"Doctor Zhivago" is one of the most beautifully filmed movies I've seen in a long time that is simply majestic to watch during its 3+ hour runtime and is worth every single minute thanks to its beauty. The movie is shot like Lean's previous film "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) as well as John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) where the scenes set in the present are at the beginning and the end with most of the scenes dominated by past flashbacks. The movie is set during the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and based on Boris Pasternak's novel of the same name and stars Omar Sharif as DR. Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago who after his mother died when he was just a little boy and is taken in by his mother's friends and lives with them and their daughter Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin) and then when he's grown up he goes to school to become a doctor and ends up marrying Tonya. The movie also focuses on a young 17 year old girl named Lara (Julie Christie) who hasa friend she calls "Pasha" (Tom Courtenay) who is 9 years older than she is, and becomes a communist with the Bolsheviks that at that period in time were hellbent on taking down the influence of the Czar and institute a new form of government which they believed would benefit working people. Despite this and the fact that Lara is also having an affair with a businessman named Victor Komarovsky (Rod Steiger) she wants to marry Pasha and spend the rest of her life with him, but that is not to be due to the fact that Pasha eventually joins the Red Army. The movie not only focuses on the lives of its characters and the inevitable romance in the movie between the two main characters in the story but it also focuses on the history that went with that time period. The movie is one of the best romantic epics that I've ever seen and is right on par with "Gone with the Wind" (1939) with its beauty and scope. Everything in this movie just clicks whether it's the excellent performances thorughout, the beautiful set design and costume design, Freddie Young's beautiful cinematography, David Lean's top notch direction, and even Robert Bolt's excellent screenplay. The movie isn't as captivating in its beauty as "Lawrence of Arabia" which captivated me from start to finish, bu tthe one problem I had with this movie was that in the last hour the movie got a little boring for me but then it kicked right back in to high gear by the end. I also forgot to mention that this movie also has a very good performance by frequent Lean cohort Alec Guinness as Yuri's older brother who also happens to be in the Red Army. The movie doesn't try to rush anything and is very delicate and fragile in its execution which makes the already perfect chemistry between Sharif and Christie in the movie all the more effective and real to the point where you actually believe that they're in love with each other and also to the point where it's hard to believe that this movie wasn't popular with critics at the time it was released. The movie went on to become David Lean's highest grossing film at the box office during his magnificent career and if you already watched the movie it isn't hard to see why. This is one of 1965's finest films.
Review of Doctor Zhivago
