Rating: 
Summary: Overrated
Review: Hammy acting all-around, a repetetive score, unlikeable characters (especially the protagonists) all wrapped in widescreen eye candy scenery. An airy bon bon disguised as a
momentous drama.
Rating: 
Summary: Dr. Zhivago
Review: I just watched Dr.Zhivago, and found the review from ID-ea is most close to my thought. I'd felt regretted about the fate of Dr. Zhivago. I think the author Pasternak intended so for himself, and so did David Lean for this movie.ID-ea: I wish I can see your other reviews. Thanks.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great, Immortal Classic from David Lean
Review: The movie Doctor Zhivago is a wonderful 1965 classic that was remastered for DVD as of 2001. It is a remarkable piece of work with high-quality 35 mm film that consisted of bright, superbly detailed colors and had prevalent throughout both a detailed-oriented production and a luminescent grandeur. With a setting designed to mirror Mother Russia, Doctor Zhivago, strangely enough, was shot in Spain, of all places. All the photographic elements gave a picturesque landscape reflecting very cold regions. With David Lean, Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, and Alec Guinness as key players, Doctor Zhivago had a spectacular cast, and combined with a professional production crew, it could only have resulted as a high-quality entertainment epic for the big screen. A very noble person was Dr. Zhivago, a man who might be regarded as an early twentieth-century counterpart to Judah Ben-Hur. Like Ben-Hur, Zhivago was a prominent resident of his land who would be stripped of personal rights and privileges as a result of government takeover in his region and then somehow have the intelligence and persistent resourcefulness necessary for his name and dignity to be restored. An ideal epic figure, Dr. Zhivago, though not a combat warrior with specialized fighting skills as in many other epics, was a thoughtful and determined man whose demeanor was fixed. For as a character you do not see in too many contemporary motion pictures, Zhivago thought of and felt passion for others to a degree that neither time nor distance could easily change. He was not just some fair-weather friend, many of which drama and real life seem to depict nowadays. A very nice follow-up to 1962's Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean's Doctor Zhivago in widescreen format is breathtaking and arguably might have won the Academy Award for Best Picture had it not been for the popularity of The Sound of Music, another great classic in its right. Kudos to wonderful costumes and makeup, especially that used to make Egyptian actor Omar Sharif appear as a European. And last, but not least, the motion picture could not be complete without Maurice Jarre whose musical contributions in the Overture, the Entr'Acte and the immortal Lara's Theme are restored in Dolby Digital 5.1.
Rating:
Summary: Missing link between Welles and Scorsese
Review: David Lean's beautiful movie, based on the classical novel by Pasternak, shows the personal tragedy of Dr. Zhivago, the invisible man. Forever looking out windows, gazing at moons, reading love letters from the two fatal women of his life, Dr. Zhivago is an idealist in search of love and freedom, and most of all of himself; a man who is unable to attach to any woman or any place. He is a ghost wandering about for a destiny that is always around the corner. For all the trains and trams he boards, he never manages to get on the right one. Lean tells the story of this tragic and humourless figure with visual horror, set in the cold, lonely rooms of the big estate in the country. He finally faces himself in the mirror for all he is worth: a frozen, old, red-eyed spectre that will never find peace. And his lack of peace is Pasternak and Lean's ultimate narrative triumph. For the same reason, the action takes place in a turbulent and dramatic Russia in the times of the communist revolution. In times of revolution, a doctor is supposed to be neutral and helpful to whoever might be sick or wounded. But neutrality is impossible in times like these. Zhivago, however, is a harmless figure, never risking or sacrificing the beauty of any of his ideals which therefore all wither away. Whatever Pasternak's view of the revolution and the czar rulership might be, the political issues are merely a thematic background on which Zhivago acts, a background in which choice has become necessary, symbolizing the personal choice that Zhivago is forced to make, but which he is unable to make because of his wish to please everyone and retain his vision of beauty and poetry. Obtaining personal peace requires that you are willing to fight the war first, is Pasternak's comment. Even as a poet, he is ironically unable to describe life and Lara. This fact by the way makes it ridiculous that the scene in the estate where he has written a poem for her should be deemed romantic. The scene only underlines his inability to describe her as the complex good-and-bad figure that she is and that Komarovsky clearly understands. Zhivago is a lover of art, but a spectator of life and must therefore fail, which is most beautifully illustrated in his death scene, where the mere sight of Lara is actually fatal. He never reaches the point of human or emotional contact with any of his women. The story has only little ambiguity to Zhivago's tragedy apart from the fact that he loved and wrote. Even true passion did he seem to lack. The dam at the end may symbolize the restrictions that he should have imposed on his high ideals and emotions.
