Strelnikov!
It was a beautiful love story. For a comical treatment of czarist Russia during the Napoleonic era, Love and Death is tops.
I told myself it was beneath my dignity to arrest a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: One man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic. Five million people desperate for fuel will destroy a city. That was the first time I ever saw my brother. But I knew him. And I knew that I would disobey the party. Perhaps it was the tie of blood between us, but I doubt it. We were only half tied anyway, and brothers will betray a brother. Indeed, as a policeman, I would say, get hold of a man’s brother and you’re halfway home. Nor was it admiration for a better man than me. I did admire him, but I didn’t think he was a better man. Besides, I’ve executed better men than me with a small pistol.
-Yevgraf Zhivago
With Sound of Music the samd year. Two epic works of the same genre.
*Please note the segment viewed from the train of the burnt Russian village. This is accurate and experienced by my Russian Great-grandparents and very young Grandfather.
My Grandfather, 6’1”, wouldn’t speak of the past. However, he shared his earliest memory of running down the street holding his mother’s hand with their farm and their village in flames with my 4’11” Irish Grandmother.
He came to U.S with his father and brother. Being tall for his age, he lied to be able to work in the mines with his Father and brother. In this way, they raised passage for his mother and two sisters to the U.S.
When the family was reunited, his mother spoke to him in Russian. He would not respond. His mother cried saying he had forgotten her. He then said, “I am not Russian. I am an American.”
Excellent movie! Also read the book twice! Here is something not in the Movie. Explains why the Leftists keep trying to destroy the US.
Yurii’s talk with Pogorevshikh on the train to Moscow...
Part 2, chapter 5: 16
Imperturbable as an oracle, he prophesied disastrous
upheavals in the near future. Yurii Andreievich inwardly agreed
that this was not unlikely, but the calm, authoritative tone in
which this unpleasant boy was making his forecasts angered
him.
“Just a moment,” he said hesitantly. “True, all this may happen.
But it seems to me that with all that’s going on — the chaos, the
disintegration, the pressure from the enemy — this is not the
moment to start dangerous experiments. The country must be
allowed to recover from one upheaval before plunging into
another. We must wait till at least relative peace and order are
restored.”
“That’s naive,” said Pogorevshikh. “What you call disorder is
just as normal a state of things as the order you’re so keen
about. All this destruction — it’s a natural and preliminary stage
of a broad creative plan. Society has not yet disintegrated
sufficiently. It must fall to pieces completely then a genuinely
revolutionary government will put the pieces together and build
on completely new foundations.”
I fell in love with Julie Christie in that movie.
Never saw it.
“In bourgeois terms, it was a war between the Allies and Germany. In Bolshevik terms, it was a war between the Allied and German upper classes - and which of them won was of total indifference. My task was to organize defeat, so as to hasten the onset of revolution. I enlisted under the name of Petrov. The party looked to the peasant conscript soldiers - many of whom were wearing their first real pair of boots. When the boots had worn out, they’d be ready to listen. When the time came, I was able to take three whole battalions out of the front lines with me - the best day’s work I ever did. But for now, there was nothing to be done. There were too many volunteers. Most of it was mere hysteria.
By the second winter, the boots had worn out... but the line still held. Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that 900-mile long front... as well our own cursed capacity for suffering. Half the men went into action without any arms... irregular rations... led by officers they didn’t trust.
Finally, when they could stand it no longer, they began doing what every army dreams of doing...They began to go home. That was the beginning of the Revolution.”
Saw it last year on the big screen on one of those special nite showings. Wonderful. Saw Lawrence of Arabia the same way.
Dr Zhivago was a lightweight who went around looking for beauty in a nightmare world. The characters around him, Tonya in particular were way better than he was. In particular, he was a terrible father and husband.
;^)
Loved the movie so much that I read the book and took a Russian History course that was most enlightening. It was taught by a Russian emigre who was born in Peking China where his Russian nobility family had fled from the Bolsheviks. As he guided us through successive generations of Russian History he would often stop to comment on people he was related to that were relevant. You can’t go wrong with any David Lean film. And Julie Christie was fabulous!
Great movie.
I find Pasha to be the most interesting character.
Young revolutionary to young lover to young husband/teacher to young Soldier to grizzled communist to dead romantic.
The ending is, well... Heartbreaking.
I was twelve, and REALLY wanted to go see Dr. Zhivago. Mom said No, as the review she read indicated that it wasn’t appropriate for children.
I lied about my age, paid the full price and LOVED the movie. I hid under the seat at the end, and watched it again. That meant I was missing for six hours.
When I got home, Mom was furious, until I reminded her that she used to do the same thing with John Wayne movies when she was a kid.
“Ok,” she said, “but the movie was too adult for you! It showed two people in bed together who weren’t married.”
“They were too married,” I replied, “just not to each other.”
I still love that movie and quote lines from it all the time. (The book is a lot different, with more charachters and dialogue, but I loved that too).
Anyway, that’s my own personal story about Dr. Zhivago.
One of the greatest movies all time. Thanks for posting.
I love Dr. Zivago, great love story but as a teenager it was the movie that taught me the stark difference between Communism and Capitalism.