And then I saw some raves the picture received for this release, and I was hoping I would fall in love with it. I wasn’t a fan of the film when I saw it the first time, and I watched it again hoping that it was just because I was a teenager, and the film didn’t hook me as it is 200 minutes long, and leisurely paced. But just as Zhivago decides to leave Lara alone, he’s taken in as a doctor for troops looking to squash rebellion, but eventually just lays waste to everything in their path. Zhivago and his family flee for the mountains, and achieve a quiet life, but when Lara ends up moving nearby, Zhivago – who’s known her, but never been romantically attached to her – falls into an affair. Since the main characters are rich, there is a great culture shock for them when the revolution comes. The film is more about the change in the country, and Lean finds little good with the original Communists, who hoped to equalize the classes but left most unsatisfied. I had seen the film before, in a 30 th Anniversary edition on laserdisc, and watched it at home. Truly, it’s an epic film and my review of Doctor Zhivago on Blu-ray after the jump. Omar Sharif stars as the titular Doctor, who charts the rise of communism in Russia as he watches Lara (Julie Christie) as she almost marries a man who goes hard for the communists (Tom Courtenay), is taken by an older gentleman, and her mother’s lover Komarovsky (Rod Steiger), and then finds herself the lover of Zhivago, even as he’s married to Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin). But it was very successful upon release and it has its fans, even if it has never been a critical darling like Laurence of Arabia or Brief Encounter. Is David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago a classic? Is a classic transcendent of quality? Zhivago isn’t top three Lean, and it may not be top five. For the most part anniversary releases are just to drum up some money, and keep people interested in something they may have forgotten, so that a film is well known enough to get an anniversary release just means it has made money, or found something of an audience. Will it be a classic like the Lord of the Rings films seem geared to be? Is a film like Brian De Palma’s Blow Out a classic? Is it the moniker? Are all Criterion Collection films classics? Perhaps it’s just cultural saturation with a dollop of either instant or eventual critical respect. Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is one of the most successful films of all time.

Dr zhivago imdb