The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Rev... Read allThe life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.
- Won 5 Oscars
- 21 wins & 13 nominations total
- Liberius
- (as Gerard Tichy)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis movie wasn't shown in Russia until 1994.
- GoofsThe little girl who plays Tonya at Yuri's mother's funeral starts to cross herself in the Roman Catholic manner, but quickly corrects herself and finishes in the Russian Orthodox style.
- Quotes
Komarovski: Lara, I am determined to save you from a dreadful error. There are two kinds of men, and only two, and that young man is one kind. He is high-minded. He is pure. He is the kind of man that the world pretends to look up to and in fact despises. He is the kind of man who breeds unhappiness; particularly in women. Now, do you understand?
Lara: No.
Komarovski: I think you do. There's another kind. Not high-minded. Not pure. But alive. Now that your taste at this time should incline towards the juvenile is understandable. But for you to marry that boy would be a disaster. Because there's two kinds of women...
[Lara covers her ears, he forces her arms down]
Komarovski: There are two kinds of women and you - as we well know - are not the first kind.
[Lara slaps him, he slaps her back]
Komarovski: You, my dear, are a slut.
Lara: I am not!
Komarovski: We'll see.
- Alternate versionsWhen it was first released, the film originally ran 197 minutes. Early in its run, David Lean and editor Norman Savage shortened it to 180 minutes; this version was in circulation for years. By the mid-1990s, the uncut version was restored.
- ConnectionsEdited into Hollywood: The Dream Factory (1972)
As materialists (matter precedes spirit, not vice versa), the Bolsheviks believed that they had found the holy grail of human progress in Marxism-Leninism, and were now able to assume the reins of history in their own hands. They believed that their violence was not only justified, but necessary, oblivious to the fact that they, too, somehow felt the angel of medieval teleology smiling over their shoulders.
In contrast to the Bolsheviks, Zhivago's ethos, if he had one, was almost identical to Kant's `categorical imperative,' which had just one axiom: treat people as ends in themselves, and not as ends to a mean. There couldn't be a sharper moral contrast.
There's a fabulous scene midway through the movie that highlights the difference in moral attitude. Dr. Zhivago confronts a communist functionary who has ordered the destruction of a village, a hamlet suspected of aiding the Mensheviks by selling them horses. To the Bolsheviks, if you weren't 100 percent behind them, you were a `counterrevolutionary,' sorta like Dubya's idea that you're either for us, or against us. And so Strelnikov, the passionate Bolshevik, glibly justifies his actions to Dr. Zhivago as easy as if he were tossing his hair aside, saying that the annihilation of the village, however cruel, is necessary to make a point. Zhivago replies: `Your point; their village.'
I love this film, a timeless epic. If there's a more beautiful heroine in all of movie-making history than Julie Christie (Lara), I'm not aware of it. And Omar Sharif is stunning as Iuri Zhivago, who heals the body with emetics, scalpels, antiseptic, and gauze, while he heals the soul with his poetry. Although the movie is three hours and 20 minutes long, the cinematography is so efficient, evocative, and densely layered that one hardly notices. This is, in my opinion, one of the best films of all time.
- csm23
- Mar 6, 2003
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- Doktor Živago
- Filming locations
- Morley Flats, Alberta, Canada(Frozen house longshots)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $11,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $111,721,910
- Gross worldwide
- $111,924,490
- Runtime3 hours 17 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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