Line #10 Film/DoctorZhivago


1	[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doctor_zhivago_1965.jpeg]]
2
3	->''"{{In a world}} of guns and ice\
4	There is the great noise of battle\
5	And the greater silence of Lovers''"
6	-->--'''{{Tagline}}'''
7
8	While there have been several [[TheFilmOfTheBook screen adaptations]] of Boris Pasternak's eponymous [[Literature/DoctorZhivago 1957 novel]], this one--scripted by Creator/RobertBolt, directed by Creator/DavidLean, and released in 1965--is probably the most famous.
9
10	It's a [[EpicMovie generation-spanning epic]] about UsefulNotes/TheRussianRevolution, starring Creator/OmarSharif as Yuri Zhivago, a doctor meeting the challenges of a WorldGoneMad, with Creator/JulieChristie as TheIngenue Lara, the object of his [[TheDulcineaEffect affections]], and Creator/RodSteiger as [[ManipulativeBastard Komarovsky]]. Other cast members include Creator/GeraldineChaplin, Creator/AlecGuinness, Tom Courtenay, Siobhán [=McKenna=], Rita Tushingham, Creator/KlausKinski, and Creator/RalphRichardson. Creator/IngridPitt, who would go on to become a legendary star of Film/HammerHorror movies, makes her film debut in a bit part.
11
12	With its epic scope, vivid performances, and grand SceneryPorn vistas, this is widely regarded as one of Lean's greatest films. Nominated for ten UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s, it won for Best Adapted Screenplay (Bolt), Cinematography (Freddie Young), Original Score (Music/MauriceJarre), Art Direction, and Costume Design.
13
14	''Doctor Zhivago'' was also heralded as the last of Creator/{{MGM}}'s great {{Epic Movie}}s, as they announced even during production; the studio simply no longer had the money to finance these vast vista works with thousands of extras and a cast full of stars, and the next movie they made was for one-twentieth of this one's cost. Still, the expense seems to have been worth it; when adjusted for inflation, ''Zhivago'' is currently the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time; according to [=BoxOfficeMojo.com=], its $111 million domestic take in 1965[[note]]as well as subsequent rereleases[[/note]] comes out to nearly ''a billion dollars'' in the 2020s.
15	----
16	!! This film contains examples of:
17
18	* AdaptedOut: The movie removes several key characters from the book like Lara's brother, Pasha Antipov's father, himself a revolutionary leader and Yuri's friend Misha Gordon.
19	* AdaptationDistillation: The film compresses the time span and excises a good amount of the story's historical and cultural background. Especially evident in Yuri's service with the Red partisans, much more prominent in the novel than the film.
20	* AdaptationalJerkass: While both novel and movie Strelnikov are willing to burn down villages just to make a point, in the movie he's also cold and repressed in person, and lacks his novel counterpart's humanizing moments.
21	* AffectionateNickname: Lara lovingly calls her fiancé Pavel "Pasha", Russian being a language fond of nicknames.
22	* AnachronicOrder: The movie begins after the second World War with an old Yevgraf Zhivago trying to find his niece and conversing with a worker named Tonya who may be this niece. The rest of the movie then jumps back to the past as Yevgraf narrates what happened to Yuri Zhivago and Lara before and during the Revolution, before concluding with a return to Yevgraf and Tonya's conversation.
23	* BadassFingerSnap: The night Yevgraf sees Yuri pilfering wood, he goes to his home and silences a rowdy crowd victimizing Zhivago's family with a mere finger snap, his uniform sealing the deal and making the crowd disperse.
24	* BeardOfSorrow: Both the film and the TV serial show Yuri growing a beard when he is conscripted into the Red Partisan army.
25	* BittersweetEnding: DownerEnding, depending how you look at it.
26	** The downer ending is that Yuri and Lara die apart, with Yuri especially dying of a heart attack chasing after a woman he thinks is Lara, and Lara eventually dying in one of Stalin's camps. The bittersweet ending is that Yuri's brother finds Yuri's daughter years later, and they may be able to make a connection.
27	* BookEnds: The streetcar scenes with Yuri and Lara at the beginning and end of the film.
28	* ChekhovsGun:
29	** The balalaika passed down from Yuri’s mother.
30	** The literal gun given to Lara by Pasha just after a peaceful protest is later used by Lara herself to shoot Komarovsky on Christmas' Eve.
31	* ChildSoldiers: The Partisans encounter (and massacre) a unit of teenaged military cadets. Yuri (and Liberius, the partisan commander) are shocked, having not realized their age, but their Commissar is unmoved: "It doesn't matter."
32	* CoolTrain: The armored war train.
33	* DamselInDistress: Lara needs a lot of rescuing throughout the movie.
