MovieChat Forums > Doctor Zhivago (1965) Discussion > For fans of this film: please address th...

For fans of this film: please address these criticisms --

posted 11 years ago by doughazelrigg
12 replies | jump to latest

I do not consider this a bad film, just a very flawed attempt at a masterpiece. (FWIW, "Bridge Over the River Kwai" and "Lawrence of Arabia" are both in my personal Top 10 of favorites)

However:

>the story is at least nominally about Zhivago, but almost all of the first 1/2 hour is about Lara

>Zhivago and Lara apparently fall in love while working together at the makeshift hospital. And yet -- there is not one second of screen time provided to show how this relationship developed -- this is a MAJOR oversight. Perhaps David Lean, who typically shot miles of footage during his productions, had to cut parts of the film due to length. BUT -- there were numerous other areas where he could have cut to make room for this essential part of the story's development, like a little less of the Kamorovksy section, or the pointless later scene with Strevilinsky in the train. In one scene, Lara and Zhivago have been brought to the hospital to help; and then in the very next scene, presumably a number of months later, they are getting ready to leave, and Zhivago expresses his feelings for Lara, and she more or less reciprocates. Since this relationship is integral to the story, we really should have been shown how and why it blossomed --

>too many contrived plot developments -- specifically, characters who knew each other years earlier, in completely different locations, keep running into each other

>Ralph Richardson and Siobahn McKenna, both great actors, are miscast

>although I love the wonderful wide shots Lean gives us throughout this film, they tend to be overly long, as if he's intending for some profound connotation to emerge

[–] Blueghost 11 years ago

It's based on a novel by Boris Pasternak. The director didn't make up the plots and story, though a few were altered for the film's sake.

[–] doughazelrigg 11 years ago

I did know that, and I also knew that the novel won a Pulitzer Prize. I have not read the novel, but I am going to take a wild leap and guess that it provides a significant amount of ink to the early stages of the Zhivago-Lara love story... instead of jumping forward several months (if not more) and informing us that they are now in love --

[–] palisade-1 11 years ago

I also knew that the novel won a Pulitzer Prize.

This doesn't matter in terms of your criticisms of the movie, but the novel won the Nobel Prize for Literature, not the Pulitzer prize which is, I think, restricted to work by Americans. Its winning of the Nobel and the publicity around it is one reason Carlo Ponti approached David Lean to make the film.

David Lean does a great deal with symbols and foreshadowing, and certainly gave plenty of notice that Lara and Zhivago were going to have a passionate relationship. In the first scene that they appear in together, the scene in the streetcar early in the film, they brush by each other and the camera cuts to a shot of the roof of the trolley where there are sparks coming from the electric line. There are other examples. A difference between the great films of an earlier era and those of today is that the viewer is not hit over the head with every development and treated like a low-IQ person with attention deficit disorder. It may take more than one viewing of the film to see and appreciate the symbolism and the intricacy of the plot development, but it is there, and the more powerful because a lot is NOT shown, but intimated at and suggested through imagery.

Admittedly, these films make greater demands on the viewer and the drama unfolds in a more leisurely, contemplative style. It's not for everyone. If you don't like it, that's fine. It may just not be your type of movie.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] yusef-ghanima 11 years ago

obviously you have no heart, your mechanical thinking doesn't help. counting beans doesn't help in seeing the whole picture, it's clear that Zhivago is the central character that holds up the story. when lara was reading his poems about her she said this is not me, it's you.

we can't say they fall in love then because it wasn't complete, yes they didn't have sex. just shy attempts when they were too busy with large amount of casualties. so there was nothing but repeating the same shy gestures.

you must be very young, when you pass 40, you will discover how the world is so small. actually it's clear that pasternak build the story on his own experience as poet who had extramarital relation, you can find details in wikipedia. by the way he won nobel prize for this novel specially.

the film is so perfect i can't see your points.

so you consider " the wonderful wide shots " as criticism that need to be addressed! just buy a heart and watch the movie again. when i first tried to read paolo coleo's novel "on river piedra i sat down and wept" i was so bored i couldn't finish it, but i didn't judge it. after few years i fell in love with a woman that i discovered later that she's married. i read the novel again and i loved it, and cried with it. maybe you need to fall in love before you watch this master piece again.

[–] scottsteaux63-735-780576 9 years ago

we can't say they fall in love then because it wasn't complete, yes they didn't have sex. just shy attempts when they were too busy with large amount of casualties.

Not only did they have sex, they had a daughter (Rita Tushingham plays the girl whom Yevgraf suspects might be the lost love child of Lara and his brother.).

