequate substitutes. They give the film an impression of stark,beautiful expanse. Lean's canvas is the full-width Panavision screen. He and cimematopgrapher Freddie Young(who won the Oscar for his impressive work)along with Nicolas Roeg use all of it in both interior and exterior scenes. Instead of seeing this film on a tape or disc(DVD),the best way to experience seeing this movie in its entirely is in a theater on a widescreen in its original 70MM format. Ignore the pan and scan editions. Other the other hand,some of Lean's devices-the use of mirrors and windows,lightning are fascinating. Like in all love stories depends on viewers' involvement with the characters,and this what makes the film stand out beautifully. The two leads are attractive with exceptional performances from Omar Sharif,Julie Christie,and Geraldine Chaplin. Tom Courtenay was nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar,but Rod Steiger's Komarovsky is indelible archetypal survivor. Oscar winning as well for Maurice Jarre's breathtaking score. The theme song from Doctor Zhivago,"Somewhere My Love",was a top-ten hit in 1965. Remains one of the most ambitious and watchable of the big "Panavision" films of the 1960's,and one that is also gives us the best depictions of a civil war and the terrible human lives it costs.