Doctor Zhivago

[FilmFan720]

Thanks.

[kaytodd]

Someone asked me yesterday who painted the paintings in the opening credits of the film. I have no idea, but figured someone around here might. Any answers?

I remember reading a discussion about this in another film discussion board. I think it was some recent year right after Dr. Zhivago played on TCM during 31 Days Of Oscar. The painting is probably "The Birch Grove" by Isaac Levitan. I used Google Images to come up with the link below. I haven't seen the film in a long time but this sure looks like it:

http://images.google.com/imgres?....rl=http

Scroll down to the ninth painting and click on the link for a larger picture. Hope this helps.



Edited By kaytodd on 1222016598

[FilmFan720]

Someone asked me yesterday who painted the paintings in the opening credits of the film. I have no idea, but figured someone around here might. Any answers?

[Reza]

Loved it upon first viewing like most folks here. But later thought it was an endless bore with a few saving graces. Of the all star cast, Christie, Tom Courtenay and Rod Steiger come off best. The cinematography and music are also good.

I named my daughter Lara.

[Big Magilla]

When I was in school I had a teacher who said something about books that I've found applies to films as well as books. She said that you can never really know a book until you've read it three times.

While there are very few books, aside from reference books, that I've read more than once, I find that some films do require three viewings to establish the way I truly feel about them.

The first time I may either love or hate a film depending on my expectations, the mood I'm in, the audience, whether or not the film is properly projected and so on.

The second time I see it I will expect to have the same reaction and often do, but not always. Sometimes it is the complete opposite. The third time I am usually more objective.

The first time I saw Doctor Zhivago I was in my early twenties and thought it was a beautiful bore. The second time I was in my mid 40s and appreciated it more as an example of the kind of film that don't make any more and rarely did, even in the 50s and 60s. The third tiem I was a bit ambivalent.

While my ten best list for 1965 has changed over the years I still think the five best films were in order: The Sound of Music, still the only film of its year that rates ***, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, a silly, but engaging lark, Ship of Fools, flawed but rewarding, Doctor Zhivago for its visual sweep and for Julie Christie and Darling, again for Julie Christie, but not much else.

Included in my top ten, pretty much as they have been for the past 41 years are The Collector, A Patch of Blue, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and The Pawnbroker, with the tenth spot currently occupied by Repulsion, though that spot has gone on various occasions to such films as The Eleanor Roosevelt Story, The Hill and Juliet of the Spirits.

The 1965 Oscar nominee that I just don't get is A Thousand Clowns. I didn't like it much when I first saw it 40 years ago and hated it when I saw it again maybe 15 years ago. I did appreciate Martin Balsam's Oscar winning performance more the second time around. He is the calm in the center of the storm of all that over-acting gibberish. I still like him better, though, as the ship's doctor in that same year's The Bedford Incident.

[Penelope]

Interesting that you two "grew out of it." I first saw it--pan and scan on VHS--when I was about 12 and loved it. Seeing it on the big screen in my early 20s and then again on a marvelous DVD transfer has only made me continue to love Zhivago; unlike some other films I loved from my youth, such as Ben-Hur, which--except for the chariot race and Stephen Boyd's lust for Heston--is a big bore.

[Damien]

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

I find the early films to be overly precise, they're lacking in spontaneity and life and, thus, have an embalmed feel to them. Which the epics also do, only on a grander scale.

Tee, my history with Zhivago is similar to yours. When I saw it in roadshow when I was 10, I was mad for it -- so sweeping, so romantic, so deep. I saw it again at age 18 and was shocked at what a dumb superficial kitschy movie it was -- suddenly I realized I was no longer the child I had been.

[Eric]

FWIW, Zhivago appears on the famously finicky Jaime Christley's list of 1965 favorites (by IMDB date):

1 CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (Orson Welles)
2 IN HARM'S WAY (Otto Preminger)
3 THE WAR GAME (Peter Watkins)
4 COME DRINK WITH ME (King Hu)
5 A THOUSAND CLOWNS (Fred Coe)
6 FISTS IN THE POCKET (Marco Bellocchio)
7 A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA (Alexander Mackendrick)
8 BLACK GIRL (Ousmane Sembene)
9 TOKYO OLYMPIAD (Kon Ichikawa)
10 THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (Gillo Pontecorvo)
11 RED LINE 7000 (Howard Hawks)
12 THE KNACK...AND HOW TO GET IT (Richard Lester)
13 KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS (Kenneth Anger)
14 FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (Sergio Leone)
15 DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (David Lean)
16 RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND (Monte Hellman)
17 THERE ARE HORSES (Tolomush Okeyev)

Not, however, Dan Sallitt's ...

1. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA (Alexander Mackendrick, UK)
2. CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (Orson Welles, Spain/Switzerland)
3. IN HARM'S WAY (Otto Preminger, USA)
4. SIMON OF THE DESERT (Luis Bunuel, Mexico)
5. THE GREAT RACE (Blake Edwards, USA)
6. PLEASURES OF THE FLESH (Nagisa Oshima, Japan)
7. THE MAN WHO HAD HIS HAIR CUT SHORT (Andre Delvaux, Belgium)
8. THE TENTH VICTIM (Elio Petri, Italy/France)
9. BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN (Harvey Hart, USA)
10. PIERROT LE FOU (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
11. REPULSION (Roman Polanski, UK)
12. MAJOR DUNDEE (Sam Peckinpah, USA)
13. THERE ARE HORSES (Tolomush Okeev, Kyrgysztan)
14. THE BIRDS, THE BEES AND THE ITALIANS (Pietro Germi, Italy)
15. FISTS IN THE POCKET (Marco Bellocchio, Italy)
16. RED LINE 7000 (Howard Hawks, USA)
17. THE HOODLUM SOLDIER (Yasuzo Masumura, Japan)
18. SUBARNAREKHA (Ritwik Ghatak, India)
19. THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (Robert Aldrich, USA)
20. THE IPCRESS FILE (Sidney Furie, UK)
21. BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (Otto Preminger, USA)
22. BEAUTY #2 (Andy Warhol, USA)

[Mister Tee]

I don't consider anything from '65 a masterpiece, but I like The Spy Who Came in From the Cold better than anything else released that year. (Haven't seen Pierrot)

I loved Zhivago when I saw it at the age of 15; when I watched it again sometime in the last decade, I wondered how I could have shown such poor taste in my youth. I didn't even really think the love story made sense; it seemed to meander endlessly. (Not familiar with the novel) It was, of course, beautiful to look at, as was Ryan's Daughter, but I thought both were deeply dramatically deficient. Widely-circulated quote at the time of Zhivago's release: "When a director dies, he becomes a photographer".

I was bored to death by Lawrence when I saw it c. 1963. As I said in writing about The Painted Veil, I felt alienation from the prevailing thinking at the time, that these epics were somehow the be-all and end-all of cinema. What Sonic says was true in my observation: the fans seemed to consider the boredom part of the package.

I have come to respect Lawrence substantially more on later viewing, but it's still not my kind of film. I will, however, defend Bridge on the River Kwai.

Leans' reputation, flatlined after Ryan's, was revived substantially by the '84 release of Passage to India and, especially, the '88 restoration/re-release of Lawrence. That was the same year Lloyd Bentsen was receiving acclaim from Democrats as the party's VP candidate, and I thought the two re-evaluations were of a piece. Bentsen was (at best) a Texas Dem like the one the party had rebelled against in the 60s -- and Lean's new and old films weren't much different from what had been critically scorned in the 60s. But, in each case, what had followed (Reagan and the dumbing down of movies) had been so much more horrific than anyone had imagined, the old reliable looked a whole lot better in retrospect.

[Sonic Youth]

Pierrot le fou.

[Eric]

Repulsion is the only masterpiece of '65 I've seen.

[flipp525]

I agree with Magilla in that The Sound of Music is a four-star film.

I second that. The Sound of Music is just enchanting and wonderful.



Edited By flipp525 on 1183660308

[Big Magilla]

The Sound of Music being the only **** film released that year.

What about Darling?

***1/2

[OscarGuy]

I agree with Magilla in that The Sound of Music is a four-star film.

I'm still torn on what to award Zhivago. There was a lot more emotional depth from Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia and to some extents, I think The English Patient is a better romantic epic than Doctor Zhivago, but that still doesn't help me much. Of course it's better than Out of Africa...

I've noticed that the epic hasn't really gotten a good representation in recent years. I kind of miss those glory days.

[Greg]

The Sound of Music being the only **** film released that year.

What about Darling?