Film Reviewed: Dr. Zhivago
Director: David Lean
Date Watched: 24 October 2021
jamesintexas rating: ***1/2
Powerful epic storytelling, David Lean's work here seems quiet, complex, and reserved, though it sometimes is suprisingly emotional with its themes. A strange framing device of a brother (Alec Guinness) searching for his niece leads us to Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif), a young poet-doctor in pre-Revolutionary Russia, who finds himself wrapped up in the drama of Lara (Julie Christie), a young woman who finds herself involved with Victor Komarovsky (Rod Steiger) who is grooming her and manipulating her. A shooting, a scandal, the violent upheaval of Russian society all swirls through this patient story, which just seems content to not move at a quick pace. Long shots of landscapes and mountains, a perilous train ride, a brutal running-down of protesters by police, and a frozen house in the countryside are all highlights for me.
But the truth is that none of this works without the performances of Sharif and Christie, both incredibly magnetic. Their eyes communicate so much here, and the film is content to keep them separate for long stretches, to depict the harshness of war and power, and to eschew the beats of plot-driven story. Instead, Lean lingers on the light, the landscape, the snow, the clutching of two desperate people together set against the backdrop of such horror.
Boris Pasternak's novel was one I read in high school and found VERY difficult because of the Russian names and nicknames and my own lack of historical context. Revisiting this world meant that I got to talk to my Film teacher about it and my parents as well. My dad saw it in downtown Philadelphia at the Fox Theater with friend Matthew Bradfield; he describes Julie Christie as an angel. My mom saw it with Denise Spatafore, her long-time friend. She loved it also. I saw it on HBO, early in the morning, over the course of two weekends (3+ hours!), and I am so glad to have seen it.
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