Doctor Zhivago (film)

Against a backdrop of World War I, the 1917 Russian Revolution and ensuing civil war, the film uses a narrative framing device set later, involving NKVD Lieutenant General Yevgraf Zhivago's search for the daughter of his half-brother Dr Yuri Zhivago and Larissa ("Lara") Antipova. Yevgraf believes a young worker, Tanya Komarova, may be his niece and explains why.

After his mother's burial, the orphaned child Yuri, who owns only an inherited balalaika, was taken by family friends Alexander and Anna Gromeko to Moscow. In 1913, Zhivago, now a doctor and a poet, becomes engaged to the Gromekos' daughter Tonya after her schooling in Paris.

Lara, 17 years old, is seduced by her mother's much older friend/lover, the well-connected Victor Komarovsky. Lara's friend, the idealistic Pasha Antipov, who wishes to marry her, is wounded by mounted police at a peaceful demonstration. Pasha's wound is treated by Lara, who hides a gun he picked up.

Tsarist Dragoons attack a peaceful demonstration

Learning of Lara's relationship with Komarovsky, her mother attempts suicide. Komarovsky attempts to dissuade Lara from marrying Pasha. She refuses and he rapes her. A traumatised Lara later follows Komarovsky to a party; she shoots him in the arm, and is escorted out by Pasha. Pasha marries her, despite now knowing about her relationship with Komarovsky. They leave Moscow.

During World War I Yuri, now married to Tonya, becomes a battlefield doctor. Pasha joins up, but is reported missing. Lara enlists as a nurse to search for him and encounters Zhivago. For the next six months, they serve at a field hospital, as unrest grows in Russia after exiled Vladimir Lenin returns. Zhivago and Lara fall in love, but Zhivago remains faithful to Tonya.

After Russia leaves the war, Yuri returns to Tonya, their son Sasha and the widowed Alexander Gromeko in their Moscow house, which had been confiscated by the Soviet government and now houses many other people. Yevgraf, now a Cheka officer, tells Yuri that his poems have been condemned as anti-communist. Yevgraf provides documents so the family can travel to the Gromekos' country home, "Varykino", located in the Urals near Yuriatin. On a heavily guarded train they travel through contested territory where the Bolshevik commander Strelnikov is fighting anti-Communist White forces.

Yevgraf (Alec Guinness, right) with Tanya (Rita Tushingham)

The train makes a stop close to Strelnikov's armoured train. Yuri gets out, is captured and taken to Strelnikov. Yuri recognises Strelnikov as Pasha. Strelnikov mentions that Lara is living in Yuriatin, now occupied by the Whites. Strelnikov allows Zhivago to return to his train. They find the main house at Varykino seized and sealed up by the Bolsheviks; the family settle into a cottage next door. In Yuriatin, Yuri sees Lara, and they begin an affair. When Tonya is about to give birth to a second child, Yuri breaks off with Lara but is then abducted by Communist partisans and forced to join them.

After two years, Yuri deserts and returns to Yuriatin. Lara says that Tonya contacted her while searching for Yuri. Leaving his belongings with Lara, she returned to Moscow. Tonya later sent Lara a sealed letter for Yuri. Tonya had given birth to a daughter, and she, her father, and her two children are living in Paris following deportation.

Yuri and Lara become lovers again but Komarovsky arrives. Cheka agents have been watching them due to Lara's marriage to Strelnikov. Komarovsky offers them help to leave Russia, but they refuse, instead going to Varykino, and hiding in the main house. Yuri begins the "Lara" poems, which will later bring him popular fame but government disapproval. Komarovsky arrives with troops. Recently appointed as an official in the Far Eastern Republic, he says that the Cheka only allowed Lara to remain in the area to lure Strelnikov; he had been captured five miles away, and committed suicide. They now intend to arrest Lara. Komarovsky's offer of safe passage is accepted, but once Lara is on her way, Yuri does not follow. On the train, Lara tells Komarovsky that she is pregnant with Yuri's child.

Years later, Yevgraf finds a Moscow medical job for his now frail half-brother. Yuri sees Lara in the street. He has a fatal heart attack before reaching her. At Yuri's funeral Lara asks Yevgraf for help to find her daughter by Yuri, who was lost during the civil war. Yevgraf helps her search the orphanages, in vain. Lara then disappears and Yevgraf believes she died in a labour camp.

Yevgraf believes that Tanya Komarova is Yuri and Lara's daughter; she remains unconvinced. After being asked how she came to be lost, Tanya finally answers that her "father" (i.e. Komarovsky) had let go of her hand when they were running from the chaos of war. Yevgraf responds that a real father would not have let go. Tanya promises to consider what Yevgraf says. Tanya's husband arrives, and she leaves with him. Yevgraf notices Tanya is carrying a balalaika. He asks if she can play it, to which her husband responds that she can and "is an artist".

Boris Pasternak's novel was published in the West amidst celebration and controversy. Parts of Pasternak's book had been known in Samizdat since some time after World War II. However, the novel was not completed until 1956. The book had to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union by an Italian called D'Angelo to be delivered to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a left-wing Italian publisher who published it shortly thereafter, in 1957. Helped by a Soviet campaign against the novel, it became a sensation throughout the non-communist world. It spent 26 weeks atop The New York Times best-seller list.

Pasternak was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. While the citation noted his poetry, it was speculated that the prize was mainly for Doctor Zhivago, which the Soviet government saw as an anti-Soviet work, thus interpreting the award of the Nobel Prize as a gesture hostile to the Soviet Union. A target of the Soviet government's fervent campaign to label him a traitor, Pasternak felt compelled to refuse the Prize. The situation became an international cause célèbre and made Pasternak a Cold War symbol of resistance to Soviet communism.

