David Lean | Iowa life

The movie Doctor Zhivago has recently become a favorite of mine. Yes I tend to discover things long after their prime. In this case its been 55 years since the release of this landmark movie. God knows I never read the book, reading the Wikipedia article on it took long enough. Some absolutely fascinating tidbits were in the write-up. One of the films stars, Omar Sharif died 5 years ago. The other, Julie Christie, is now 80. Alec Guinness died 20 years ago, Rod Steiger 18. Film died about 40 years ago, but that’s another post.

For me the performance of Sharif was one of the Top 10 ever accomplished in film. My esteem of Steiger? Tops. Christie? Immense. Guinness? Who didn’t like the old boy. Perhaps the funniest aspect of Omar’s performance, the rest of his work I am only a so-so fan of. To me this was simply his seminal performance. That can be guessed from the photos below from the movie. I’m just glad Wikipedia explained the plot to me, I never would have divined it on my own. I’m not saying the entire 3 hours keeps me riveted, but the scenes pictured below do.

Director David Lean (who died 29 years ago) seems to have been a director of note, but I would argue Zhivago being his most beautiful, if not his most important. He has been described as a student of “pictorialism”, a camera technique of not just recording an image, but creating one. As a photographer myself, that would explain what captured me about this movie. It is truly a visual feast. I remember hearing later Omar’s description of what the director told him he wanted before filming. To the effect: “I want nothing. I don’t want you to act. I just want you to feel what you are seeing.”

This is seen especially in the scenes where Omar is contemplating the yellow flowers, and the frost patterns on the glass. It all came together, the skill of the director, the actor, the cameraman, and the emotional manipulation of the film’s score. The song “Somewhere My Love” (Lara’s Theme) was French composer Maurice Jarre’s biggest hit. Easily one of the most recognizable of the 20th century, and definitely one of the most beautiful. I suppose that’s a key point of the film. Yuri Zhivago (Sharif) is surrounded by this unfathomable beauty (the landscape, the flowers, Julie Christie, his children, life, the music) against the harsh realities and ugliness of the war.

The 1957 novel was of course banned in the Soviet Union. So most of the filming took place in Spain, Canada and Finland. The director thought sure they could do the winter scenes in this one location in Spain where they “always” had snow, but that winter of 1964 was the warmest on record. Necessitating Canada and Finland. My standard of a noteworthy film is that it has to have either superb cinematography, acting or script. I would say Zhivago had all 3.