Robert Bolt's screenplay balances the political upheaval with exquisite, heartwrenching romance--one of the few films to succeed at this level. Lean, who seemed to make a specialty of making films about illicit love (Brief Encounter, Summertime, etc.), also works a tightrope, giving the film the necessary grandeur and sweep required for an epic while never losing sight of the intimacy of the characters. He is aided considerably by a magnificent cast: Sharif, despite or perhaps because of his Egyptian background, provides the perfect perspective of an individual observing things around him, each time as if it were new--it's a wonderful performance; Christie is simply luminescent; Chaplin nicely understated; and there's terrific support from Alec Guinness, Rod Steiger, Tom Courtney, etc.

What makes Zhivago a must on DVD is the awe-inspiring cinematography of Freddie Young, who deservedly won the Academy Award. I was lucky to see Zhivago at a theater, on the big screen proper, several years ago when it was re-issued; unbelievably, the DVD transfer here is even BETTER!!! There are shots in this film that are simply jaw-dropping beautiful.

Doctor Zhivago is, like the book it's based on, a challenging film that will reward the viewer with one of their most extraordinary cinematic experiences.


A Tragic Love Story in the deep of winter!   January 9, 2001
 81 out of 96 found this review helpful

Film making at its finest!

Boris Pasternak's acclaimed novel could not have been portrayed any more beautifully on screen than in this epic movie drama. The bitterly cold landscape of Russia in the winter contrasts sharply with the fires burning within the characters. Omar Sharif and Julie Christie are magic together. The snowy scenes and sweeping scenery display an unequaled knowledge of cinematography. The popular music is instantly recognizable and winds its way through the movie, making the score all the more emotive.

Every scene in this movie feels real. Omar Sharif and Julie Christie along with the rest of the cast, make this movie so believable, you forget you are watching a movie. You enter their world and become fascinated with their lives. Yuri (Omar Sharif/Dr. Zhivago) is the main character and the story revolves around his passion for Lara (Julie Christie). Through the harsh realities of life during at the time, their lives seem eternally intertwined. Pasha (Tom Courtenay) plays Lara's political activist husband. Victor, an older gentleman, also has a passion for Lara. She is pursued by three men, but only loved by one. These three men, their stories, and the lives of their families fill out the story line in the movie.

The story begins when Dr. Zhivago's brother finds his niece (the daughter of Dr. Zhivago who is a writer/doctor/poet and Lara who becomes the love of his life). The scenes then flash back to the Revolution in Russia. As Red blood spills out onto the white snow, we also see two people needing each other perhaps more then their very life blood. Their desire is only fueled by the fires of the Revolution as they continue to have their lives intertwine in an almost sadistic way. They seem drawn to each other by a magnetic force of passion.

This is story telling at it's finest. Just remember, it is a story and is not meant to revolutionize your thinking on the sanctity of marriage. In desperation to just survive, the characters make many bad judgments. It makes a great story, but is a sad look at character. It is definitely one of the most romantic movies ever made. It will hold your attention for hours and at the end, you will wish it had been a longer movie.

You will love this movie and do look for the Christmas Tree with real candles. I also felt this movie truly brought history to life in a way no book could. Enter the snowy streets of Moscow and be amazed at the ice house in the country. The writers expected the viewer to fill in a few gaps with their own imagination, which makes this movie all the more enjoyable as you are not taken though endless visions of tedium. No moment is wasted. This is the most romantic movie of all time, besides Gone with the Wind.

~The Rebecca Review


A BEAUTIFUL AND HEARTBREAKING LOVE STORY   March 25, 2000
 35 out of 36 found this review helpful

This is one of the rare times when I actually liked the movie more than the book. Omar Sharif, Julie Christie and Rod Steiger, especially, are just wonderful in David Lean's adaptation of Pasternak's epic love story. The script was beautiful and lacked nothing; the actors couldn't have done a better job at delivering their lines. It was extremely well paced and never lagged or felt rushed. Maurice Jarre's haunting score is just beautiful and weaves throughout the movie like a tapestry. The cinematography is beyond compare. The views of the Urals, the frozen Siberian tundra and the countryside in springtime (especially the daffodils!) will never be forgotten. In my opinion, one of the greatest movies ever, never to be forgotten.


Utterly breathtaking.   October 17, 1999
 33 out of 34 found this review helpful

I'm an avid movie watcher and when I heard my English teacher recommend this one while reading "Animal Farm", I just had to see it. I rented it, thinking it would be some ordinary movie. Little did I know it was a masterpiece. The academy award winning music score by Maurice Jarre was brilliant (I rushed out and bought the soundtrack). It caught every moment of the movie and added lovely Russian sounds (the balalaika was wonderful) in with it. One can not forget the beautiful & famous "Lara's Theme." The cinematography took my breath away, from showing the vast frozen tundra to the Ural Mountains rising out of the plains. The story was another well done point. It was intelligent and captivating. The acting was superb, the actors made the wonderful characters of Pasternak's novel come alive. All around it is one of the best movies ever made, period. I also learned a lot of historical facts, that helped with a report. The second time I watched it, I rented the 30th Anniversary Letterbox Edition. The theatrical preview and Omar Sharif were interesting before- try seeing that edition.


