Grand sweeping romantic epic and it's good

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2014)

This is a Russian epic before and around the time of the revolution. Doctor Yury Zhivago (Omar Sharif) is a surgeon and a poet. Lara (Julie Christie) is a sweet naive girl beholden to the wealthy Victor Komarovsky (Rod Steiger). Pasha (Tom Courtenay) is a revolutionary in love with Lara who would become a powerful man. Yury marries Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin) but he's drawn to Lara. Yury is sympathetic to the revolution at first but is soon overwhelmed.
Can a song make a movie? Maurice Jarre's "Lara's Theme" certainly comes close. It expresses the vast romanticism of the story. David Lean's Russian epic is very long and very epic. It is old fashion Hollywood grand. The great actors are able to lift the melodramatic material to its epic proportions. It's almost 200 minutes of big romance and it doesn't drag for me. That's a big accomplishment.