Doctor Zhivago

original title:
Doctor Zhivago
other titles:
(Doktor Schiwago)
country / year of production:
USA / 1965
original length:
197 min. , color
premiere:
22 December 1965
genre:
melodrama
based on:
Boris Pasternak. Il dottor Zivago. Romanzo. Traduzione dal Russo di Pietro Zveteremich. Milano: G. G. Feltrinelli, 1957.

Boris Pasternak. Doktor Schiwago. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1958.
director:
David Lean
film script:
Robert Bolt
producer:
David Lean , Arvid Griffen , Carlo Ponti
cinematographer:
Freddie Young
editor:
Norman Savage
composer:
Maurice Jarre
cast (role):
Omar Sharif (Yuri Zhivago ) , Alec Guinness (Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago ) , Julie Christie (Lara Antipova ) , Geraldine Chaplin (Tonya ) , Rod Steiger (Komarovsky) , Omar Sharif , Alec Guinness , Geraldine Chaplin , Julie Christie , Rod Steiger
more:
Klaus Kinski (in der Rolle des Kostoyed) , Klaus Kinski
plot synopsis:
A Russian epic, the movie traces the life of surgeon-poet Yury Zhivago before and during the Russian Revolution. Married to an upper-class girl who is devoted to him, yet in love with an unfortunate woman who becomes his muse, Zhivago is torn between fidelity and passion. Sympathetic with the revolution but shaken by the wars and purges, he struggles to retain his individualism as a humanist amid the spirit of collectivism.
keywords:
doctors in war , communism , women during wartime , massacre
war:
Russian Revolutions (1905, 1917)
literature:
Robert Bolt. Doctor Zhivago. The screenplay based on the novel by Boris Pasternak. London: Harvill, 1966.

Freddie Young. Seventy Light Years. A Life in the Movies. An Autobiography as Told to Peter Busby. (Afterward by David Young). London/ New York: Faber and Faber, 1999.
remarks:
For MGM "Doctor Zhivago" was its second largest commercial success at this time, only exceeded by "Gone with the Wind".
The Motion Pisture Academy awarded the epos with five "Oscars" for best screenplay, best cinematography, best film score, best costums and best art direction.
The film was shot in Finland and Spain with Madrid serving as Moscow.
Looking back Sharif considers his presentation as "quite a failure" - an assessment that many critics would support. He admits to have misinterpretated Pasternak`s character by "overegging the pudding". In combination with the sentimantal music he thereby contributed to a "completely over-excited movie" (SPIEGEL 52/2003).
availability:
VHS, DVD, CD