Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Director:

David Lean

Writers:

Boris Pasternak (from the novel by)
Robert Bolt (screenplay)

Release Date:

31 December 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | War

Tagline:

The entertainment event of the year!

Plot:

Life of a Russian doctor/poet who, although married, falls for a political activist's wife and experiences hardships during the Bolshevik Revolution.

Plot Keywords:

Love | Russia | Epic | Bolshevik | Poetry

Awards:

Won 5 Oscars. Another 18 wins & 10 nominations

Cast

Omar Sharif	...	Yuri
Julie Christie	...	Lara
Geraldine Chaplin	...	Tonya
Rod Steiger	...	Komarovsky
Alec Guinness	...	Yevgraf
Tom Courtenay	...	Pasha
Siobhan McKenna	...	Anna
Ralph Richardson	...	Alexander
Rita Tushingham	...	The Girl
Jeffrey Rockland	...	Sasha
Tarek Sharif	...	Yuri at 8 Years Old
Bernard Kay	...	The Bolshevik
Klaus Kinski	...	Kostoyed
Gérard Tichy	...	Liberius (as Gerard Tichy)
Noel Willman	...	Razin
Geoffrey Keen	...	Medical Professor
Adrienne Corri	...	Amelia
Jack MacGowran	...	Petya
Mark Eden	...	Engineer at Dam
Erik Chitty	...	Old Soldier
Roger Maxwell	...	Beef-Faced Colonel
Wolf Frees	...	Delegate
Gwen Nelson	...	Female Janitor
Lucy Westmore	...	Katya
Lili Muráti	...	The Train Jumper (as Lili Murati)
Peter Madden	...	Political Officer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Luana Alcañiz	...	Mrs. Sventytski (uncredited)
Assad Bahador	...	Colonel of Dragoons (uncredited)
José María Caffarel	...	Militiaman (uncredited)
Emilio Carrer	...	Mr. Sventytski (uncredited)
Catherine Ellison	...	Raped Woman (uncredited)
Pilar Gómez Ferrer	...	(uncredited)
Víctor Israel	...	Hospital Inmate (uncredited)
Inigo Jackson	...	Major (uncredited)
Gerhard Jersch	...	David (uncredited)
Jari Jolkkonen	...	Siberian Boy (uncredited)
Leo Lähteenmäki	...	Siberian Husband (uncredited)
María Martín	...	Gentlewoman (uncredited)
José Nieto	...	Priest (uncredited)
Ricardo Palacios	...	Extra (uncredited)
Ingrid Pitt	...	Extra (uncredited)
Robert Rietty	...	Kostoyed (voice) (uncredited)
Mercedes Ruiz	...	Tonya at 7 (uncredited)
Aldo Sambrell	...	(uncredited)
Virgilio Teixeira	...	Captain (uncredited)
Brigitte Trace	...	Streetwalker (uncredited)
María Vico	...	Demented Woman (uncredited)

Directed by
David Lean

Writing credits
Boris Pasternak		(from the novel by)
Robert Bolt		(screenplay)

Produced by
Arvid Griffen	....	executive producer
Carlo Ponti	....	producer

Original Music by
Maurice Jarre

Cinematography by
Freddie Young		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Norman Savage		(film editor)

Casting by
Irene Howard		(uncredited)

Production Design by
John Box

Art Direction by
Terence Marsh

Set Decoration by
Dario Simoni

Costume Design by
Phyllis Dalton

Makeup Department
Anna Cristofani	....	hairstylist (as Anna Christofani)
Grazia De Rossi	....	hairstylist (as Gracia de Rossi)
Mario Van Riel	....	makeup artist (as Mario van Riel)

