Synopsis

Promising young surgeon Yuri Zhivago is happily married to a wife from a good family when a world war, the Russian Revolution and his growing passion for the beautiful Lara disrupt their lives. Though Lara inspires his greatest poetry, they are kept apart by the forces of history until Zhivago defies the Soviet government to flee with his love to the snowbound countryside of his youth. There, they snatch a few moments of happiness until she vanishes with their infant daughter, leaving Zhivago to spend the rest of his life searching for her. Years later, his half-brother, Yevgraf, tracks down a young factory worker who knows little of her past except for her passion for music and poetry which she inherited from her father, Yuri.

Director: David Lean
Producer: Carlo Ponti
Screenplay: Robert Bolt
Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak
Cinematography: Freddie Young
Editing: Norman Savage
Art Direction: John Box
Music: Maurice Jarre
Cast: Omar Sharif (Yuri Zhivago), Julie Christie (Lara), Geraldine Chaplin (Tonya), Rod Steiger (Komarovski), Alec Guinness (Yevgraf), Tom Courtenay (Pasha), Ralph Richardson (Alexander Gromeko), Siobhan McKenna (Anna Gromeko), Rita Tushingham (The Girl), Klaus Kinski (Kostoyed), Jack MacGowran (Petya)
C-180m.

Why Doctor Zhivago is Essential

Doctor Zhivago was the first major western film to capture the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, leading the way for such later epics as Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) and Reds (1981).

Doctor Zhivago was the second of three films teaming David Lean with playwright Robert Bolt. Bolt had previously saved the Lawrence of Arabia (1962) script. Their third collaboration would be Ryan's Daughter (1970), starring Bolt's wife, Sarah Miles.

This was the third of four films Lean made with composer Maurice Jarre. The others were Lawrence of Arabia, Ryan's Daughter and A Passage to India (1984). Jarre won Oscars® for all his Lean collaborations except Ryan's Daughter.

Along with the reissue of Gone With the Wind (1939), Doctor Zhivago saved MGM from bankruptcy in the mid-'60s.

Doctor Zhivago marked a new path for the historical epic. Previous films had simply focused on the scope of world-shaping events. With Zhivago director David Lean and scriptwriter Robert Bolt brought a new romantic sensibility to the epic. That Victorian ideal would inform such later blockbusters as Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), Lady Gray(1986) andTitanic (1997).

by Frank Miller