The film treatment by David Lean was proposed for various reasons. Pasternak's novel had been an international success, and producer Carlo Ponti was interested in adapting it as a vehicle for his wife, Sophia Loren. Lean, coming off the huge success of Lawrence of Arabia (1962), wanted to make a more intimate, romantic film to balance the action- and adventure-oriented tone of his previous film. One of the first actors signed onboard was Omar Sharif, who had played Lawrence's right-hand man Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia. Sharif loved the novel, and when he heard Lean was making a film adaptation, he requested to be cast in the role of Pasha (which ultimately went to Tom Courtenay).

Sharif was quite surprised when Lean suggested that he play Zhivago. Peter O'Toole, star of Lawrence of Arabia, was Lean's original choice for Zhivago, but turned the part down; Max von Sydow and Paul Newman also were considered. Rod Taylor was offered the role but turned it down.[8] Michael Caine tells in his autobiography that he also read for Zhivago and participated in the screen shots with Christie, but (after watching the results with David Lean) was the one who suggested Omar Sharif.[9][10] Rod Steiger was cast as Komarovsky after Marlon Brando and James Mason turned the part down. Audrey Hepburn was considered for Tonya, and Robert Bolt lobbied for Albert Finney to play Pasha.

Lean convinced Ponti that Loren was not right for the role of Lara, saying she was "too tall" (and confiding in screenwriter Robert Bolt that he could not accept Loren as a virgin for the early parts of the film), and Jeanne Moreau, Yvette Mimieux, Sarah Miles and Jane Fonda were considered for the role.[11] Ultimately, Julie Christie was cast based on her appearance in Billy Liar (1963) and the recommendation of John Ford, who directed her in Young Cassidy (1965). Sharif's son Tarek was cast as the young Zhivago, and Sharif directed his son as a way to get closer to his character.[12]

The opening and closing scenes were filmed on location at the Aldeadávila Dam between Spain and Portugal.

Lean's experience filming a part of Lawrence of Arabia in Spain, access to CEA Studios, and the guarantee of snow in some parts of Spain led to his choosing the country as the primary location for filming.[13] However, the weather predictions failed and David Lean's team experienced Spain's warmest winter in 50 years.[13] As a result, some scenes were filmed in interiors with artificial snow made with dust from a nearby marble quarry. The team filmed some locations with heavy snow, such as the snowy landscape in Strelnikov's train sequence, somewhere in Campo de Gómara near Soria.[14]

Nicolas Roeg was the original director of photography and worked on some scenes but, after an argument with Lean, he left and was replaced by Freddie Young.[15] The film was shot over ten months,[16] with the entire Moscow set being built from scratch outside Madrid. Most of the scenes covering Zhivago's and Lara's service in World War I were filmed in Soria, as was the Varykino estate. The "ice-palace" at Varykino was filmed in Soria as well, a house filled with frozen beeswax. The charge of the partisans across the frozen lake was also filmed in Spain; a cast iron sheet was placed over a dried river-bed, and fake snow (mostly marble dust) was added on top. Some of the winter scenes were filmed in summer with warm temperatures, sometimes of up to 25 °C (77 °F). Other locations include Madrid-Delicias railway station in Madrid and the Moncayo Range.[17] The initial and final scenes were shot at the Aldeadávila Dam between Spain and Portugal. Although uncredited, most of those scenes were shot on the Portuguese side of the river, overlooking the Spanish side.

Other winter sequences, mostly landscape scenes and Yuri's escape from the partisans, were filmed in Finland. Winter scenes of the family traveling to Yuriatin by rail were filmed in Canada. The locomotives seen in the film are Spanish locomotives like the RENFE Class 240 (ex-1400 MZA), and Strelnikov's armoured train is towed by the RENFE Class 141F Mikado locomotive.

One train scene became notorious for the supposed fate that befell Lili Muráti, a Hungarian actress, who slipped clambering onto a moving train. Although she fell under the wagon, she escaped serious injury and returned to work within three weeks (and did not perish or lose a limb).[18] Lean appears to have used part of her accident in the film's final cut.[19]

Released theatrically on 22 December 1965, the film went on to gross $111.7 million in the United States and Canada across all of its releases, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 1965. It is the eighth highest-grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation.[4] The film sold an estimated 124.1 million tickets in the United States and Canada,[20] equivalent to $1.1 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2018.[21]

In addition, it is the ninth highest-grossing film worldwide after adjusting for inflation.[5][22] The film sold an estimated 248.2 million tickets worldwide, equivalent to $2.1 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2014.[5] It is the most popular film of all time in Italy with 22.9 million admissions.[23] It was the highest-grossing film in Germany with theatrical rentals of 39 million Deutschmarks from 12.75 million admissions[24][25] and also the most popular film of all time in Switzerland with over 1 million admissions.[26] In the United Kingdom, it was the most popular film of the year with 11.2 million admissions[27] and was the third-highest-grossing film of all time in Australia with theatrical rentals of A$2.5 million.[28] The film's 2015 limited re-release in the United Kingdom grossed $138,493.[29]

In May 1966, the film was entered into competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.[30][31]

On 24 September 2002, the 35th Anniversary version of Doctor Zhivago was issued on DVD (two-disc set),[32] and another Anniversary Edition in 2010 on Blu-ray (a three-disc set that includes a book).[33]

Both Doctor Zhivago and The Sound of Music received the most nominations at the 38th Academy Awards (ten each). Both films won five Academy Awards apiece, but The Sound of Music won Best Picture and Best Director. Julie Christie was not nominated for her role in Doctor Zhivago, but won Best Actress in the same year, for her performance in Darling.

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