Production Management
John Palmer	....	production supervisor
Agustín Pastor	....	production manager (as Agustin Pastor)
Douglas Twiddy	....	production manager
Stanley Goldsmith	....	production manager (uncredited)
Tadeo Villalba	....	unit manager (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Roy Rossotti	....	second unit director
Roy Stevens	....	assistant director
Pedro Vidal	....	assistant director
Peter Beale	....	second assistant director (uncredited)
José María Ochoa	....	assistant director (uncredited)
Michael Stevenson	....	second assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Ernest Archer	....	assistant art director
Fred Bennett	....	construction
William Hutchinson	....	assistant art director (as Bill Hutchinson)
Gus Walker	....	construction
Roy Walker	....	assistant art director
José María Alarcón	....	assistant set decorator (uncredited)
Benjamín Fernández	....	assistant art director (uncredited)
Tom Jung	....	poster designer (uncredited)
Mickey Lennon	....	chargehand dressing prop: Spain (uncredited)
Julián Martín	....	painter (uncredited)
Mickey O'Toole	....	assistant property master (uncredited)
Gil Parrondo	....	associate art director (uncredited)
Wallis Smith	....	draughtsman (uncredited)

Sound Department
Paddy Cunningham	....	sound recordist
Winston Ryder	....	sound editor
Van Allen James	....	sound editor (uncredited)
Franklin Milton	....	re-recordist (uncredited)
William Steinkamp	....	re-recordist (uncredited)
A.W. Watkins	....	supervising sound editor (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Eddie Fowlie	....	special effects

Visual Effects by
Gerald Larn	....	matte painter (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Manuel Berenguer	....	second unit photography
Ernest Day	....	camera operator
Miguel Sancho	....	chief electrician
Anthony Busbridge	....	focus puller: second unit (uncredited)
John Crawford	....	clapper loader (uncredited)
John Crawford	....	clapper loader (uncredited)
Kenneth Danvers	....	still photographer (uncredited)
Jim Dawes	....	grip (uncredited)
Jim Kane	....	grip (uncredited)
John Kerley	....	clapper loader: second unit (uncredited)
Dennis C. Lewiston	....	camera operator: second unit (uncredited)
Anthony B. Richmond	....	clapper loader (uncredited)
Nicolas Roeg	....	cinematographer: some scenes (uncredited)
Alex Thomson	....	camera operator (uncredited)
Kenneth J. Withers	....	focus puller (uncredited)
Ted Worringham	....	camera maintenance (uncredited)

Editorial Department
John Grover	....	assistant editor (uncredited)

Music Department
Maurice Jarre	....	conductor: original music
Leo Arnaud	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Bob Bain	....	musician: balalaika (uncredited)
Maurice Jarre	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Barbara Cole	....	continuity
Hugh Miller	....	dialogue coach
Andrew Mollo	....	consultant (uncredited)
Julián Benito Navarro	....	equine consultant (uncredited)
Lee Turner	....	continuity: second unit (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
• Carlo Ponti Production
• Sostar S.A. (uncredited)

Distributors

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1965) (USA) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1965) (UK) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1965) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1965) (France) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1965) (Italy) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Ibérica S.A. (1965) (Spain) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1966) (Sweden) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1972) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• National Broadcasting Company (NBC) (1975) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• Warner Home Video (1992) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• MGM Home Entertainment (1995) (USA) (VHS) (restored widescreen)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (1995) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• Chapel Distribution (1997) (Australia) (theatrical)
• Sandrews (2001) (Sweden) (DVD)
• Warner Home Video (2001) (USA) (DVD)
• Cinema International Corporation (CIC) (1977) (Finland) (theatrical)
• Filmipaja (1966) (Finland) (theatrical)
• Hafbo (1966) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
• Neue Visionen Filmverleih (????) (West Germany) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Esselte Video (1980s) (Finland) (VHS)
• MGM/CBS Home Video (1981) (USA) (video) (CED Videodisc)
• Sandrew Metronome Distribution (2001) (Finland) (DVD) (2-disc edition)
• Warner Bros. Entertainment Finland Oy (2010) (Finland) (DVD) (Blu-ray) (both 2-disc editions)
• Warner Home Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• Warner Home Vídeo (19??) (Brazil) (VHS)
• Warner Home Vídeo (2001) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Warner Home Vídeo (2010) (Brazil) (DVD) (Blu-Ray)
• Yleisradio (YLE) (1995) (2009) (Finland) (TV)

Other Companies

• MGM Sound Department  re-recording
• Iberduero  we wish to express our sincere appreciation to the following (as Iberduero S.A. Aldeadavila Dam)
• Spanish Railways National System  we wish to express our sincere appreciation to the following
• VR  we wish to express our sincere appreciation to the following (as Finnish State Railways)
• Canadian Pacific Railway  we wish to express our sincere appreciation to the following (as Canadian Pacific Railway Company)
• CEA Studios  we wish to express our sincere appreciation to the following (as C.E.A. Studios, Madrid)
• Crest Digital  post-production
• Turner Entertainment  current copyright proprietor

