Posted on 11/19/2012 4:49:17 PM PST by ReformationFan
For those interested, Turner Classic Movies will air "Doctor Zhivago" tonight starting at 8PM E.S.T.. While I don't approve of the adultery of the film's hero, it is one of the few times when Hollywood produced a huge epic showing how awful life under Soviet totalitarian communism truly was. For that reason alone it's worth seeing at least once. Tom Courtnenay's youthfully idealistic Pasha provides a great example of a liberal who gets power then proceeds to torment everyone else for the "common good." The scene where Zhivago returns to his wife and family after World War I only to find his home confiscated in the name of "fairness" is also quite effective. Special kudos to Rod Steiger for his great performance as the opportunistic Komorovsky, my favorite performance in the film.
This movie should be required viewing for every High School student in America.
It’s 72 hours long./s
Thanks for the heads up. I agree; excellent film.
It like the old joke about Eisenstein movies...you pay the kid’s price if you’re still 12 when the movie’s over.
“Your attitude’s been noticed, you know. Oh, yes, it’s been noticed.”
I remember watching this film when I was 11 years old at the base theater in Yokosuka, Japan. Matinee show, and there was a crawl message across the top of the screen saying RFK had been shot.
I watched it again for the first time just a couple of months ago, and was very engaged by the film.
The absolute best channel on all of TV, followed by the Cartoon Network.
I saw this movie as a young girl and loved it. It is one of the reasons I am a republican, especially the end of the movie and what happened to their daughter. I never wanted that for myself. Sadly we are headed that way.
Thanks for the heads up. I must have seen it five or six times over the years. Beautiful photography, a wonderful score and, of course, Julie Christie as Lara. I fell in love with her.
The remake with Keira Knightley is also good IMO.
Thanks for the heads up!!! Watching it, now, with my teen who is a war history buff.
I saw this for the first time, this year, it is a great film.
Great movie. The music all by itself makes this one of the best. It was my mothers favorite film.
I do believe Lara was 17 years old when she was banging the fella who Steiger played. Another beautiful blond being used.
It was interesting. As a kid, there were only three things I remember from that movie: the students getting shot in the field of tall grass trying to fight, and that the movie was too long.
And, of course, “Lara’s Theme”. (My mom hummed it a lot, as I recall...:)
For years, when I thought of movies that were too long for no reason, I always thought of that one. After all, “The Ten Commandments” was long, but it had meaning to me.
When I saw the movie recently, I wished it had been even longer, it appealed to me that much.
I think it was learning about the Soviet Union since then, and being tuned into things I just had no idea about at the age of 11.
Reading “The Gulag Archipelago”, “1984” and simply learning more about what happened leading up to and since the Russian Revolution made me view totalitarianism in a more interested and inquisitive way. It makes you understand in your gut what an evil ideology Communism is, and how terrible total government control is when placed in the hands of malevolent people.
Another movie that really drives the point home well is “The Lives of Others”. A fascinating and frightening movie about the conduct of people living in a society where the government has an ear and an eye everywhere, and everyone knows it. The things that people have to do to avoid an interrogator’s room or survive, and what they will do to others in order to do that.
What’s the cinematic point of showing the mother in the coffin as she is having dirt put on her?
Indeed. Strelnikov would be seen as a “hero” to current day leftists.
I completely agree. Sadly, most of today’s teachers would probably hate it for not showing communism to be the care-free glorious utopia it never was and never could be though it sure doesn’t stop the lefties from trying over and over again.
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