It is odd, when you think about, that Doctor Zhivago is primarilly remembered as a love story when you consider how different it is from traditional love storys. It is common for films to be about characters in loveless marridges to have passionate affairs, but rare when the main characters loves both women equally. Furthermore, the movie spends a lot of time on other themes- art and politics, the family, society.
The crucial difference between Zhivago and every other epic film is that we see the film through the eyes of a poet, disconnected from the events around him. Yuri Zhivago is one of the most memorable characters in all of cinema, because for three hours and twenty minuets, we become him. Most of the time, all even a great movie can do is show us why characters act a certain way, but in this film we see what Yuri Zhivago sees, how he experince the world. We see the quirks of every other characters, but Yuri remains quiet. In fact, Zhivago is essentially played by three people- the amazingly versitile Omar Sharif, Freddie Young, the cameraman, and David Lean himself.
One brief shot in the film has with me a long time- Yuri simply looking out the window, seeing the poetry outside. No one, not even his wife or his lover, Lara, can really understand this. The film captures so well what it's like to be an artist, to be caught up in the sensual beauty of nature or the sounds of someone breathing next to you. Yuri does not care about politics, it would not make a differance if he were American, or French, or Nigerian. He merely is himself, looking at the world, and trying to show others the same.
I don't want to give the impression that that is all that happens in this film- not one second of this 200 minuiet film could be cut. The film does make some poltical stands, as Edwin points out, it seems odd that the Communists, so devoted to their Utopian ideals can be so cruel and ruthless. Even more knowing is Rod Stieger's Kamarovsky, a career politician who thrives before and after the Revolution, just because he has no real ideals and knows the game so well.
And has there ever been a director who can show us the pleasure of looking at something as much as David Lean? The film would still be a masterpiece even just for the photography and editing - the simple formal pleasures of finely constructed scenes and classical photography on a big scale. If Eliot Porter had decided to quit still photography and become a film director, he might have come up with some images like this.
There is much more here, and I could write pages and pages on it. The poetic narration spoken by Sir Alec Guiness, in one of the genius's greatest performances. The gorgeous music written by Maurice Jarre. The amazing art direction, making Spain look like Russia. A small but very memorable role by Klaus Kinski. Every performance works.
Doctor Zhivago has been critized by some for being overblown, too long and not smart enough. I suppose the first two complains may amount to personal preferance. The third, however, is simply untrue. The film is not deep in the way that Bergman's movies are deep, or even really in the same way Lawrence of Arabia is deep. It is deep in the way that one can look at field flowers for hours, marvelling at their beauty.
At the end, when all seems lost, and life seems to be a series of tragieties after another, Lean seems to argue that there may be a happy ending after all- a miracle coming in the form of worn, beaten balalaika, and a gift of talent from God. What a movie.
Doctor Zhivago (1965)