MovieChat Forums > Doctor Zhivago (1965) Discussion > Stock footage during the train crowd sce...

Stock footage during the train crowd scene?

posted 12 years ago by Strausszek
2 replies | jump to latest

In the scene where the train slows down and people are trying to jump on to it, part of the haunting effect comes from the greyed-out footage of a wartorn, burnt countryside. This is the first time the people on the train actually see the face of the civil war, and we see it with them and share their shock. The picture quality here looks different, it's near black-and-white and a bit grainy. I am wondering, was Lean using stock newsreel footage of some wartorn country here, perhaps from WW2, or was it filmed like the rest but using a different film stock and desaturated to make it look like images from the years the film is set in?

You are a lunatic, Sir, and you're going to end up on the Russian front. I have a car waiting.

[–] Jamal-Nazreddin 12 years ago

It looks desaturated and blue because it was a very cold and sunless day. Lean was a master manipulator.

[–] leighant 12 years ago

You will also notice that the long shots of the burned village scene included people running down toward the train trying to get away. This ties directly into the shot of the woman with a baby running to get on the train and then being pulled onto the train by Zhivago. So it was all shot to go together. (Although the accident on set required a double to replace the original woman who did NOT make it onto the train, and an improvised camera angle from outside the boxcar door to show her being pulled in. Obviously the original intent was to have the shot looking out the door of the moving boxcar with the women running alongside and show her from angle pulled in.)