Doctor Zhivago (film)

• Release Date: 1965
• Director(s): David Lean
• Writer(s): Robert Bolt
• Principal Actors and Roles: Julie Christie (Lara); Omar Sharif (Yuri); Geraldine Chaplin (Tonya); Tom Courtenay (Pasha); Alec Guinness (Yevgraf); Ralph Richardson (Alexander); Rod Steiger (Komarovsky)
• Book / Story Film Based On: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Nobel prize-winning author Boris Pasternak’s 1957 novel Doctor Zhivago was turned into a three hours and seventeen minutes long epic movie with the same name in 1965 by David Lean, arguably the greatest-ever director of epic movies. As far as audiences are concerned, Doctor Zhivago has stood the test of time as one of the best romances ever filmed. It is set in Russia between the period just before World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent civil war of 1917–1922.

Plot

The film opens with a KGB Lieutenant General named Yevgraf Andreyevich Zhivago searching for the daughter of his half-brother, Dr. Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago. The girl’s mother was Lara Antipova. Yevgraf summons a young factory worker named Tanya Komarova for an interview, believing she might be his niece, and he tells her the story of her father’s life.

Within this frame the story takes place in flashback. Yuri Zhivago is a poetry-writing doctor who ends up marrying the daughter of the couple who raised him after his parents died. Lara Antipova is the seventeen-year-old object of an older man’s desire. The early parts of the story revolve around how they meet and fall in love.

Lara is in a physical relationship with an older man, the shady, well-connected Victor Komarovsky. She is also a friend of Pavel "Pasha" Pavlovich, an idealistic social reformer. Pasha is radicalized by a Cossack attack on a peaceful demonstration at which he is wounded but also acquires a gun. He flees to Lara for help with his wound and asks her to hide the weapon.

When Komarovsky learns that Lara intends to marry Pasha, he first tries to dissuade her, then rapes her. She uses Pasha’s pistol to take her revenge, shooting Komarovsky at a Christmas party. Zhivago treats Komarovsky’s wound. Lara and Pasha marry and they have a daughter, Katya.

World War I begins. Yevgraf Zhivago infiltrates the Imperial Russian Army as a Bolshevik agent. Pasha ends up MIA after a daring charge against German forces. Lara enlists as a nurse in an effort to find Pasha while Yuri is drafted and becomes a battlefield doctor. During the Revolution in 1917, Yuri and Lara run a field hospital for six months. They fall in love, but Yuri will not betray his wife.

Following the war, Yuri reunites with his family, but Yefgraf, now a member of the secret service, tells Yuri that his poetry has been condemned by the state. Yefgraf understands the risk to his half-brother, and he arranges passes and other documents that will enable Yuri and his family to escape from Moscow.

Their destination is a distant estate owned by Yuri’s in-laws. On the way Yuri meets a notorious Bolshevik commander named Strelnikov; it is Pasha. From him Yuri learns that Lara is in a village very near the family estate.

Yuri and his family live peacefully at the country estate for a while, but then he meets Lara in the town. They begin an affair. However, when his wife becomes pregnant again, Yuri ends the affair.

But Yuri is pressed into service by Communist partisans, for whom he works as a field doctor for two years. He finally deserts and struggles through the Russian winter back to Lara. She tells him his family has fled to Paris. He stays with Lara.

When Strelnikov is captured nearby while attempting to return to Lara, her life is in immediate danger. Komarovsky re-enters their lives and prevails upon her to flee with Katya, and Yuri concurs. But Yuri despises Komarovsky too much to join them.

Years later Yevgraf finds Yuri in Moscow. The doctor is sick and destitute. Yevgraf tries to help, giving him decent clothing and a job. On a streetcar one morning, Yuri is sure he has seen Lara on the street. He tries to catch up to her, but he suffers a fatal heart attack without catching her attention.

At Yuri’s funeral Lara tells Yevgraf that she gave birth to Yuri’s daughter but lost the girl in Mongolia. Yevgraf helps her see hundreds of orphans, but she never finds the girl. Then Lara disappears in Stalin’s Great Purge of the late 1930s.

The movie returns to the present as Yevgraf tells Tanya Komarova that Lara "died or vanished somewhere." He strongly suspects that Tanya is his niece, but he is not sure until he sees her carrying a balalaika, which Yuri’s mother expertly played. He learns that Tanya is self-taught but an expert player. Now convinced that Tanya is Lara and Yuri’s child, Yevgraf says, "Ah. Then it’s a gift."

Significance

Critics did not care for the movie on its release. They complained that it was too long and that the momentous historic events that frame its love story were given too little on-screen attention. Audiences clearly disagreed, because the film was a huge hit. Adjusted for inflation, it was the eighth-highest-grossing movie of all time.

David Lean’s trademark spectacular cinematography and sweeping landscapes give the movie a grandeur that creates a striking counterpoint to the narrow love story that unfolds in front of and is impeded by earthshaking political events. Woven into this story are epic-sized themes, such as parallel examinations of the conflict between an individual’s emotions and intellect, the struggle of the individual against the state, and the triumph of life and love over death and despair.

The grand sweep of history as a background for a grand romance resonated with viewers and the industry alike. Doctor Zhivago received ten Oscar nominations and won five, for art direction, cinematography, adapted screenplay, costume design, and original score. The other nominations were for best picture, best director, best supporting actor, best editing, and best original score. It was also won the five Golden Globes for which it was nominated: best motion picture—drama, best director, best actor, best screenplay, and best original score. The score, particularly the theme song, "Lara’s Theme," is one of the best known in the history of movies.

Time has also been kind to the movie. In 1998 the American Film Institute ranked it thirty-ninth of the "100 Greatest Films of All Time." On the AFI’s list of "100 Years, 100 Passions" it ranks seventh. Today it is ranked along with Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and A Passage to India as one of Lean’s greatest movies.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1965) Best Art Direction (Color)
• Academy Award (1965) Best Cinematography (Color)
• Academy Award (1965) Best Original Score ()
• Golden Globe (1965) Best Actor
• Golden Globe (1965) Best Director
• Golden Globe (1965) Best Original Score
• Golden Globe (1965) Best Screenplay
• Academy Award (1965) Best Screenplay (Adapted): Robert Bolt
• Academy Award (1965) Best Costume Design (Color): Phyllis Dalton
• Golden Globe (1965) Best Motion Picture (Drama)

Nominated

• Academy Award (1965) Best Film Editing ()
• Academy Award (1965) Best Sound ()
• Academy Award (1965) Best Picture
• Academy Award (1965) Best Director: David Lean
• Academy Award (1965) Best Supporting Actor: Tom Courtenay

Bibliography

"Doctor Zhivago (1965)." Turner Classic Movies. Turner Classic Movies, 2016. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

Phillips, Gene. Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2006. Print

Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929– 1968. Boston: Da Capo, 1996. Print

Silver, Alain. David Lean and His Films. Los Angeles: Silman, 1992. Print

Smith, Ian Haydn, and Steven Jay Schneider. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Hauppauge: Barron’s, 2015. Print

Tibbets, John C., James M. Welsh, and Robert Wise. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film. New York: Facts on File, 2005. Print.