Rating:
Summary: A Romantic Masterpiece
Review: Romance. We are drawn to it with its profound beauty and we cannot escape its pull. When a good romance, tragic or happy, is played out on the screen, and when its score has beautiful music, and when there is much to see and discuss about the film's look and historic detail, that's when you know it's a classic. I like to think of romantic films as a trinity with other romantic films under its three deities. The first film in the trinity is Gone With The Wind, the second is Doctor Zhivago and the third is Titanic. Doctor Zhivago was filmed in the mid 60's, Pasternak had written the Russian novel years before. The story is set against the wake of the WWI Revolution in which the entire nation of the once Imperial Russia fell to Communism. Doctor Zhivago ( the sexy Omar Shariff) is a well-to-do doctor who lives with a Victorian, obedient and boring wife (played by Geraldine Chaplin) and has always secretly loved (or lusted) after Lara, who becomes his mistress and later the source of poetry and mystery in the film. As war breaks out, Zhivago joins the front as an surgeon, where he meets Lara working as a nurse. After the war and as Communists have seized Russia, Lara's, now with child, husband a lieutenant, is no where to be found and is possibly turned Communist himself. When Zhivago, his wife (who is expecting a child), Lara and her daughter move out into the countryside, the affair between Zhivago and Lara begins. This is the most romanticized adultery ever made. Why ? There has been others you say...Lancelot and Guenevere, Hester Prynne and Dimsdale in the Scarlet Letter. But the Doctor Zhivago/Lara romance is interesting because, although no one really knows it and perhaps it is merely my own interpretation, Zhivago loves Lara and his wife equally. OF course, the focus is the illicit affair, as is expected in all adultery-related films and novels, but Zhivago becomes a true romantic when we discover how deeply he feels for both women. During the snowstorm, he is nearly dying and he calls out for his wife and for Lara, just as any one would cry out for their loved ones when they die. He writes romantic poetry and letters to a mysterious someone, and we always conclude that it is Lara. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is his wife. Perhaps both women. Perhaps its neither and he is writing to Love, universal, eternal, divine. The music is sweeping, lush and carries out the action and romance very effectively. The imagery is also very appealing, especially the scenes in which a contemplative Zhivago looks over a thick forest off the train and is intoxicated with a sort of Impressionist reverie, and the same applies to Zhivago looking at the field of yellow daffodils, which any Impressionist artist would have loved to depict in their art. The score by Maurice Jarre is impressive, brilliantly orchestrated and elegant, especially striking is the Russian and Romantic Era Tchaikovsky-esque flavor of Lara's Theme. The balalaika, a stringed Russian guitar, is heard often enough and becomes the gift that Zhivago's daughter by Lara takes with her at the end of the novel, and symbolically, the gift of love, sacrifice (which Zhivago does himself for BOTH his women) and creativity and romance that must be passed to every person now and forever.
Rating:
Summary: Moviemaking at its most masterful
Review: This film is truly breathtaking - in size, scope, story - in every way. An epic before that term became cliche. Lean is a filmmaker deserving of the oft-used adjective 'genius'. Set during the Russian Revolution and beautifully acted by Sharif, Christie, Guinness and Steiger, this movie is a must-see for all romantics, film lovers, history buffs; actually everybody should see this movie. This film so utterly qualifies for all five stars that I can't even begin to articulate the reasons why... Please watch!
Rating:
Summary: breath-taking cinematography, great acting
Review: There are three stars of "Dr. Zhivago": Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, and the winter Russian landscape, so brilliantly captured by the breath-taking cinematography. Boris Pasternak's sprawling novel is brought to vibrant life iin this classic movie. If you haven't yet seen in, you are in for a treat. If you have, it's worth seeing again to truly take in the multi-layered plot and the gorgeous scenes of St. Petersburg and of the country villa where Dr. Zhivago takes refuge with his mistress. You will be touched as the tale of love and inevitable loss unfolds, and your heart will be captured and your eyes enchanted by this visually beautiful movie.
