On D List of Movie Reviews

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Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Rate: 3
Viewed: 1/09

Zhi
1/09: Having seen The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, I had high expectations coming into Doctor Zhivago.

Afterwards, oh my goodness...the movie is so bad. David Lean's specialness is never there. My best guess is the director thought he could get away with it scot-free, no matter how vague things were. It would prove to be the greatest mistake of David Lean's career, leading to his downfall.

Basically, Doctor Zhivago is about a man with Cocker Spaniel eyes who cheats on his wife by willingly walking through the harsh Siberian winters just to bang a blue-eyed slut. What a wonderful accomplishment by David Lean to convey this to me in three hours and twenty minutes of wasted reel. Because of the fake snow, it's humorous to see many characters unaffected by the harsh environment through their facial makeup to show how much they struggled.

All in all, David Lean is an emperor with no clothes.