Why is this film NOT considered one of the greatest films of all time
Because at best, it's an average film. Not only that, there are lot of other flaws that go against it, things like:
1. The lack of onscreen chemistry between Sharif and Christie, whose "epic romance" formed the heart of the movie, made worse by Christie's frigid ice blonde persona.
2. The fact that when you get down to it, there's nothing at all remarkable about the "love story" that warranted being stretched out into a three hour plus epic.
3. The poorly executed framing device. Every time I see this movie, I get startled when I see Alec Guinness reappear in the middle. It's not because I was so engrossed in the love story that I forget that it's really about Zhivago's daughter, but because the framing device itself is so clumsily done.
4. The fact that other movies in this genre did the whole prewar/postwar things a lot, lot better (War and Peace, Gone with the Wind).
5. Bad direction in some scenes. I am always driven crazy by that one scene where we see Zhivago witnessing the clash between the protesters and army, and the movie just closes in on his face. It never looks like the closeup is done for dramatic effect. It looks cheap, like Lean just did that because he didn't want to go through the trouble of actually filming the clash as it happened and just decided to substitute a long reaction shot from Sharif instead.
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