Also Known As:

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for mature themes (re-rating) (1995)

Runtime:

197 min | UK:192 min (1999 re-release) | UK:193 min | UK:200 min (1992 re-release)

Country:

USA | Italy

Language:

English | Russian

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (35 mm magnetic prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (Westrex Recording System) (70 mm prints) | DTS (re-release) (35 mm prints) | Mono (35 mm optical prints) | 6-Track Stereo (Linear PCM)

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | Canada:A (Nova Scotia) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario) | Iceland:12 | South Korea:12 | Brazil:Livre | West Germany:12 (f) | USA:Approved (original rating) | USA:GP (re-rating) (1971) | Canada:PG (video rating) | USA:PG-13 (re-rating) (1995) | UK:15 (video rating) (1987) | UK:A (original rating) (1966) | UK:PG (video rating) (1992) (1999) | UK:PG (2008) | UK:PG (tv rating) | Japan:PG-12 | USA:PG-13 | Netherlands:14 (orginal rating)

Filming Locations:

Alberta, Canada

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

The inside of the ice palace was mostly made up specifically formed wax.

Goofs:

Continuity: The frame story (where Zhivago's half-brother finds his and Lara's daughter and tells the story) is set in the 1960s, but the daughter, who was born around 1920-1921, is only in her early 20s. In the novel, the frame story is set in World War II, which makes more sense.

Quotes:

Komarovski:I think you do. There's another kind. Not high-minded, not pure, but alive. Now, that your tastes at this time should incline towards the juvenile is understandable; but for you to marry that boy would be a disaster. Because there's two kinds of women. There are two kinds of women and you, as we well know, are not the first kind. You, my dear, are a slut.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Homicide: Life on the Street: A Case of Do or Die (#7.14)" (1999)

Soundtrack:

Prelude in G minor, Op.23-5

One of the Best Epic Films Ever Made

I can't remember the origin of the quote, but I remember it distinctly. A Communist Party official of the Soviet Union, justifying the Bolshevik destruction of Tsarist Russia, told a foreign observer, `If you want to make an omelet, you've got to break some eggs.' The visitor replied, `I see the broken eggs, but Where's the omelet?' Dr. Zhivago is set at the time when the Bolsheviks, feverishly ideological, were creating their socialist state. The epochal drama that unfolds is the age-old question about whether the ends justify the means.

As materialists (matter precedes spirit, not vice versa), the Bolsheviks believed that they had found the holy grail of human progress in Marxism-Leninism, and were now able to assume the reins of history in their own hands. They believed that their violence was not only justified, but necessary, oblivious to the fact that they, too, somehow felt the angel of medieval teleology smiling over their shoulders.

In contrast to the Bolsheviks, Zhivago's ethos, if he had one, was almost identical to Kant's `categorical imperative,' which had just one axiom: treat people as ends in themselves, and not as ends to a mean. There couldn't be a sharper moral contrast.

There's a fabulous scene midway through the movie that highlights the difference in moral attitude. Dr. Zhivago confronts a communist functionary who has ordered the destruction of a village, a hamlet suspected of aiding the Mensheviks by selling them horses. To the Bolsheviks, if you weren't 100 percent behind them, you were a `counterrevolutionary,' sorta like Dubya's idea that you're either for us, or against us. And so Strelnikov, the passionate Bolshevik, glibly justifies his actions to Dr. Zhivago as easy as if he were tossing his hair aside, saying that the annihilation of the village, however cruel, is necessary to make a point. Zhivago replies: `Your point; their village.'

I love this film, a timeless epic. If there's a more beautiful heroine in all of movie-making history than Julie Christie (Lara), I'm not aware of it. And Omar Sharif is stunning as Iuri Zhivago, who heals the body with emetics, scalpels, antiseptic, and gauze, while he heals the soul with his poetry. Although the movie is three hours and 20 minutes long, the cinematography is so efficient, evocative, and densely layered that one hardly notices. This is, in my opinion, one of the best films of all time.