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.
Indeed we are headed that way and for that I tremble.
Good question. I’m not sure though. Perhaps to emphasize Yuri the boy being all alone in the world now that his mother is gone? Although he does have the Gromekos.
I liked the part where he could talk to the animals......what?.......really?........never mind.
I get cold watching the movie.
One of the greater messages was done only with dialogue, which I think lessened the message. Strelnikov was killed trying to return to Lara. The socialist man could not overcome his human feelings. That’s why socialism and communism always fail.
My all time favorite movie
It's Yuri Zhivago's perspective of what's going on. He's a little boy as it is happening, all he knows is that his mother is in a box and going into the ground.
I saw it when I was about twenty. I remember most vividly Zhivago being out in the freezing weather, even his moustache frozen; then going into Lara’s apartment where there were dried yellow and gold flowers everywhere. It looked so warm; she wasn’t there, but the apartment was bright. I’ve used dried yellow and gold dried flowers in our house often since then.
Indeed although I’ve always had a soft spot for the under-appreciated Tonya(played by Geraldine Chaplin). Lara is the film’s Ginger while Tonya is its Mary Ann IMHO.
Indeed. Another good scene illustrating socialism/communism at work is when Zhivago’s father-in-law finds his country home has been confiscated by the government in the name of “the people”. “Well, I’m one of the people too!”.
(Looking like I'm pondering deeply and trying to look Freudian as a type this...)
I first saw “Dr Zhivago” at the Paramount Theater—now the El Capitan—in Hollywood on August 31, 1966.
Love the shot of the snow-bound dacha ...
Which turned out to be rather hot in reality. Most of the film was shot in Spain and the snow was actually bees’ wax.
I didn’t notice any resemblance to Miss Christie. I think it was just a random mannequin.
Excellent, excellent observation. It sounds like a quote straight out of Whittaker Chambers' Witness
Me, too. It's the greatest movie ever made. It isn't even close for second place. It always thrills me to hear someone else say it. And of course I don't mind when someone else has a different opinion; such is art and beauty.
David Lean is to film what Rembrandt was to painting -- and especially so in Zhivago.
I have seen some on here wish it could be shown to students. I taught high school for 30 years and showed it each semester to each section. So I have it memorized. Each time I saw it, I got something new and profound out of it.
My wife and I notice, again and again, that the longer we live, the more the movie has to say in commentary to almost every socio-political-economic situation that arises nowadays.
That’s wondeful. What did your students think of the film and of communism after seeing it?
That is one book I need to read. The films at the train ride to the Urals bit now. It reminds of the train I rode in the Ukraine in the 1990s, only slightly more advanced.
70-80% of them really bought into the point of the film -- that communism makes tainted hash out of people's lives, and has an ice-cold, callous disregard toward the ruins.
A few had some admiration for Antipov/Strelnikov's idealism -- but not for his bipolar cruelty. And they unanimously despised the way they had taken away the last vestiges of earned success and luxury.
I had a dozen or so essay proposals of which the students were to write on two of them. One of them was to write a poem expressive of the film. That one was almost a universal favorite. Kids like to write poems if you let them.
I personally wrote a couple of poems each year, too.
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