Doctor Zhivago

[Eric]

Beautiful to look at, and one of the best films of its year but only by defalut - The Sound of Music being the only **** film released that year.

I hope those stars are just blocking out a certain four-letter word.

[Sonic Youth]

Sometimes I think epic movie fans like being bored in the same way good religious folk like being bored in church. The boredom is not only expected, it's an essential part of the aesthetic.

Would you say the same thing about the LOTR films? I find those movies to be butt-numbingly boring.

Turning my aesthetic theories onto me? That's like, so uncool.

[Okri]

I think they're both pompous mediocrities, but then that was David Lean.

Do you dislike his earlier work (Brief Encounter, Summertime, his Dickens adaptations) as well, Damien?

[Big Magilla]

Beautiful to look at, and one of the best films of its year but only by defalut - The Sound of Music being the only **** film released that year.

I don't usually find Lean's films bloated, but Doctor Zhivago comes close.

I find Lean's work fascinating - it's almost like he were two different people between his black and white period, which produced such mid-career masterpieces as Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and (Breaking the) Sound Barrier and his later grand period in which each film seemed to have to be more epic than the last - with The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, the unfairly derided Ryan's Daughter and A Passage to India all towering above Zhivago IMO. Best of all, though, was Summertime, which was the bridge between his two periods, small in scope but beautifully filmed on location in Venice, his first in color.

[Penelope]

Sometimes I think epic movie fans like being bored in the same way good religious folk like being bored in church. The boredom is not only expected, it's an essential part of the aesthetic.

Would you say the same thing about the LOTR films? I find those movies to be butt-numbingly boring.

[Sonic Youth]

Lawrence of Arabia is bloated, but it ain't boring. Doctor Zhivago has it beat on that front. Lord, is that movie butt-numbingly booooring!

Sometimes I think epic movie fans like being bored in the same way good religious folk like being bored in church. The boredom is not only expected, it's an essential part of the aesthetic.

[Damien]

And I know this may be blasphemy to some people, but I much prefer Zhivago to the bloated, uninvolving Lawrence of Arabia.

I think they're both pompous mediocrities, but then that was David Lean.

I'd say Zhivago is a little worse because while Lawrence is facile, Zhivago is both facile and overblown, and schmaltzy as hell. Not to mention an appalling simpliification of Pasternak's great novel. On the other hand, Tom Courtenay in Zhivago is better than any single element of Lawrence . . .

David Lean's mise-en-scene sure was busy, but it also was meaningless.

[Okri]

Me to, though frankly, one of them has Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie and the other doesn't. It's a pretty unfair match up.

[Penelope]

Zhivago is a seminal film of my childhood, I've watched it countless times, including once, joyfully, on the big screen (it also made a big impression on my parents, who saw it during its original 1965-66 release). And I know this may be blasphemy to some people, but I much prefer Zhivago to the bloated, uninvolving Lawrence of Arabia.

Of course, you should read the Pasternak novel, and also take a gander at the 2002 British TV remake, which, although it lacks the scope of the Lean film, is much more emotionally engaging--that version actually had me crying buckets at the end! Kiera Knightley can't approach the great Julie Christie, but Hans Mathieson is a much better Zhivago than Omar Sharif, and Alexandra Maria Lara is simply radiant as Tonya.

[OscarGuy]

Outside of the fact that I was a wee bit disconnected emotionally, I firmly believe after watching this that David Lean is a master of the epic. He's got a brilliant eye for composition. He uses the wide screen format with ease and even in the close ups, he uses every inch of it. Masterful cinematography, art direction and music.