Doctor Zhivago

Year:  1965

Director:  David Lean

Screenplay:  Robert Bolt, based on the novel Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Starring:  Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Tom Courtenay, Alec Guinness, Rita Tushingham, Siobhán McKenna, Ralph Richardson

Running Time:  193 minutes, 200 minutes (1992 re-release)

Genre:  Period drama, epic

Against the backdrop of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, married doctor and controversial poet Yuri Zhivago (Sharif) falls in love with seamstresses daughter Lara (Christie), but their romance is threatened by the momentous historical events taking place around them.

This is probably one of the best known films of all time.  Even if you have never seen Doctor Zhivago, you probably have heard of it before.  This is real epic filmmaking, in scope and certainly in length.  British director David Lean had previously directed such popular epics as The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and he was a master of beautiful, widescreen spectacle.  Moving from cramped, dingy flats, to partial restaurants and grand houses, to gorgeous vistas of snowy fields and forests, the film is always beautiful to look at, and it really needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible, because watching it on television, even a big one, means that some of the impact is lost.  Lean is also good at choreographing the frequent surging crowd scenes, riots and cavalry charges, as well as finding some quiet poetry in the images of nature, and the spectacular sequence in a house that looks as if it is made of ice, it's so frozen.  Incidentally, the novel by Boris Pasternak was banned in the Soviet Union, and so the film could not be shot there, instead it was largely filmed in Spain.  There are some impressive performances: Omar Sharif as the brooding Doctor Zhivago; Julie Christie in her star making role as Lara; Geraldine Chaplin is quite underused as Zhivago's wife, Tonya; Rod Steiger plays the repulsive Komarovsky who wants to seduce Lara; Tom Courtenay is good as Lara's idealistic husband Pasha, who is devoted to the revolution; Alec Guinness plays Zhivago's conflicted half-brother; and Rita Tushingham bookends the film as the woman Guinness is convinced is his niece.  Also in the eclectic cast is notorious Werner Herzog regular Klaus Kinski.  Despite it's reputation as a romance, the love story is the backbone of the narrative but the romantic scenes are surprisingly brief.  The fact that a largely British cast are playing Russian characters strikes a bit of a false note, just due to the accents.  Also the story hinges a lot on coincidence, when people just happen to run into each other which doesn't seem very realistic when Russia is quite a big place.  These are small criticisms though, because this is a great film.  It belongs to a period of epic filmmaking which I don't think exists anymore, for the most part marrying spectacle to real human drama.  Despite it's length, it moves at a lively pace and it is never dull.  It also features a memorable score by Maurice Jarre.  It is one of those films that you definitely need to see at some point, particularly if you ever get the chance to see it in a cinema.

Julie Christie and Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago

Brief Encounter

Year: 1945
Director: David Lean
Screenplay: Noel Coward, Anthony Havelock-Allen, David Lean and Ronald Neame based on the stage play Still Life by Noel Coward
Starring: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond, Everley Gregg
Running Time: 86 minutes
Genre: Drama, romance

Summary: Laura Jesson (Johnson) has a conventional life and a dull, if affectionate, marriage to Fred Jesson (Raymond). By chance, she meets an idealistic doctor, Alec Harvey (Howard) in a railway station. Alec is also married. The two strike up a friendship and are soon meeting up every week. Eventually they come to realise that they have fallen in love, but because they are both married, and the scandal that their relationship would create, they are unable to act on their feelings.

Opinions: This is one of the classic films about "forbidden love" which remains popular to this day, and is screened frequently on television. The movie is very much a product of it's time and place, and the attitudes and values that the two lead characters have, which were very common at the time, could be seen as odd by many people today.
Not much really happens in the movie, much of which consists of the characters having awkward conversations on the street and in railway cafes. The performances are very good from the two leads, who create a strong impression of powerful emotions barely repressed. It's one of the classic evocations of the traditional British "stiff upper lip".
The screenplay, based on a one-act stage play by Noel Coward, is impressive even if some of the dialogue is slightly stilted at times, and some of the humour comes across as forced. The movie is very well-crafted and visually impressive, with crisp black and white photography, and much of it being shot on location in a busy railway station.
The film is powerfully dramatic and is definitely worth watching for it's evocation of another time and place.


"We're neither of us free to love each other. There's too much in the way. There's still time, if we control ourselves and behave like sensible human beings. There's still time."
- Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) in Brief Encounter



Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter