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

Time Bandits

 Year of Release:  1981

Director:  Terry Gilliam

Screenplay:  Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin

Starring:  John Cleese, Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Ralph Richardson, Peter Vaughan, David Warner, Craig Warnock, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker, Jack Purvis, Mike Edmonds, Tiny Ross 

Running Time:  113 minutes

Genre:  Fantasy, comedy

Young Kevin (Warnock) lives in an average house in middle-class suburban England, with his normal parents.  One night Kevin is woken up by a knight in full armour on horseback bursting out of his wardrobe and running through his bedroom wall.  This heralds the start of a bizarre adventure when he encounters a gang of quarrelling dwarves who have stolen a map revealing the locations of holes in space and time, which they plan to use to commit a series of robberies throughout history.  They encounter Napoleon (Holm) who is obsessed with his own height, a frightfully posh Robin Hood (Cleese), the Ancient Greek warrior Agamemnon (Connery), take a trip aboard the RMS Titanic, and become unwittingly embroiled in the age-old battle between Good (Richardson) and Evil (Warner).

This is a delightfully dark comic fantasy which shows director Terry Gilliam at his very best.  Co-written with fellow Monty Python alumni Michael Palin, who also appears along with fellow Python John Cleese, this has a real Pythonesque feel to it, and feels like a low-budget British take on the American blockbuster.  There is a distinctly British feel to the film, despite Terry Gilliam being American, with the minutiae of everyday mundanity existing cheek-by-jowl with fantastic wonders, and characters being adrift in a chaotic and hostile universe.  Working on a limited budget the filmmakers work wonders with some impressive special effects and memorable images (for example a large old sailing ship turns out to be a giant's hat).  Almost every frame is packed with detail, and there is a real chaotic feel to the film and you do feel like anything could happen.  As Kevin, the film's anchor role, young Craig Warnock doesn't really have much to do except look wide-eyed, but the dwarves have well-defined personalities and their constant bickering with each other is very funny ("I can't stand people who are right!"  "That must be how you get on with yourself so well").  Otherwise you have famous faces appearing in small funny roles, with the late, great Sean Connery giving real gravitas to the part of Agamemnon, even if his Scottish accent doesn't sound quite right for an Ancient Greek hero, and Ian Holm as the mercurial Napoleon, give to drunken rants about the heights of famous historical people.  David Warner relishing every second as Evil, and Ralph Richardson as a querulous Supreme Being ("Dead, eh?  That's no excuse for slacking off work").  There is also a very early appearance by Jim Broadbent as a game show host.  The film has some still quite pointed satire, and a surprisingly bleak conclusion.  It was co-produced by former Beatle George Harrison who provides the closing theme song "Dream Away", some of the lyrics of which were apparently inspired by his notes to Gilliam during the film's production.  

David Rappaport, Kenny Baker, Malcolm Dixon, Jack Purvis, Mike Edmonds and Tiny Ross are Time Bandits