-Glacial as the wintry Don, Lara. -But not as deep, Doctor.   September 2, 2001
 23 out of 53 found this review helpful

A lot of people clearly loved this movie, but here is a minority report. _Dr Zhivago_ is a film in which a lot of very talented people did some of their worst work. David Lean seems to have forgotten the "motion" part of the term "motion pictures". Robert Bolt provided a stilted, occasionally ludicrous script: Pasternak's book is not really a Great Novel, but it deserved better than this shallow treatment. And cast of famous names, including Ralph Richardson and Alec Guiness in smaller roles as well as Shariff and Christie, give us (with one startling exception) bland, forgettable acting.

Omar Shariff and Julie Christie look good in the many (all too many)searching close-ups of their face, but Lean's focus on these essentially blank faces only emphasies the vacuity of these performances. (Julie Christie has acted well in other films, but not in this one. And Shariff, here and for the rest of his career, merely showed that his soulful performance in _Lawrence of Arabia_ was a fluke, a one-off.) Tom Courtenay's noble revolutionary, Lara's husband, is a one-note show of suffering sincerity. Geraldine Chaplin makes no impact either, as Zhivago's long-suffering wife.

The length and the ostensible subject, the Russian Revolution, make it clear that Lean intended to create Epic, but instead Lean gives us Soap Opera, another notoriously long-winded genre. The film is severely weakened by concentrating on the Eternal Triangle, with the sweeping historical events of Russia's nightmarish 20th century history as mere background. Epic needs to keep the two elements, the personal and the historical, in balance. But what _fatally_ weakens the film is the sheer banality and tedium of the personal story. Zhivago's and Lara's story is told so conventionally that it would be lucky to hold the interest for a normal film length, but at over three hours it is excruciatingly and unrewardingly slow.

Lean may have been thinking of this film as his _Gone with the Wind_, another long film about people who married the wrong people, and who fail to solve their problems while history burns around them. But _Gone with the Wind_ cheerfully knew that it was soap while _Dr Zhivago_ is pompous, and _Wind_ had the benefit of strong performances at the centre and a director who believed in keeping things moving, while _Zhivago_ has a vacuum at its centre and moves as sluggishly as a frozen river.

That "frozen river" brings us to the film's one great strength, which is where it earned most of its two stars: the cinematography, which is absolutely at its best when the cameras stop pointing at the actors and go off and film snow, rivers, trees, banks of yellow flowers, while Maurice Jarre's famous music plays. In those moments we are reminded that Lean is a great film-maker having an off-day, but still with an eye for the grand image. But when the camera cuts away and picks up on the actors again, those shortlived moments of energy and power leach away.

The film's other great strength is the approximately two minutes that Klaus Kinski spends on-screen. Famous actors are boring us on a train, when suddenly an unknown face in the background draws our attention. A man in chains comes up and fills the screen, telling us he was an anarchist who fought for the revolution. Now, betrayed by Russia's new masters, he is being sent to his death. Kinski's brief, chain-rattling performance is mesmerising; for two of its 193 minutes, this film galvanises into life. Of the few images I take away from this film - banks of yellow flowers, Julie Christie's face, and Klaus Kinski's bitter anarchist - Kinski's is the only one that _moves_.

It seems almost as if making the magnificent _Lawrence of Arabia_ used up all of Lean's creative juices for a time. Lean followed up _Lawrence_ with two vastly inferior films: the worthy but dull _Dr Zhivago_ and the truly awful _Ryan's Daughter_.

The DVD version offers a few extras: commentary from Omar Shariff, who (not surprisingly) is not exactly insightful, and better information from Mrs Lean. In my opinion these extras don't add a great deal of value, perhaps partly because I feel that the most interesting and honest commentary might discuss how this film went so wrong. But perhaps you can't seriously expect them do acknowledge that.

So if you've seen _Lawrence of Arabia_ and perhaps _Bridge on the River Kwai_, and you want more good stuff where that came from, you're likely to find this film disappointing. _A Passage to India_ is a return to form - with reservations - in Lean's Epic style. But if you wanted to explore further with Lean's films, then his best films of all are the early non-epics, the comedy of _Blythe Spirit_ and the lively Dickens adaptations, _Oliver Twist_ and _Great Expectations_. (And above all, avoid the abysmal _Ryan's Daughter_; _Dr Zhivago_ is a failed film, but _Ryan's Daughter_'s 206 minutes of cliched nonsense are beneath contempt.)

If you do watch this film, I recommend generous use of Fast Forward.

Cheers!

Laon