My biggest problem with this movie is that it is a painfully long film about a man cheating on his wife. Sorry, but I do not find infidelity "romantic" no matter how well written the score is.

Oh God. There's nothing more inconvenient than an old queen with a head cold!

[–] ang-son 11 years ago

I agree with everything you said. The movie was flawed in so many ways. I can't agree with the 8.0 rating.

[–] mb-155 9 years ago

It's a brilliant deep film. Fantastic. You are so wrong .

[–] Mad Dog McLagan 8 years ago

> Man posts list of specific criticisms he would like addressed

> Nobody addresses said criticisms

I suspect the problem is that you have too many paperclips up your nose

[–] JaneThree 8 years ago

I don't think it's a problem that the movie spends so much time on Lara despite being called Dr. Zhivago. Many films/books aren't literally about their titles.

I don't think either Siobhann McKenna or Ralph Richardson were miscast. Ralph Richardson's was one of the only characters in the film I could stand (along with Geraldine Chaplin's).

I never understood why or how Lara and Zhivago fell in love, nor what was so great about Lara that he'd cheat on his wife so horribly.

I feel as if a lot of movies of the time were very self-consciously cinematic in the same way. David Lean, Fred Zimmerman and Sergio Leone were three very different directors, but they all trended a bit consciously "significant" with their cinematography, Zimmerman being the least of the offenders. Older movies were all about the script, the actors, and the direction of the actors. In the sixties there were a lot of "director's" movies, all calling attention to director's choices.

It's not a great film anyway. Julie Christie's great stiff beehive of a sixties 'do during the Russian Revolution is enough to spoil any chance of that. That and her one-toned blonde hair color.

[–] CountJohn 8 years ago

the story is at least nominally about Zhivago, but almost all of the first 1/2 hour is about Lara

You could certainly argue that Lara is the co-lead. The movie is also very long so in a normal length movie that would be more like the first 15 minutes or so. Not really a big deal.

Zhivago and Lara apparently fall in love while working together at the makeshift hospital. And yet -- there is not one second of screen time provided to show how this relationship developed

I do think this is somewhat of a flaw, but the movie is not just long but dense so it's not like there was any fat to cut from the rest of the movie to make room for this. As it was some people complained that too much emphasis was placed on Lara and Zhivago and that it crowded out a lot of the book's political content, which was the real point.

I think their relationship was more about lust and passion anyway, so there's not really anything to "explain". That's why she was the one who inspired his poetry and not his steady, devoted wife.

too many contrived plot developments -- specifically, characters who knew each other years earlier, in completely different locations, keep running into each other

This is just a staple of the "epic" form. And a plot is by definition contrived so I never really make too big a deal out of criticisms like that.

although I love the wonderful wide shots Lean gives us throughout this film, they tend to be overly long

Why are they too long? What benefits would there have been from more cuts? I think the cinematography is one of the film's great strengths.

[–] Wuchakk 8 years ago

Zhivago and Lara apparently fall in love while working together at the makeshift hospital. And yet -- there is not one second of screen time provided to show how this relationship developed -- this is a MAJOR oversight. Perhaps David Lean, who typically shot miles of footage during his productions, had to cut parts of the film due to length. BUT -- there were numerous other areas where he could have cut to make room for this essential part of the story's development, like a little less of the Kamorovksy section, or the pointless later scene with Strevilinsky in the train. In one scene, Lara and Zhivago have been brought to the hospital to help; and then in the very next scene, presumably a number of months later, they are getting ready to leave, and Zhivago expresses his feelings for Lara, and she more or less reciprocates. Since this relationship is integral to the story, we really should have been shown how and why it blossomed

From the standpoint of the married Zhivago it was love-at-first-sight (or, better described, totally-intrigued-at-first-sight) when he first sees Lara at the apartment wherein her mother tried to commit suicide. Yuri has the same "Whoa mama" response when he subsequently sees her shoot Komarovsky at the party. Even their initial non-meeting in the streetcar where they merely brush shoulders the camera immediately cuts to a shot of the roof of the trolley where there are literal sparks flying from the electric line (!).

When they finally meet-up at the field hospital several years later Zhivago falls in love with Lara during the six months working together and 'fesses-up at the end. It's clear that Lara pretty much feels the same way, but she nobly encourages him not to do anything that would make it necessary to lie to his wife, Tonya. This shows that there were no hot romantic scenes up to this point in the story. Nada. The two were simply working together in a mundane war situation where they developed unspoken feelings for each other over the course of the six months.

This was all the prelude to the third act where they happen upon each other at the town in the Urals and proceed to have a steamy affair. As far as I'm concerned, there's enough romantic drama in the third act. Their encounters before that were just preparatory stepping stones to their later intimate relationship.

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