34	* DeadpanSnarker: Zhivago takes this tone with the Party delegates who now live in his old house in Moscow upon his return from UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. They notice. Oh, yes, they notice.
35	-->'''Delegate''': (Reviewing Zhivago's discharge papers) Holy Cross? (beat) What?\
36	'''Zhivago''': Holy Cross Hospital. It's on--\
37	'''Tonya''': (interrupting) The Second Reformed Hospital, he means.\
38	'''Zhivago''': Oh. (beat) Good. It needed reforming.\
39	'''Delegate''': (beat, with icy We Are Not Amused gaze)
40	** After pointedly reminding Dr. Zhivago that he's "been listening to rumormongers, Comrade. There is no typhus in our city," the delegate shortly thereafter has Zhivago pulled from work to discreetly diagnose an ill man in the house.
41	-->'''Zhivago''': Why? Is it typhus?\
42	'''Zhivago''': (after inspecting patient) It isn't typhus. It's another disease we don't have in Moscow: starvation.\
43	'''Delegate''': That seems to give you satisfaction.\
44	'''Zhivago''': It would give me satisfaction to hear you admit it.\
45	'''Delegate''': Would it? Why?\
46	'''Zhivago''': Because it ''is'' so.\
47	'''Delegate''': Your attitude is noticed, you know. Oh, yes, it's been noticed!
48	** He must have learned it from his medical professor. While watching a piano recital with his wife:
49	-->'''Mrs Kurt:''' Boris! This is genius!
50	-->'''Professor Kurt:'''(looking bored) "Really? I thought it was Rachmaninoff. I'm going for a smoke.
51	* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: Pasha. It doesn't stick.
52	* DirtyCommunists: Subverted, as events are shown from their perspective.
53	* DisproportionateRetribution: Wood pilfering is mentioning by Yevgraf to be grounds for capital punishment. He justifies it as MyCountryRightOrWrong since the Party ordered it so, and also says that 5 million freezing people pilfering wood could destroy Moscow, so they must make an example of the first who try.
54	* DistantFinale: Lara's daughter, hard at work building a dam, meets Yevgraf many years after the events of the story.
55	* DissonantSerenity: The abandoned ''dacha'' (country house) full of ice.
56	* DrivenToSuicide: Lara's mother suspects that Lara is having an affair with Komarovsky, and drinks a whole bottle of iodine. Thankfully, she's saved by Alexander and Yuri.
57	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:Strelnikov's fate in the movie - he's arrested and commits suicide, both events occurring off-screen. In the book, Strelnikov meets Yuri at Varykino after Lara's departure and kills himself there. For that matter, we also only hear vague descriptions of what happened - or might have happened - to both Komarovsky and Lara.]]
58	* TheDulcineaEffect: Zhivago's love for Lara.
59	* EpicMovie: Over three hours long, with the proverbial cast of thousands.
60	* FailureGambit: Yevgraf says that he and several Bolshevik agents enlisted in the Russian Army to sabotage the war effort from inside, so that the Russian elites would lose the war and the Revolution would "spring from defeat". His best work was to goad three battalions to desert in one day.
61	* FirstPersonPeripheralNarrator: Yevgraf, the brother of the eponymous Doctor Zhivago, acts as narrator.
62	* FramingDevice: Yevgraf and Tonya meet in the '40s, and most of the story is Yevgraf telling Tonya about his past.
63	* FullCircleRevolution: The revolutionaries start out having sympathetic ideas, but these are gradually warped, forgotten or deliberately ignored because of human failings. This is symbolically shown through Pasha's "apotheosis" into [[spoiler: Strelnikov]].
64	* TheGhost: While Tsar Nicholas II and later Vladimir Lenin are central figures in the historical events in the film, neither appear in person.
65	* GloriousMotherRussia: In Glorious Technicolor.
66	* GoodScarsEvilScars: Pasha receives a heroic wound down the side of his face early on, when Tsarist cavalry break up his peaceful protest. [[spoiler:Arguably turns into an evil scar when he becomes the brutal WellIntentionedExtremist Strelnikov]].
67	* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Strelnikov, arguably, as fighting the Whites has turned him hard and pitiless.
68	* HeWhoMustNotBeSeen: Strelnikov is referenced several times before his identity is finally revealed right before intermission.
69	* HighClassGlass: A Tsarist general who meets deserting Russian troops is wearing a monocle. Guess what happens to him.
70	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: The likenesses of UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky and UsefulNotes/JosephStalin appear, while UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin and other notable historical figures are repeatedly mentioned.
71	* HollywoodHeartAttack: [[spoiler:Yuri has one in the DistantFinale, trying to chase down a woman he thinks is Lara.]]
