A review of the 1965 classic film “Doctor Zhivago”
So many of the brilliantly-talented team that created outstanding “Lawrence Of Arabia”, just three years later crafted the magnificent “Doctor “Zhivago”: director David Lean, scriptwriter Robert Bolt, composer Maurice Jarre, cinematographer Freddie Young and actors Omar Sharif and Alec Guinness. Based on the huge, sprawling 1957 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Boris Pasternak, through the story of a young, privileged physician (Sharif as the eponymous Yuri Zhivago), his love for his muse Lara (Julie Christie), and rivalry with the well-connected Victor (Rod Steiger) and the revolutionary Pasha (Tom Courtney), over the course of more than three hours we see the collapse of Tsarist Russia and its replacement by the totalitarianism of Lenin and then Stalin.
Lean, as director, is the absolute master of composition and, from the opening scene of labourers leaving their evening shift of work, we have one stunning visual after another. I love the way Lean can borrow from his own imagery: in “Lawrence”, the character portrayed by Sharif is seen approaching us on a camel through the blistering heat of the desert while, in “Zhivago”, Sharif’s character rides on a horse away from from the camera through the snowy blizzard of the Urals.
The star-stunned cast includes Ralph Richardson, Klaus Kinski, Geraldine Chaplin, Siobhan McKenna and Rita Tushingham in supporting roles. Omar Sharif’s real-life son is the young Yuri. Since the source novel was banned in the then Soviet Union (the film itself wasn’t shown in Russia until 1994), most of the filming was done in Spain with weather shots in Finland and Canada. The movie was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won five.