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Dr. Zhivago: cheating loser with perfect family chases down tramp. The end.

posted 3 years ago by [deleted]
4 replies | jump to latest

It amazes me that people romanticize this movie. I think it's because people misremember the sequence of events. They misremember Zhivavo and Lara having the affair after he's abducted by the red guard and loses track of his family. But no, he started banging Lara right after he finds her in the next town over, and even knocked his wife up while he was screwing her. Keep in mind that this wife suffered with him through thick and thin and even showed an avid interest in his poetry before he became well known.

But given all that, were supposed to see this as a romantic love story? It's not; it's just a cheap fantasy where adulterers get to see themselves as romantic heroes, and the male cheater especially imagines it all working out for him, where both women not only are aware with each other but are okay with his infidelity.

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

A better actor than Sharif might have made it work, made it seem like Zhivago was really a cool guy and was in the grip of a genuinely uncontrollable passion. But no, his feelings never seemed that strong.

It's been years since I've seen the film, but damn. I do remember thinking that Lara could have done SO much better! She really was a cool person, and while Zhivago was certainly a better deal than the old creep there's millions of other men out there who'd have been better for her. Maybe she found one later.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

I'm not sure it was Sharif that was the problem. Every time I watch the movie, the flaws in the so called romance become more apparent. The film does absolutely nothing to establish Zhivago's so called love for Lara. Most of the character's scenes are with other people, meaning: 80% of the drama we see in Zhivago's life involve him adjusting to life after his mother has died, becoming a doctor and suffering along with his wife and adopted father through WW1 and the Russian Revolution; 80% of Lara's scenes are with Komorovsky, her mother and Pasha.

Of the few scenes Lara and Zhivago are together, the romance is never fleshed out and only plays out in five short scenes, and in half of those scenes the love is purely one-sided.

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

IMHO Sharif is part of the problem, but yeah, hardly the whole problem. Perhaps an actor on the level of Sharif's old co-star Peter OToole could have totally wrapped the audience up in Zhivago's story, made them care deeply about the character's feelings for two women. Sharif is certainly swoonworthy enough that we can see why both women are interested in him, but it's not like he can draw the audience's attention away from the massive events happening all around and make them care about one man's passions... or convince them that his feelings for Lara override his basic decency. And that's kinda the idea of this movie.

Yes, the romance isn't fleshed out, but that's the sort of thing that can be put over with perfect casting... which didn't happen here. Sharif and Christie just don't have the kind of magnetic chemistry it'd take to make the underwritten romance work. But really, I think there's a bigger problem, and it's that the Russian Revolution kinda overwhelms the romance. This isn't Casablanca, where the story focuses on three characters who have chemistry and a solidly written relationship, and we can see that the war effects every decision they make, but the camera never pulls away from the people to show huge battles or tragedies. I mean that's how you put over a wartime romance, right? The events are overwhelming, the protagonist is a passive observer or just as carried away by the tidal wave of events as everyone else, he doesn't seem to deserve his place at the center of the story.

[–] forlorn_rage (163) 9 months ago

I do agree with a lot of what you said. Perhaps a lot of it was intentional. I disagree about the actors' chemistry though.
Ilsa and Rick are better written, but I never felt any chemistry between Bogart and Bergman, so their love story is one of my least favorite parts about Casablanca.Whereas while Lara and Yuri are underwritten (at least in the film), Christie and Sharif's chemistry is much more believable to me(go figure). So, while I don't admire their adultery, I can still feel their passion and longing for each other.