Rating: 
Summary: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Review: I wonder if that also refers to Picture meaning Movie. In this review it does. Let's see if I can push my limit of 1000 words! I kept seeing this movie on the shelf at the library. I knew nothing about it except that it was some Russian thing with an amazing train scene of some kind and some famous theme music called Lara's Theme. But knowing that it is a revered classic, I decided finally to check it out, because I am an avid viewer of good cinema. I was not at all let down. I have to admit I was prepared to be, because I am not impressed with a lot of movies mid-sixties onward (and because it never pays to expect too much), but I discovered that this one still had a lot of the art and so forth that went into movies in the decades prior. I think that the characters are well cast. Omar Sharif is convincing as Zhivago - a peaceful doctor who seems to have great love for humanity. (A doctor should, after all.) He does have a funny way of twitching his eyes back and forth though. Julie Christie is good as Lara as well, even though her tall sixties hair is rather out of place. The cousin or whoever the girl was that Zhivago married (her name escapes me) reminded me of a girl I know and I liked her quite a bit as well even with the beehive hairdo. Komorovsky (sp?) was a bit confusing to me, and next time I watch the movie I will have to pay more attention because I never was totally sure exactly what connection he has with Lara and her mother, although it was obvious he considered Lara his to do what he liked with. [I just checked in the book at Borders. Komorovsky was a lawyer who advised Lara's mother.] The actor who played Pasha, Lara's fiancé, was sufficiently creepy to do the Communist. Somehow the glasses intensify the effect. The story itself is very good too, but I won't go into that because the purpose of watching the movie is to discover the story. I'll just say that it is well laid out for the most part, doesn't really drag, bla bla bla. When I said "for the most part", I'm referring to Zhivago's fling with Lara, which was far from clear to me. He seemed to adore his wife before, during and afterwards - so why was he with Lara? Maybe I missed something. I felt though that the scenes concerning the affair were basically handled tactfully, which was nice. It toned down the pitifulness of it a lot. There were many artistic moments as well. The first one that struck my subconscious was the gathering of the Communist supporters and their marching and singing through the streets. Everything in the street is grey with winter; everyone is dressed in dull colours. The only thing that you see is the red flags of the party, garish and somehow sinister. Another good moment was the "weeping sunflowers" on the army hospital table. After Lara (as nurse) leaves Zhivago to go home, he stands in the deserted building, once again all grey. You see only the sunflowers, their petals dropping one by one. Then there was the train tunnel part after the Entr'acte, when the screen is all black and you are just beginning to wonder if something's wrong with your set when suddenly the light at the end of the tunnel appears. This is not the famous train sequence I referred to earlier (this scene is when the multitudes board the train). But the suspense of the blackness is marvellous. Forget that I mentioned it so you will find it fresh and interesting when you see this for the first time. Oh, and at the beginning of the movie is another good sequence. Zhivago as a child watching his mother be buried and spending his first night with his new family. The branches hitting the window frighten him, and you can just really feel for him because he lost his mother, and now he's all alone in a big dark room. The costumes were brilliant too. I really love Russian outfits. The dark blue coat Zhivago wears near the beginning with the two rows of buttons is amazing, and the rest of his outfits are pretty nifty as well. I vaguely remember a beautiful red coat of Lara's with black fur trim. So they were all good pretty much except that horrible red dress Komarovsky made Lara wear to dinner - you could really feel her strong dislike of the outfit. And the music. Lara's Theme has been driving me crazy for weeks now since I've heard it. It's very beautiful, but even the most beautiful things can drive one crazy when they chase and tumble about in your head incessantly. The Communists brought a great change to Russian life. I guess I never really thought about it before seeing this movie. It must have been a difficult adjustment for a lot of people. Zhivago came home from the Revolution to find his house full of other people, because he had extra room that he could share with others, whether or not he would have wanted it that way. And the children afterwards were taught to make fun of the former Tsar. Very sad that what was supposed to be a good thing for the people ended up so badly. Well, I think I've about said a thousand words. Last time I checked it was 969, and after I've edited this, it'll be more! So watch this movie and have a lot of fun!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: To all those who gave this movie a poor review and rating....
don't give up your day jobs. You obviously don't get it.
We'd be best served if you stick to reviewing Abbott and Costello movies. Dr. Zhivago is clearly a masterpiece of cinematic storytelling.
The cinematography is outstanding, the acting performances are both powerful and touching, and the direction is absolutely brilliant. The story line couldn't get any better.
Rating:
Summary: Depressing
Review: Dr. Zhivago is a classic. The soundtrack (Lara's theme) is a classic. But its so depressing, so tragic. Next time someone gets the idea communism would be a great political/social structure to live under, they should be forced to watch this movie. Forget all the anti-communist propaganda I heard growing up, this movie is enough to make me drop to my knees and give thanks that I don't live under communism. I give this movie four stars instead of five because I think it drags alittle in the middle on the train ride, and because it is so depressing.
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