Did anyone else like Steiger better than Sharif?
Boy, I did! I think Rod Steiger is by far the more attractive and interesting character than Sharif, whom I regard as facile, weak and obscenely idealistic.
shareKomarovsky was certainly the more complex character - at least seemingly so. "Knows life", as one might say. But "attractive"? I don't think the word is carefully chosen. "Interesting" seems more appropriate.
Zhivago didn't seem weak to me - other than in succumbing to his lust for Lara. I dare say there wasn't too much room for any weaklings in the harsh climate of the times through which those characters trudged.
Idealistic? Well, I'm not too sure that stands up either. Surely it was the embarrassingly naive Bolsheviks who demonstrated the true idealism. Strelnikov might not have been a Bolshy but he too was guilty of undiluted naivety in assessing the aspirational character of the common man "come the revolution".
I would say that Zhivago displayed only a hint of this infantile disposition but instead was given to a far more earthy and poetic sense of truth about the world - he was the character after all who had witnessed the death of his mother (Mother Russia) at such an early age. I think he was, in fact, quite aware of what was going on around him but that his adherence to a deeper set of natural truths than those marching down main street made him search for non-ideological answers - I would deem this a sign of strength, not weakness.
"There's only one thing you can do with a girl like this... Make love once... Then die."
Maybe Zhivago was spiritually strong, but as a human being was a weak, passive character who didn't have any affect on the world around him. It's not necessarily that he was unaware of what went on around him, rather that he didn't care.
I think Zhivago, for all his faults, is one of the more realistic movie protagonists. Maybe he's not much of a hero, but the vast majority of people, artists and not, have probably found themselves in his shoes at some point in time. How many people actually influence the outcome of events in a significant way?
There may be honor among thieves, but there's NONE in politicians!
Ah, but Zhivago's art did register - and have a profound impact - on the world around him. His personal poetry turned Marxist-Leninist noses in times of ideological purity before, like Boris Pasternak himself, finally being embraced by the mother country. It was his art (as an expression of his fascination with the wild suffering and beauty of his country) that led him to withdraw, in any clear political sense, from the power-grabbing world around him. Ironically it was this withdrawal that ensured his influence - isolation and independence of mind being key to the artistic process.
But Komarovsky on the other hand, remained an historical hyena, pulling on the coat tails of opportunity and pinching fortune where he may. By contrast his real-world wheeling-and-dealing was the petty and petulant shadow of Zhivago's towering achievement - namely, to move a nation seemingly so cold-hearted and scarred by war and revolution.
"There's only one thing you can do with a girl like this... Make love once... Then die."
Zhivago was an amiable poet whose code of conduct might only possibly be realistic in a society where everyone is like him. In a present-day Western country it would be difficult for him, and in Soviet Russia it was logically suicide.
Komorovsky is a normal, practical person who wants to live and enjoy.