72	* HonorBeforeReason: Yuri chooses to [[spoiler: stay behind at Varykino rather than accept Komarovsky's help and go with Lara and Katya.]] This leads to him [[spoiler: never seeing Lara or his family again and developing a starvation-related heart ailment that kills him prematurely.]] It may also have denied him a chance to [[spoiler: protect Lara and her children and keep them from being separated in battle, something Komarovsky fails to do.]]
73	* HotLibrarian: Lara briefly becomes one.
74	* {{Intermission}}: Used to dramatic effect, as the film reveals that Pasha is still alive, and is [[spoiler:TheDreaded "Strelnikov"]], right before the film cuts to intermission.
75	* JumpCut: See WhipPan below.
76	* KarmaHoudini: Komarovsky is probably one of the only characters to end up in a better position than when he started.
77	* KnightTemplar: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6raF7kcJJs Strelnikov]].
78	* LaResistance: Pasha, who is distributing revolutionary pamphlets well before UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.
79	* LawOfChromaticSuperiority: Strelnikov the badass Red partisan operates a bright red war train.
80	* {{Leitmotif}}: "Lara's Theme", which keeps recurring throughout the score.
81	* LongLostRelative: Yevgraf is Yuri's half-brother, child of their father's first wife.
82	** Yevgraf is likewise Tonya's perhaps ''only'' living relative.
83	* LoveTriangle: Lara's fiancé Pasha and his foil Komarovsky both love Lara and despise each other. Then Yuri falls in love with Lara at first sight during a medical visit. Lara breaks it off with Komarovsky when he rapes her and she shoots him in revenge. During World War I Pasha goes MIA, and doesn't come home afterward because he's joined the civil war, and Yuri has an affair with Lara. Simultaneous to all of this, Yuri and Tonya are in love and eventually marry and have children. This is all a bit simplified from the novel.
84	* ManipulativeBastard: Komarovsky, who keeps manipulating people and always lands on his feet, going from a Russian aristocrat before the war to a Soviet minister afterwards.
85	* MadonnaWhoreComplex[=/=]ThereAreTwoKindsOfPeopleInTheWorld: As Komarovsky tells Lara, “There are two kinds of women and you, as we well know, are not the first kind.” He proceeds to call her a slut, and she slaps him. Overall, she is portrayed very sympathetically despite this
86	* MathematiciansAnswer: Tonya is prone to these when being quizzed by Yevgraf. When asked what her mother's name was, Tanya says "Mummy." When asked to describe her, Tonya says she was "big", because Tonya was small.
87	* MayDecemberRomance: DirtyOldMan Komarovsky has an affair with Lara. However, the relationship is mostly abusive from the old lawyer's part.
88	* MementoMacguffin: The balalaika, passed on from Yuri's mother, to Yuri, and possibly to Tonya if she is his daughter.
89	* MickeyMousing: The poem writing scene.
90	* MisplacedRetribution: Strelnikov destroys an innocent village to punish others for aiding the Whites. Yuri calls him out on it:
91	--> '''Strelnikov''': What does it matter? A village betrays us, a village is burned. The point's made.
92	--> '''Zhivago''': Your point, their village.
93	* MostWritersAreWriters: Doctor Zhivago becomes a renowned poet in the Soviet Union.
94	* MrFanservice: Omar was ''big'' in [[TheSixties the '60s]].
95	* TheMutiny: Yevgraf recounts that he joined up in 1914 for the express purpose of eventually inciting one. Eventually he leads three whole battalions in desertion. Later, Russian soldiers start going home in huge numbers, at one point dragging a general off his horse and beating him to death.
96	* NeverAcceptedInHisHometown: Zhivago isn't appreciated until after he dies.
97	** This [[LifeImitatesArt parallels]] Pasternak himself, whose book was originally [[BannedInChina banned in the Soviet Union]].
98	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Strelnikov, the Red Army officer, shares a lot of similarities to UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky, who was leader of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War (most notably, travelling up and down the front on an armored train, and [[spoiler:getting purged as the Bolsheviks consolidate power]]).
99	* NotBloodSiblings: Zhivago and Tonya, who end up married. Only for Zhivago to chase Lara instead...
100	* NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization: Komarovsky attempts to invoke this to justify his [[spoiler: rape of Lara]], seemingly referring to [[spoiler: Lara eventually giving in after her initial resistance.]] But nobody buys it except Komarovsky himself, and even that's arguable.
101	* OneDegreeOfSeparation: The story is packed full of odd coincidences. For example, Yuri just happens to run into Lara, years after their first encounter, after Yuri has moved his family deep into Russia's interior. And before that, when Yuri and his family were headed east on the train, they just happen to run into Pasha, [[spoiler:in his new identity as Strelnikov]].
102	* OneSteveLimit: Averted - Tonya, Zhivago's wife, and Tonya, Zhivago's daughter with Lara, have names with identical pronunciation.
103	* OrphansPlotTrinket: How does Yevgraf know that young Tonya is in fact his niece? She has the balalaika that previously belonged to Yuri, that came from his mother.
104	* PersecutedIntellectuals: When Yuri, Tonya and Alexander flee from Moscow, they share they wagon with an intellectual on forced labor, Zhivago's poems' being disregarded as "petit bourgeois" by the Communist Party being the reason Yuri is fleeing Moscow in the first place.
105	* PrettyInMink: Many furs are worn because it's just that cold for much of the story, but most are very stylish nonetheless.
106	* PunchClockVillain: Yevgraf works for the Bolsheviks but he doesn't quite share their fanatical points of view. Similarly, the Partisan commander openly dislikes the Commissar assigned to his unit and [[PetTheDog even argues for Yuri's release]].
107	* PuppetState: Komarovsky becomes a Minister in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Eastern_Republic Far Eastern Republic]], a short-lived rump state established by the Bolsheviks in the early '20s.
108	* RapeAsDrama: Komarovsky rapes Lara, who shoots him in revenge, although she only manages to wing him in the arm.
109	* TheReveal: The last ten minutes of the movie's first half build up the fear of Strelnikov, the merciless Bolshevik general. And then as his [[LawOfChromaticSuperiority Bright Red]] [[CoolTrain War Train]] passes, we see... [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hCczioWiZk It's PASHA!]]]]
110	** [[{{Sting}} Cue Intermission]]!
111	* RichesToRags: Alexander, Tonya and Zhivago are a well-off family of the haute-bourgeoisie. By the time the Revolution comes, their every possession, including their home, is requisitioned to be shared with other people or is stolen.
112	* RiddleForTheAges: Was that really Lara that [[spoiler:Zhivago was chasing down the street when he died? Or just a woman who looked like her?]]
113	* RousingSpeech: Subverted. A Tsarist officer, seeing what looks like a whole regiment of troops fleeing from the front in 1917, stands up on a rain barrel and tries to talk them back into the line. He's just getting geared up when the plank he's standing on breaks and he plunges into the rain barrel. The soldiers laugh. Then they shoot him.
114	* SavageWolves: You will fear wolf howls in 40 below...
115	* SceneryPorn: Culminating in the frozen dacha full of ice.
116	* SecretlyDying: Yevgraf says that [[spoiler: Yuri told no one of his heart condition.]]
117	* ShoutOut: The scene where Yuri and Lara meet among the army deserters is one to a scene of Creator/KingVidor's ''Film/TheBigParade'', one of Lean's favorite films.
118	* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia''.
119	* StoicSpectacles: Pasha.
120	* TallDarkAndHandsome: '''OMAR SHARIF.'''
121	* ThatManIsDead: There is only Strelnikov. "The personal life is dead", he says, when Yuri tells him about his wife and baby. Turns out not to be true, though, as he eventually [[spoiler:tries to get back to Lara--he was five miles away when they caught him--and he insisted on being referred to as Pasha Antipov by his executioners]].
122	* ThickerThanWater: Yuri's long lost half-brother Yevgraf is working for the Bolshevik government and arranges passes for Yuri and his family out of Moscow when his poetry is condemned.
123	* TrainStationGoodbye
124	* ThouShaltNotKill: Dr. Zhivago believes in this strongly.
125	* WarIsHell: The movie depicts World War I in its whole horrible glory, lingering on several shots of frozen corpses as Yevgraf narrates how every soldier was living through hell and was thrown into the Germans' fire as CannonFodder. The main battle scene features a suicidal charge across No Man's Land which few soldiers manage to survive. The cripples who returned from the war with a missing limbs are deemed to be lucky. Then the Russian Civil War is also depicted as a horrible conflict where both Whites and Reds commit atrocities on the locals while showing no mercy towards each other.
126	* WellIntentionedExtremist: Pasha believes in the Red Revolution.
127	* WhamLine: "Yes... that's Strelnikov."
128	* WhipPan: Used with a JumpCut for an interesting sequence early in the film.
129	* WidescreenShot: Part of Lean's SignatureStyle, many shots are done in this movie, from trains roaring through the snow, to the final shot of the dam.
130	* AWorldHalfFull: A major theme of the film.
131	* YouWillBeSpared: Dr. Zhivago's unplanned encounter with [[HeWhoMustNotBeSeen Strelnikov]] ends in this.
132	----
133	Remember: In Soviet Russia, [[MrFanservice Omar Sharif ]] Ogles YOU!\

Context Film / DoctorZhivago